Computer Upgrade QuestionFollow

I would say upgrade your RAM to 8 MB and your GPU to something more powerful. I think that's your best bet to increase game performance.

Came across this bundle on Newegg:

Click Me!

Gives you some room if you want to upgrade your CPU as well.

Click Me Too!

Or go with the 965 like the previous poster mentioned, it's a beast of a CPU.

I'm not sure if you want to get an intel chip or not, but I got my Radeon 7870HD and i5-3570k for around $430 combined. I'm scoring 8400+ on the benchmark with max settings in 1080p.

With $400 to spend you can get a great GPU and CPU for about $200 each.

I would try to upgrade both of them with parts that cost roughly the same. There isn't much sense in dropping $400 on a GPU and not upgrading your CPU.

Oh, and do double up on your RAM :D

He would have to get a new mobo too, he's running AMD right now. Though if he is willing then the CPU/GPU combo you mentioned would be the way to go.

Nah, he could still activate it. He'd just have to go through manual activation and give Microsoft a call.

With $400 bucks your options are very limited.

Firstly, you don't need more ram for XIV. If you're talking about other games, too, then that's another matter. But for XIV, 4Gb is plenty.

If you want to upgrade your CPU, you're gonna need a new motherboard. Your motherboard doesn't support the newer generation CPUs. Anything other CPU you buy that fits in your motherboard would be more of a sidegrade than an upgrade. Either buy both CPU and mobo, or don't bother wasting money on a new CPU.

Your best bet for now is a new GPU. You can go for a GTX 660 for about $200. If you're sticking with your current CPU, don't bother getting anything above a GTX 660 since you will be bottlenecked by your CPU (again, talking about XIV).

So in short, with $400 budget, just get a new GPU for about $200 and don't bother with anything else. If you want to upgrade both GPU and CPU, you're gonna need a new motherboard for the CPU upgrade to be an actual upgrade instead of a sidegrade, so you're gonna need a bigger budget.

Generally, you have to move up 3 tiers to see a worthy increase in performance. Your CPU is fine, I just threw the 970 out there because it was in your budget. Your mobo is AM3 socket. Newer AMD CPUs are AM3+ or FM sockets, so they wouldn't work. Like everyone has said, you'll get the most bang for your buck by upgrading your GPU and RAM.

Hello fellow AMD user. Our systems are almost the same if fact yours is slightly better.it seems you looked at the character benchmark and feel your score is low. If you look at it again and come to terms that our CPU is the bottleneck and is always lower than the i7 people insane scores.At 1280x1024 i'm stuck at 7900...5k to 9k scores is good for Amd systems.Our two systems are old but runs FF14 just fine, the frugal thing i did was upgraded memory to 16gigs and i'm getting a future proof videocard again.3yrs ago we both bought 2k+ score videocards,"mines a gtx 460sc" great 3 yrs ago but now the future proof cards are around 5k "in score". Cards that was $300 a few months ago are going sub $200 Check here for scores-

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

. The new card and memory can be done well under your budget and can be added to your new system later when your current one fails. Good luck on the budget.

Thanks for the help and honesty, everyone. You've all been very kind, and I appreciate the time taken to set me on the right course.

I suggested RAM and an SSD because I think everyone should have one As far as OC goes I'm curious as to how much of an increase people are getting with OCs. I got about 600 point jump with a 1 Ghz OC. It wasn't worth the extra heat so I went back to my usual .5 Ghz OC. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Maybe it's my AMD CPU that's holding it back?

Well XIV isn't RAM intensive. It's not going to use up the 4GB he has so it's not something that would slow him down. SSD will shorten loading times, but not significantly enough to warrant spending the money, especially if his budget is only 400 bucks.

The mileage you get out of an overclock varies. FFXIV is CPU intensive so running at higher clock speeds will always improve performance, but there's another piece to the puzzle. With newer generation GPUs, the CPU is usually the bottleneck. Generally speaking, you get more performance out of the same sized overclock when you have a new GPU as opposed to an older one. It depends on your hardware, but the CPU is almost always the bottleneck these days... that or the monitor
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Well, it may be my monitor which is a 60mhz refresh rate. I have a FX 6300 and 7870 so they are pretty comparable power-wise. I OC my GPU too so kinda hard to pin it down. I need to run the benchmark again pure stock and go cfrom there I think. I apologize for any errors as I'm drinking if anything I should be happy my rig runs the bench well and just STFU.