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I am planning on building a PC for gaming purposes and I am focusing on being able to play ARMA 3, Battlefield 3/4 (and hopefully ARMA 4 in the future) on a high resolution and about medium to high settings. I am at least trying to keep my build under R10000 without the monitor etc. My parts selection are as follows:

CPU: Intel Core i5 4670k LGA1150 Socket Type

GPU: Powercolor HD 7850 2GB DDR5

Mobo: MSI Z87-G43 LGA1150

PSU: Coolermaster RS700 Thunder 700w

RAM: Corsair VengencePro Silver 8GB 1600mhz (4GBx2) or Apacer Black Panther[cheaper] 8 GB 1600mhz (4GBx2)

Chassis: Coolermaster RC-K281-KKN4-K281 or Aerocool VS-92 Limited White Edition

Please advise on my parts selection, If you recommend different parts feel free to make changes. Can you please also verify if my selection of components will be compatible with each other or if their wont be enough room in the case for all the components and so forth.

Welcome!

First off, will you be doing any overclocking? Because if not, you don't need the k CPU. The standard 4670 will be exactly as fast.

Thing is though, you don't really need to go Haswell at the moment. Ivy Bridge just about as fast (you won't be able to tell the difference) and the motherboards are quite a bit cheaper for the same level of specs.

So I'd say rather go for a Z77 board and an Ivy Bridge CPU and then get better graphics card.

As for the RAM, you only really need any kind of RAM in the 1600MHz range. No need to go for the expensive stuff as, again, there just won't be any performance gain. Just about all RAM comes with lifetime warranties now anyway.

That PSU will do the job.

The Coolermaster K281, and I quote, "Long graphics cards, such as NVIDIA GTX 690 and AMD HD 7990 fit inside the roomy interior."


At Rebeltech, prices are as follows:

MSI Z77A-G43 - R1500
Coolermaster K281 - R540
Intel Core i5 3570 - R2556 (you can go even for a lower i5 without losing any major performance)
Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1600C11, Value Select, 4GB x2 - R844
Cooler Master Thunder, 700w - R966

That is about R6400, which leaves you with R3600 for a nice graphics card.

That means you can pick up a nice Gigabyte GTX760 OC for R3382, which easily beats out the 7870 and 660Ti. Review here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Giga ... dForce_OC/

....and don't make the mistake of buying a micro-ATX motherboard just to save some money: it puts a damper on things should you wish to expand your empire further down the line.

Sniper2, I see that you did not include an operating system in your budget. Is your Windows licence transferrable to this new machine?

I assume your looking at the box + keyboard and mouse then? With 10k, it leaves you with R8.6k after you take the Windows 7 64-bit OS, R8.3k if your happy to settle for a logitech keyboard and gigabyte M8660 mouse (might have that model no wrong).

I agree with Kalster on the Ivy bridge only to the extent of it being cheaper. But with intel its normally a good idea to jump as soon as it starts its new cycle. The only chance to his recommendation I would make is the ram.
http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... cts_id=255 Corsair 2x4GB 1600mhz @ CL9 - R950.

The problem is, how long will the system that you suggested be gamer useful before I will have to replace the mobo and the cpu and switch to Haswell. Will the suggested system be able to play games like battlefield 3/4 and arma 3 at pretty descent settings and resolutions?

Any i5 750+ will be able to run games very very decently. Any i7 will run those games with little to no effort at all. The only thing is this is intel. Their tick-tock plan means every 2-3 years your socket will be replaced and every 1-2 years your cpu will be replaced. At current the ivy bridge varient is better at power management, performance wise haswell does not have the traditional 10% advantage over its previous incarnation.

But by all means, here are the haswell board and cpu and I dont think the price is that big of a difference:
http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... s_id=10550
http://www.rebeltech.co.za/index.php?ma ... s_id=10112

Personally I would go haswell.

I'd personally stick with Ivy Bridge, since even if there is a tick tock CPU upgrade, that i5 should do a decent job for many years. If the time comes, I'd just look for a secondhand i7 from a reputable source later on, but like I said, that shouldn't be necessary any time soon. But, if you are willing to shell out a little extra for the Haswell parts, by all means. There are one or two minor upgrades between Z77 and Z87, mostly with the SATA controllers, but you'll only gain from that if you run large RAID setups afaik.

As for the rest, you'll be able to play BF3 at full HD spec at 60fps+ easily. I get that with my current setup. Not sure about Arma though, I never played that.

I took some time and came up with this setup:

Intel core i5 3570 3.4 ghz

Msi Z77A-G43

Powercolor HD 7950 3gb

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 4GBx2

Raidmax Super Hurricane

Coolermaster RS700 Thunder 700w

Is there a big difference between the standard G43 and the gaming one?
This setup costs just about the same but I am guessing with a better graphics card than the previous it will perform a little bit better in gaming applications.

Sometimes the differences are crossfire and sli compatibility then also look at the amount of USB3 and sata6 ports.

Did you come right sniper2?

Havent even bought the components yet, still in planning phase and need to get funds first

But you had R10k?