CPU is your current i5 650, if you want to change whole CPU, you cannot reuse it. Maybe you don't understand the definition of CPU, CPU is the processor, some people misinterpret it as the whole rig.

So rethink again and let me know what is your next plan, either to keep using the CPU or change it.

It depends on what games you play for the bottleneck to occur, no issue on casual and light games, only when you play latest games such as The Witcher 3, GTA V then you can observe CPU bottleneck.

And for the clearance issue, measure your case clearance and compare it with the GPU to see if it can fit or not.

The iGPU should be enough for movie and browsing.

About gaming, casual and light-weight games are fine, but definitely not graphics demand games.

First, Far Cry 4 doesn't support dual core processor officially, meaning you need a manual "patch" from community to run the game. I am telling you this because your budget isn't able to fit an i5 (quad core). ITX build is also more expensive than standard ATX and mATX build as well.

Intel Core i3 4160 - RM 497
MSI H81I - RM 299
Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Value RAM - RM 209
Leadtek GTX750 2GB GDDR5 OC - RM 480
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189
CM Elite 130 - RM 179

Total: RM 2078 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

ASRock H81M-VG4/ASRock H81M-HDS

Corsair VS550

Palit GTX750/Gainward GTX750/Zotac GTX750

Case - you can make your own choice, they are many casings out there for you to choose, but please make sure the form factor is correct, i.e. don't get mITX case but your mobo is ATX/mATX, it won't fit in the case.

This spec will over budget (you have max budget of 2.5K right?)

SSD - change to Kingston HyperX Fury/Liteon S900 for better NAND quality.

PSU - downgrade to S12II 520W/M12II EVO 520W (for good quality PSU) or FSP Hexa+ 550W (for mid range PSU) to save some money, GTX960 doesn't consume too much power so PSU selection is much easier.

Sometimes price cannot be use to judge the quality of an item, just like Corsair RM series, expensive than Seasonic M12II/S12II but yet its internal components aren't the top notch quality capacitors (mixed with Chinese/Taiwanese cheap capacitors).

I'll choose FSP over Thermaltake at anytime because FSP is more reputable and is the OEM for a lot of good quality PSU in the market.

Good but expensive.

Intel Core i5 6500 - RM 875
MSI B150M Bazooka D4 - RM 409
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM - RM 289
Zotac GTX970 4GB GDDR5 Reference - RM 1350
Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB SSD - RM 229
WD Blue 1TB HDD - RM 225
FSP Hexa+ 550W - RM 189
Thermaltake Versa H25 - RM 139

Total: RM 3705 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

You have so many HDD, might as well just consider not to get a new 1TB first so it won't over budget?

If you can top up your budget, get a better PSU (like Seasonic) for more extra headroom for future upgrade.

Seasonic M12II EVO 620W (more expensive) for fully modular cable or S12II 620W (slightly cheaper) for non modular cable.

Any specific acceptable budget range for the monitor?

Can fit either with Dell's high quality IPS 1080p 60Hz monitor or AOC/Acer gaming grade TN 1080p 144Hz monitor.

Nope, I don't think Acer MY got bring in this model.

And bumper too, Acer XB240H 1080p 144Hz monitor price increased to RM 1199 already, last time it was under 1k.

AOC G2460PQU 1080p 144Hz too, RM 1149 now.

I think you either top up budget or go with Dell U2414H IPS, should be able to find it under 1k at the moment.

970 is almost twice the performance of 960 FYI.

That's nvidia's DSR.

It depends on which Xeon you are referring to actually, some Xeon CPUs are 2 core 4 thread (like i3), some are 4 core 4 thread (like i5) while some are 4 core 8 thread (like i7).

So if you are referring to 4 core 8 thread's Xeon then of course it is more preferable than i5. But Xeon is slightly more expensive than standard locked i5.

Low/mid end (<= RM 500 range) is ok, like BenQ GW2255 and GL2460.

High end one is very expensive and not worth the money if you compare with other brands. For example, this model, XL2420G, RM 2899, I expect to see at least QHD (2K) resolution but it ended up with just FHD, TN panel somemore, top up another RM 200 and you can get the Acer Predator XB270HU with QHD GSync IPS monitor already.

If stay on Haswell (4th gen), roughly RM 350 more is needed.

If upgrade to Skylake (6th gen), roughly RM 600 more is needed.

Yes, it is better than i5.

XL2411Z is same tier as AOC G2460PQU and Acer Predator XB240H, all spot with a 1080p 144Hz TN panel, quite a good deal since it is still below 1k, AOC and Acer increased the price to nearly 1.2k already.

Not all GPU can push 144Hz at the moment, so if your GPU isn't powerful enough, perhaps you need to set the refresh rate to 60Hz/90Hz only when gaming, if not you will notice quite a lot of screen tearing.

Intel Core i5 6500 - RM 875
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
CM N200 - RM 185

Total: RM 3200 (Techview price inclusive of GST)

Either downgrade to Haswell i5 or drop the SSD to keep within 3k budget, if you can top up extra RM 200, then it is fine.