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I don't think the card differential is anything like that much in the UK market, AMD & nVidia are broadly similar at the major price points as far as I can tell.  

The K is always a recommended option as it is almost an identical price, there's £10 difference between having the option to overclock and not, so people tend to err towards a K processor when there's the option especially as the screening will have pre-selected a better bit of silicon which should also run better at stock speeds.

AMD 290X is around £430 and gets around 7000 points in benchmarks, a GTX 780 is around £420 and gets around 8000 in the benchmarks. So at the high end price point, there's not much in the way of competition. On the lower rungs it the picture is better for AMD, but they have been struggling to keep up in recent years.

As for unlocked CPU, I buy pre-overclocked ones for exactly that reason. They put them on a bench and stress test the CPU. If it's unstable when overclocked it goes into another machine and they keep going till they find one that works. I'm sure the majority of CPUs work, but the price difference is so low compared to the amount I spend of the whole system that I doubt I'd go back to buying off the shelf and crossing my fingers.

Couldn't quite stretch to a 770 and have seriously broken my budget getting a 760 but finally bought

Intel Core i5 4670K Haswell overclocked to 4.2GHz,
16 GB 1600MHz DDR3,
Akasa Nero 3 V2 Cooler,
Corsair 600W PSU,
Nvidia GTX 760 2048 GPU

A lean time this Xmas I think

It is a seriously nice system though...

Thanks for the help as well TL, I'm actually a little surprised that my cpu would be what was holding me back the most, since I thought it was a really good one when I bought it, but then again that was almost 2 years ago so a lot has probably changed during that time.

The CPU will definitely be the weak link post upgrade. The GTX 770 is several years newer tech than the CPU, but as TL said, it's not worth upgrading on its own. Your performance should be pretty good for the time being, in a year, 2 or even 3 you can grab a bundle of all the parts (if the price of another GTX 770 is cheap, a second one would give GPU performance a boost if the 770 isn't up to date then).

PCs are a continuous battle of trying to keep everything performing as well as possible without spending too much. If it's 2-3 years old there's money that could be spent, but that doesn't mean it's a priority there and then, just like your CPU situation.

I'd put the extra cash (if you've got it) into the GPU, I don't think games will benefit from the extra CPU grunt compared to going up a class in graphics cards.

It does depend on what you like to do with your PC though

It's more because you can keep your existing hardware and just put in an additional GPU to boost performance down the line. To replace your CPU you have to take the old one and throw it away. It means in my book a GPU upgrade is an easier and cheaper option than a CPU one, essentially, I'd rather be GPU limited than CPU limited. Plus a little extra CPU grunt is good for all round system performance which doesn't hurt.

Note: I only run games at 1680x1050 because I've got an old monitor, it's much harder to be GPU limited with that resolution.

Quick build
i suggest you build it yourself, you save a fair few bucks, and if you need help, im pretty sure some of the dutch guys are willing to help.

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That system would certainly do the trick and matches your budget. You wouldn't struggle for performance unless you happen to have a very high resolution monitor. If your budget found itself a little larger (+£90) the next step up would be the i7 4770, but already you'll be able to run BF4 with this.

Yeah, just buy yourself one from a reasonable brand with some good reviews. I'd avoid the 20k ones just based on the reviews I read, mine is about 50k and I've got absolutely no complaints.

I'd positively avoid going for the minimum end as it will become too slow very fast. Particularly the GPUs.

That minimum card is certainly not going to play the game. 8800GT is the card I used to have and was showing its age around 5 years ago when I replaced it with a 4870 (and that has since been replaced). A computer capable of running BF4 with reasonable performance is likely to cost around £600, less if you can reuse stuff.

This is towards the low end of what I would budget. You can spend less than that, but savings may come back to haunt you due to a shorter playable lifetime. Similarly, anything extra you can afford to spend now on a better CPU or GPU, increases the longevity of the card. eg. buying a £150 now and another in a year and 1/2  costs more than a £250 card that lasts the full 3 years giving reasonable performance throughout.

Until you reach about £1500 you don't really hit the point of diminishing return on investment, so it's important to keep a budget in mind, and try and keep the performance level even throughout. It's no good buying AMD 290 graphics card and pairing it with an i3.

So it can play crysis?

They can crank it all the way up to medium.

If that case were much bigger you could use it as a bed.

It has to point in the right direction which narrows down the selection of wall. It doesn't necessarily need to be installed on a wall though. It can perhaps be placed on other structures in your garden.

Thanks guys.

But if i do these changes can i play BF4 better, than i can save some monney better to upgrade later.
I have to do something now but don't want to spent a whole lot of money.

That's â,¬70 going to waste essentially. The upgrade will be several hundred, I wouldn't start by spending 20-25% of what a proper CPU upgrade on something that is already obsolete, and likely won't improve performance too much. The most cost effective "small" upgrade is to save for CPU+Mobo+Ram, the performance increase will be reasonable, but still hang on the GPU which can be upgraded as and when funds replenish.

In the mean time I'd see if you can overclock your current CPU for a little extra short term performance.

The sequel is out? I've played the original on Reddit.

CPU is old in gaming terms. 7700 series cards are about 1/4 of the performance of a new mid-range GPU. 4GB of ram isn't bad, and 64bit Win 7 is fine.

Basically he's heading towards upgrade territory. An SSD might buy some loading time improvements, but he's going to find himself increasingly struggling with performance.

Ah, nothing more therapeutic than chopping down a tree. Ah, now he's making a little bonfire...wait...was that...no...ok, well now I see what you mean. The game looks great. Perhaps like a minecraft like game...build during the day, survive at night? Obviously with different aims graphically.

It says it's designed for Oculus rift. I will definitely be getting one of those, and if this game is *the* game to show off forest environments with that technology, I'll get it. The only down side is, if you soil yourself in Oculus rift, you soil yourself in real life.

I hope this becomes a genuine option in software. There's nothing worse than selecting English and seeing a US flag.