Need help building a PC for the HTC Vive

[JEMC]

As fatslob said, it depends on when you plan to get the Vive.

If you plan to get it at launch, in April, then a fast, 4-core Intel i5 and a GTX 970 or R9 390 are your best bets. And as you've been told, if you plan to overclock the CPU, get a "Z" named board and a "-K" processor.

But if you won't get the Vive at launch, but later in the year, then your best bet is to wait. Both AMD and Intel will launch new processors and boards before the year ends, which will give you more options to choose from or the ability to buy current products at lower prices as they try to get rid of the stock. Similarly, AMD plans to start launching products based on their new "Polaris" GPU architecture in June, tho it remains to be seen if they will launch desktop GPUs first or if they'll launch their laptop parts first.

In any case, by November or so that is when the new CPUs will launch, both AMD and Nvidia will have new GPUs in the market, again giving you more to choose from, and hopefully also cheaper.