Don't downgrade the i3 to G3258, i3 isn't really sufficient for latest game with high settings nowadays, downgrading to a dual core (w/o HT) G3258 will take you even further away from your personal requirements.

There isn't a GTX640 so I think it is a typo and you are comparing R9 380 to GTX960, perhaps?

R9 380 is recommended to run on a better PSU as it draws more power than standard GTX960, if you are going to change PSU to a more decent one, then R9 380 with more VRAM will be a much better choice and future proof.

Palit and Zotac normally are the cheapest one, while Asus, Gigabyte and MSI are the "premium" brand.

Either one is fine for me, the most important factor for me is the price, if budget can fit the premium brand then I'll consider it.

There is quite a lot of variants from MSI, Tiger series, Twin Frozr Gaming series, water cooled sea hawk series, lightning series etc. Most likely the cheapest MSI you mentioned is their Tiger/Twin Frozr series.

Intel Core i3 4170 - RM 486
Asus H81M-K - RM 229
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM - RM 220

MSI R9 380 2GB GDDR5 Armor 2X - RM 909
PowerColor R9 380 4GB GDDR5 PCS+ - RM 999
Gainward GTX960 2GB GDDR5 Reference - RM 799
Zotac GTX960 2GB GDDR5 Single Fan - RM 819

Seasonic S12II 620W - RM 349
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189

There are few options for GPU and PSU.

If you pick GTX960 with 2GB VRAM variant, you can save a lot because price is slightly cheaper than R9 380 and the PSU requirement is lower. The cheapest can set you back to just RM 799 + RM 189 = RM 988.

If you pick R9 380, you are recommended to go for the better PSU, this increases the cost in overall, RM 909 + RM 349 = RM 1258 (2GB), RM 999 + RM 349 = RM 1348 (4GB).

With the cost of R9 380 + PSU, you can get GTX970 with just a minor top up to your budget, cheapest GTX970 + PSU is just RM 1345 + RM 189 = RM 1534.

Of course you can bear the risk and go for the cheaper PSU to pair with R9 380, but if anything happens, don't come back and find me

i3 sometimes will bottleneck the GPU due to dual core architecture. i5 is more recommended for latest games with high settings

For gaming? If yes then budget is way too low to fit any decent hardware for gaming for the time being.

It is solely depend on your requirements, if you can accept low settings, around 30 FPS-ish, 1.5k is possible, if want medium settings 60 FPS, 2.5k is recommended, high and ultra settings will need 3.5k and more.

So what is your requirements?

Intel Pentium G3250 - RM 229
Asus H81M-K - RM 229
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM - RM 220
Leadtek GTX750 2GB GDDR5 OC - RM 485
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
FSP Hexa+ 400W - RM 155
Thermaltake Versa H25 - RM 139

Total: RM 1682 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

Intel Core i5 6400 - RM 809
MSI B150M Bazooka D4 - RM 409
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM - RM 289
Gainward GTX960 2GB GDDR5 Reference - RM 799
Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB SSD - RM 229
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189
Thermaltake Versa H25 - RM 139
AOC I2360SD IPS - RM 499

Total: RM 3587 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

Downgrade the monitor to smaller size to keep < 3.5k.

This post has been edited by terence_nwb: Oct 29 2015, 07:17 PM

I won't recommend you to pair i3 with GTX970, even it works, but it will bottleneck the GTX970 in many aspects. With GTX970, you are able to run most of the games at ultra setting (1080p), if not, high setting will do as well. i3 is somehow a dual core with another 2 virtual cores, some games do use it well but not all, i5 with real quad core works much better with it.

If you cannot afford Skylake i5, you can consider Haswell i5, price difference is around RM 200.

The Bazooka D4 mobo is only usable on Skylake CPU and Skylale i3 hasn't reach here yet, so if you want to switch to Haswell, you gonna need a Haswell mobo.

Easily max setting at over 100 FPS with GTX960 for Dota 2.

As for other games, it depends on the game optimization from the developers. Based on the current market trend, GTX960 is able to run most of the games at med to high settings (1080p).

Cooling is fine too, locked i5 with stock cooler should've no temperature issue, you can get few casing fans if you are not satisfied with the temperature. Please note that the GPU is using single blower fan cooling which is slightly higher in temperature when operating compared to non blower type cooler.

This post has been edited by terence_nwb: Oct 29 2015, 09:02 PM

Standard Win 10 installation takes only 25GB (+ all windows update).

You can check my yesterday's post here for more information on the cooler.

This post has been edited by terence_nwb: Oct 29 2015, 09:50 PM

Intel Core i5 6500 - RM 875
MSI B150M Bazooka D4 - RM 409
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM - RM 289
Zotac GTX960 2GB GDDR5 (MSG:GZ version) - RM 840
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189
Thermaltake Versa H25 - RM 139

Total: RM 2966 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

Acceptable budget range?

You mentioned "Water Cooling", are you going for oc build?

Intel Core i7 6700K - RM 1503
Asus Z170I Pro Gaming - RM 815
Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB (8GB x 2) DDR4 2666MHz RAM - RM 539
Palit GTX970 4GB GDDR5 Reference - RM 1495
Liteon S900 256GB SSD - RM 402
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 209
Corsair Hydro H100i GTX - RM 623
Corsair Obsidian 250D - RM 451

Total: RM 6037 (ETECH price inclusive of GST)

If you are not heading to oc build, you can get a much better GPU.

Reference card with blower type cooler is recommended for SFF (mITX) build.

Both almost similar actually, but 2nd option can be overclocked while 1st build has larger PSU.

So do you mean you already bought the GPU so the 6k is for rest of the parts except the GPU? If yes, then no need 6k, 4 - 4.5k can settle everything.

Intel Core i7 6700 - RM 1399
Gigabyte H170N WiFi - RM 579
Kingston 16GB (8GB x 2) DDR4 2400MHz RAM - RM 569
Liteon S900 256GB SSD - RM 409
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
Seasonic M12II EVO 620W - RM 409
Corsair Obsidian 250D - RM 451

Total: RM 4041 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

Locked i7 should be fine with the temperature, water cooler is expensive if you get the high end one, low end one is pretty much the same as air cooler only.

Corsair Hydro H100i GTX - RM 609

Due to the size of the case, not all coolers are able to fit, make sure you buy the one that can fit, if water cooler, make sure it is 120/240 and check the radiator thickness, if air cooler, check the height of cooler, some of them will block the RAM slots.

Oh then you can just add in the GTX970 or R9 390 (8GB VRAM).

This build is enough for Dota 2.

Intel Core i3 4170 - RM 486
Asus H81M-K - RM 229
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM - RM 220
PowerColor R9 270 2GB GDDR5 TurboDuo - RM 550
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189

Total: RM 1674 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

If you play other games too, you can switch to GTX960 (RM 799) or upgrade the i3 to i5 (+ RM 300).

The current build already can play max settings 1080p at 60 FPS, but if you want to change to i5, it is ok, no harm

Will use Haswell (4th gen) instead of Skylake (6th gen) due to budget unable to fit Skylake.

Intel Core i5 4460 - RM 809
Asus H81M-K - RM 229
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM - RM 220
PowerColor R9 270 2GB GDDR5 TurboDuo - RM 550
Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB SSD - RM 229
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189
Thermaltake Versa H25 - RM 139
BenQ GW2255 - RM 390

Total: RM 2980 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

Max is SATA 2 speed (300MB/s) but you will still notice the huge speed improvement if compared to HDD even with the cheapest SSD in the market.

Actually which part of the system that makes you want to upgrade? Poor gaming performance? Or system is slow?

And do you have a specific budget for this upgrade?