By Bahamut.Bekisa 2013-12-24 12:25:45
My wifes PC plays FFXIV just fine with it set to the preset profile Desktop medium or whatever is like 3-4 down on the list from the top of presets. I have shadows turned off for others/monsters and don't render objects out of view since it's a major task without a GPU and likely to kill her performance. Hardware only not including a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers cost just over $500.
i5 second gen CPU, with 8GB RAM and uses on-board video. It could use a dedicated graphics card and SSD but it works great for what she needs it for. She gets a solid 60fps on it most times except during very heavily loaded down FATE runs.
Go to Newegg.com and just pick an i5, then find their recommended list of items. Sorry at the moment I don't have a lot of free time (at work!) to build you a system. Maybe I can later though if you want to message me privately or I'll try to remember to check this.
If you need software and other hardware items you system is going to be at least $700 for an i5 setup. Just remember you don't need more than 1 video card with i5 most times as your likely to cap out your CPU throughput and not see much of a difference. Multi-GPU's go with an i7.
Keep in mind this is not all inclusive information and there are random yes/no's for everything :) If you are willing to drop your game visual settings I'm sure you can get away with an i3 setup too.