I live in New Zealand and have had trouble trying to select that right combination of parts for my budget of $1200.
I definately want an ssd in the system and i'm leaning towards the fractal design node 304 for my choice of case. I will be gaming on this system most of the time on a 1920 by 1080 monitor and want to play games like gta, g-mod and call of duty at around high settings at 30+ fps. I already have a copy of windows 7.
Well those 3 games you listed can be run on integrated but since I am lazy here are 3 of the best options:
AMD: MSi HD 7770 (I'm not sure if it fits on mITX but it does on mATX.)
NVIDIA: ASUS GTX 670 Mini (I'm pretty sure it fits but check first.)
Integrated: AMD A10-6800K with 2400 or 2666Mhz RAM. Performs well!
Thanks for the suggestions I think the fractal design node 304 can fit cards up to 310mm
Do you have a link to shop you will be buying from? I know the availability and price of components is not that good over there. If your going to play gta 5 you should definitely get a proper gpu, your case is so long that anything should fit but I´d recommend a blower fan card so that the heat doesnt linger around in the case.
http://www.alphacity.co.nz/ is a good website that i have used before. But you can use http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/ to select parts. I can buy from anywhere!
http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/1wN5r
I went with an i5 because dualcores and fm2 socket wont cut it for very long. Some corners were cut, the cx 430 will power this setup with no problem, but you might run into problems when you upgrade your gpu. A faster samsung 840 ssd with double the storage is also only 40 dollars away. The 7850 should be fine for a while in 1080p, you get 2 free games with that.
The node is way too expensive though, even for NZ.
Here is one with a more ``value optimized´´ case
http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/1wNmF
or go ivy (less performance, lower temps) http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/1wOF0
you could go with 2x4gb 1600mhz memory, but you wouldnt notice much of a difference for 23 $, also you can put in a second stick if games use insane amounts of ram in the future. Who knows...
Optional, 650ti boost 2gb, no free games but similar performance for 4$ less
thanks for those builds i really want to get the node 304 but I might have to get the cm case because it's so cheap. Does it really benifit using a blower style gpu because i\ve seen some really good reviews on the Asus 7850!
I heard that haswell cpus get really hot
Jep, they do get hot, but they are disigned that way. If the stock cooler is too noisy you can always put a Noctua NH-L9i in there. Since the 7850 doesnt produce that much heat it might not be a problem, but an additional case fan wouldnt hurt to avoid heat pockets.
I will probably just go with the older i5 cpu it still performs great and I won't have to spend extra money on heatsincs and fans