Looking for advice on spec'ing a new system.

[Jujuuk68]

And one of the primary reasons is to play CLOD, so here' seemed as good a place to ask.

Now, obviously, I can read off the box/steam recommended systems, but reading these forums, the product has been through a "difficult" birth, but now seems to be shaping up into a product worth buying.

I also am looking to get into ROF, as well as MS Flight, sooner rahter than later, and playing older mmorpgs games such as WOW, SWTOR, and Railworks. (I rpesently do play WOW and Railworks.)

I am upgrading from a 6yr old home built AMD Athlon 3500+, with (fitted in last 18m) a 4670 fx card and 2g memory.

What I am after, is a system that should allow me to play most games to very high spec, and futureproofs me.

I am at a quandry as to go for the i5 2500k or the i5 3570 (I shall be buying a pre overclocked system). The later i5 doesn't seem to offer much benefit over the former, aside a very modest speed increase. I have discounte dthe need for an i7 as gaming doesn't apparently require the hyperthreading these chips offer.

I only plan on running a single fx card for the forseeable future, and cannot decide if I should buy without for the moment, to see how I get on, and spend more later on a fx card. Will my card run CLOD? OR should I just go for a better card fromt he off?

If going for the better card, I was thinking of in terms of futureproofing, possibly going as high as a gtx670? This with one of those cpu's should get this game looking about as good as possible? Or is a 560 or 580 all thats needed? I will really only be looking to run a single monitor at this time, at 1920 x 1080 resolution. (I am using a 24 inch).

I would possibly consider buying a bundle and building myself, and if so, what psx size should I be looking at? People tell me its about the quality rahter the numbers on the box, and a 500-600w box should be suficient. I also will be possilby reusing my sata 3 compatible 2tb hd, (but this is running xp) -

Will I have to reinstall everything if I buy windows 7, or can I upgrade just by plugging in and reinstalling the Win7 over the top? Alternatively, if I choose to just "buy a box", how would I get all my software on my old HD to run with Win7 on the new HD?

Any views on this? For example, my localish pc shop is doing a bundle with the oc i5 3570, 8g ram 500g hd and a 7750 fx card for £699, with 560ti and 1tb hd £799 and gfx670 + 2tb hd and better psx) for £999. If the more expensive option will crack the notoriously difficult to run CLOD, I might well go for it, if not, then the lesser system, and wait a year or so for fx cards/coding improvement.

I look forward ot the advice of people who already play the game, for their assistance.