Around the time of Heavensward’s early access, I was really tempted to upgrade my computer for the shiny new graphics of Heavnsward and the DirectX 11 it brought with it.

I was tempted to upgrade because hey, THIS IS HEAVENSWARD AND IT IS AWESOME. I hadn’t been so excited about a game or its launch in a while, so off I went to my neighbourhood Microcenter feeling slightly guilty (because I didn’t know how much I’d be spending) but nonetheless thrilled about the whole thing. Also, aren’t guilty pleasures the definition of a hobby? 😛

My computer ran a 450W psu, i3 processor and a Sapphire Radeon Vapor-X R9 270X (2gigs). It’s a decent rig, and my video card served me really well through the years. The benchmark I ran came up with:

Before-benchmarkAt Microcenter, I happened to find a cool deal on the power supply (a nice beefy 750W one) for savings and ended up splurging the bulk of my vaguely existent budget on the processor and video card. The results of my shopping paid off:

After-benchmarkYes, MUCH better! Now I can see the fading glow of candles, the strands of hair on my Lalafell as the wind blows through, or the ripples in Papalymo’s robes. YES! Ofcourse, at the end of it I knew I’d blown my entire summer budget on this.

ffxiv_06162015_172126Yeah, Tataru, I know how that feels! It was SO worth it though…. so worth it! No regrets! 😀