AtypicNic

I would suggest an AM3 system. Get a Phenom II x4 3.4Ghz CPU, 8GB DDR3 Ram, ASRock or Gigabyte 890FX or 990FX motherboard, standard Wesdern Digital, Seagate, or Samsung $60 500gb hard drive, antec neo 430Watts, and an AMD 75xx or 76xx series graphics card.

I went ahead and bought the ArmA2 Full Package (more or less what it's called, ha ha) I remember playing ArmA...possibly just the original or a free version, playing the training grounds. I was very disappointed with the play controls and the movement. From video of DayZ I have seen it looks like the movement is pretty decent. Now that my questions have been answered I'm just curious about the player count for DayZ? Are there still highly active servers for the U.S. - or is it just a handful of servers across the states?

Cool, thanks for the information. One more quick question before I start the download. I've owned steam and non-steam games. I've never had mods or ports for games on steam, they are standalone games and thus seemed to be in my control. With steam I have a feeling there may be problems with mod(s) in game. Should I try to find a non-steam version or not sweat it? I see the guides go both ways and support steam installs...

I'm looking into this kind of game, a zombie and survival mode with more realism than what I've played in the past. I read some guide(s) linked from this site and it is noted to get the ArmA2: Combined Operations game, when on steam they have a note about DayZ and suggest getting the full ArmaA2 collection for 'better textures' - I could see this being true if the mod sources materials from other versions. However I am a bit weary of this, because it is $40 instead of $25 and I hear news that ArmA3 will be out full soon. So is this a ploy of Steam to get more of my money, or is this really valid? I wasn't sure if I should get the full ArmA2 or just the lesser one. In addition I was wondering if DayZ will be released for ArmA3 - if so will it be a wise upgrade to get? Thanks!