help me with building a pc

i want to play final fantasy 14 perfect i just need a tower thats it

i would say 1000

Final Fantasy 14? 13 isn't on PC.

Final Fantasy 14? 13 isn't on PC.

desertpython

ff14 is coming out soon also yes ff13 isn't on the pc but its for ps3 and 360 but ff14 will be for pc

I am in the beta and currently the game is NOT optimized. Hold off on building a PC for FFXIV until it comes out. The benchmark they released is utterly meaningless it does not reflect performance in game at all. My gtx 480 struggles with the game at 1920x1080. I have to leave some advanced options off

and only enable 2x msaa and even then I get about 30FPS. Just because you can run the cutscene benchmark doesn't mean you can run the game. They still have a long way to go to optimize performance. I'll just list a quick bang for your buck list of video cards that are currently available, but I stress hold off on building your pc.

GTX 460 1GB 220-250 - Highly overclockable and great power/performance ratio

GTX 470 300-320 - Runs Hot and Consumes alot of power, but if you can find one for under 300 shipped then I'd say go for it.

ATi 5870 Overpriced at 400$ wait for the new ATI cards to come out in the fall if you want to get this one.

ATi 5850- 260-290 -Still selling at above MSRP, Again Prices may drop once ATi' s new cards come out.

GTX 480- I have two of these overpriced and HOT and NOISY unless you have good cooling and enable a custom fan profile. ( But Mine are watercooled ) Performance King for now. *IF* you can find one for UNDER 400 shipped (Some dudes were talking about an evga deal awhile back where these were 368$, (Don't ask me how that's possible) then I'd say go for it.

Or you could hold off on playing FFXIV till months after it comes out and see what ATI's new offerings bring to the table.

I recommend this site for real world gameplay bench mark's between different video cards at different graphic's settings. They find which setting the card(s) can handle that is considered playable, and actually *play* the game, as opposed to running an automated benchmark.

http://www.hardocp.com

Oh forgot to mention what cpu you should get. Alot of people say intel's i7 is the best cpu, and it sure does beat AMD's cpu's in a number of benchmarks, but for gaming it all depends on what resolution you game at. For 1980x1020 and above the graphics card does most of the work so you wont be held back (as much, maybe a few fps) by your cpu. I think intel i7 930's are going for about 199, but motherboards for these processors can go beyond $200 easily.

You could get an AMD quad core for about 140, and if you want to overclock they sell unlocked cpu's that aren't that much more expensive. Motherboards are also generally much cheaper for AMD as well. I would check that site I mentioned and look at the gaming benchmarks and see what the differences are I can't recall them offhand. But they lower the resolution to like 640x480 to take the graphics card out of the equation and see how the cpu does. If all you care about is gaming I would save some money and go with AMD.