That card really isnt meant for games. Its a low end card from 2 generations ago. Mainly used for HTPCs.

Also consider your power supply requirements for your new system. Also some motherboards don't support the higher end CPU due to having a low-voltage socket. For eample a X6 Phenom II BE requires a motherboard with a 140W socket because it runs at 120W. And your video card, Depending on how it's made. the minimum PSU wattage you'll want is 550W but I'd go 700W to be safe. A lot of "AMD owners" here on the forums are using cheap PSU's with thier cards and finding out the hard way that an inadequate PSU causes them "driver issues" (more like user issues but you get me right?).

Anyways. when done right. A good gaming rig will only cost you at the maximum close to $800 (maybe less) and the motherboard will last you a few years through upgrades i.e. buying a $200 video card instead of a $300 game console.

Here is the big test by users of cpu+motherboard:
http://enbseries.enbdev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=608
The best performance with Intel i5-2500k or i7-2600k with these motherboards:

AsROCK Z68 Extreme4 (18.5 fps)
ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 (23 fps)
ASUS P8Z68-V LX (24 fps)
Gigabyte Z68A - D3H - B3 (13 fps)
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe (21 fps)
ASUS Sabertooth P67 (23 fps)
Asus maximus gen3 z68 (29 fps)
ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 (24 fps)
Just don't buy Asus P67 based, they are all dying very fast.

Intel i5-2500k or i7-2600k are best for Skyrim, even better than latest Ivy Bridge (ivy is hot, harder to overclock, so it's only for not overclocked pc). Don't buy AMD cpu, they are bad by performance now. I7-2600k for gaming is useless, better to get i5-2500k.

Believe me, NVidia have much less buggy drivers than AMD/ATI and not just for Skyrim.

Good advice right here

Thanks guys for all the replies it really helps! almost got all the info i need to build my new rig just another thing

What Nvidia Distributor would you guys suggest? ASUS? EVGA? perhaps a personal preference but i'd rather hear some input from you guys

EDIT:

Ok guys here's roughly what i'm planning to get with my budget and hopefully its good enough

Intel Corei5-2500k
8GB RAM
Asrock Z68 Pro3-M Z68 VSL/Virtu/ISRT
EVGA GTX560 Ti SC 1GB DDR5 HDMI
CoolerMaster Extreme 500w
AeroCool StrikeX

As i said before i don't know much about CPU components and will have a technician friend of mine have a look at these but i'd also like to hear what you guys have to say? is this a good combination?

Thanks again for everything!

The only things I would change would be to get GTX570 more performance and a little more vram 1280 MB vs 1024 MB and a CoolerMaster 750w, everything else looks solid!

^This, As for Nvidia Distributor, ASUS all the way imo, There DirectCU cards are excellent....And quiet.

A GTX570 is bit too much for me atm so i might just stick with the GTX560 Ti SC but will probably take you'r advice on getting a stronger PSU although only a CoolerMaster Silent Pro 600w is available where i am the other is a 1000w w/c not only costs a TON more money but also tad overkill lol

Still a brilliant card, will give you 60fps @ 1080 in most modern games.

Cards can be upgraded easy in the future so the GTX560 should be fine. Power supplies are a pain to replace if you have all your cables neat and tidy and the more power (and quality PSU) you can get the better! I went with a Coolermaster 1000w just to be safe for future upgrades but the 600 should be fine.

Good choices, imho.

According to http://support.asus.com/powersupply.aspx a 500W PSU should be sufficient. If a 600W doesn't cost a lot more, you might want to consider buying a 600W PSU then. If you decide to get a heavier videocard later, or add 1 or 2 HDDs, you will be set already. No need to go crazy and buy a 1000W PSU.

Picking a brand is personal. I believe in the US people like EVGA. One of the reasons is the length of warranty period. (In Europe we have a guaranteed 2 years of warranty, via the shop that sold it. No need to ever contact a manufacturer). But I don't care about that. Asus also has a good reputation. My current card is an Asus, my previous card was an Asus. The card before that was not an Asus, and happened to be a card that melted when I did something stupid. Card before that was an Asus. Card before that was not, and that one melted too. Maybe a coincedence, but I'm sticking with Asus. (Oh, I did try an Asus gtx580 last year, but it was very noisy. On the other hand, my current Asus gtx680 is very quiet).

Thanks! i'l just go with the CoolerMaster 600w then

Oh yes is it worth the extra $$$ to get a Asrock Z68 Extreme 4 Gen 3?

Imho NO, not with the other bits you're buying, The only real benefit of the Gen 3 is PCI-E v3 but current cards can't shift data quick enough to take advantage of the extra bandwith that it offers anyway.

May be worth it for possible future proofing but not imo.

I believe the Z77 Extreme4 is cheaper than the Z68 Extreme4 now. (I guess ASRock might have stopped producing Z68 motherboard ? The Z77 can do the same, and more, as the Z68 motherboards).

The only reason to get an Extreme motherboard over a Pro3 is that it has 2 slots to put a videocard in. So you can do SLI/CF (SLI means putting 2 nvidiacards in, CF is the same for AMD cards). But doing SLI/CF brings a whole set of problems of its own. Not all games can deal with it, you might not be able to do all eyecandy with SLI/CF. (Someone posted here recently you can't do HDR when doing SLI in Skyrim ! (HDR is how the light changes when you look at the sun, or look outside a cave. Pretty imporant feature, imho)).

I will order my own motherboard this week. I've still not decided to go with a Pro3 or a Extreme4 .... I guess price will be the decisive factor when I finally order.

So in other words i don't need to get it if i will only be using SLI cards? i can put 2 nvidia cards on the pro?

Edit:
It seems the Pro3 (and the Pro4) can do 2 AMD videocards in CrossFire (CF).
But they can't do 2 nVidia videocards in SLI.
You need the Extreme4 or Extreme6 motherboards to do SLI.
A bit weird, but that's what I found in different places.

This is a comparison of features, straight from ASRock's website.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/compare.asp?SelectedModel=Z77+Extreme6&SelectedModel=Z77+Extreme4&SelectedModel=Z77+Pro4&SelectedModel=Z77+Pro3

I found this review of a whole bunch of z77 motherboards.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1903688
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1903688&p=3#r41

They mention that the Pro3/Pro4 can do CF, but not SLI. The poster warns that CF is only in 4x/4x mode.
Anyway, it seems clear to me now.
Pro3 is great value for your money, but not SLI.
You need a Extreme4 to do SLI. And maybe also better if you wanna do CF.

====
My original post. I was confused .....
====

PCI-E slots come in 2 flavors. version 2.0 and version 3.0.
Version 2.0 is what we had over the last years. More than fast enough for any videocard today. Version 3.0 is new. The z77 motherboards are amongst the first motherboards to support PCI-E version 3.0.

Then there is the speed of each slot. PCI-E on a motherboard has limited bandwith (= speed) to the CPU.
Therefor not all slots can run at maximum speed. And certainly not at the same time.
For videocards you always have a "16x" speed slot.
Some motherboards have 2 slots. For 2 videocards. If you stick in only 1 videocard, the slot will run at 16x speed.
If you put in 2 videocards, both slots will run at "8x" speeds.
Note, this is still more than enough to drive 2 videocards. PCI-E is really fast, even at half speed.
And version 3.0 is twice as fast at version 2.0. So slots of version 3.0 at 8x speed, runs just as fast as 16x in version 2.

I hope you could follow this so far.
The point is, I had though that the cheap mobos would have only 1 16x PCI-E slot. Like the Pro3.
And if you wanted 2 slots, you needed more expensive cards. Like the Extreme 4.

I just tried to check that.
It seems I was wrong.
The ASRock z77 Pro3 seems to have one 16x version-2 slot, and another 16x version 3 slot !
So if you want to use SLI/CF on the Asus Pro3, that is in fact possible !

I am confused now.
Why would anyone ever want to buy an Extreme 4 motherboard ? And not just the much cheaper Pro3 ??

Within 1 or 2 weeks, I will order my own new PC.
If this is true, I will buy a Pro3 myself.

The specs of the ASRock Z77 Pro3: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z77%20Pro3
And the ASRock Z77 Extrem4: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z77%20Extreme4

From the pictures, it looks like the the Extreme4 might have 4 slots for videocards, and the Pro3 only 2 slots.
If someone knows for sure, please enlighten us. TIA.

Thanks for explaining it to me in a way i could understand! much appreciated

Hmm it the Z77 Pro3 is indeed very close in terms of price to the Z68 so i might just get that one and yes please someone enlighten us

I will also be ordering my PC within a week or two, the other thing that i'm pondering with is it really worth the extra $$$ to get the GTX 570? is the performance difference from the 560 Ti considerable enough?

You are welcome.
The main reason I wrote down all that, is because I am currently trying to compose my own new PC. And writing stuff down helps me make up my mind.

I really recommend the Z77 over the Z68. The Z77 has all the features combined of all previous generation chipsets. Paying a few euros/dollars more is worth it. Oh, and I am 99.9% sure now that the Pro3 or Pro4 can not do SLI. For the rest the difference is only 2 more fast-sata ports (if you need 4 in stead of 2 SSDs. Which nobody does). 2 More USB3.0 ports. And that's about it. I guess it is just common practice to ask outrageous extra amounts of money for minor differences on high-end motherboards. If you look at the Fatality, or the expensive Asus motherboards, I really don't see the value of paying an extra $100.

That is a personal matter.
Prices in my country are: 200 euros for the gtx560Ti and 290 euros for the gtx570.
And what are the performance gains ?
Check out this comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/547?vs=518
Check out the games you play. Keep in mind at which resolution you play.

The difference seems to be 10-20% in most games.
Unfortunately, check out Skyrim, Very High Settings, at 1920x1200.
gtx560ti scores 36.4, the gtx570 scores 77.7 fps !!!
That is a huge difference. It can not be caused by the difference in speed between the two cards. It must be because the gtx560ti has 1GB of vram, and the gtx570 has 1.25GB of vram. If Skyrim needs more than 1GB, and the card doesn't have that, it will start swapping data between main RAM and vram. That will destroy framerates, as you can see. Maybe that test was done with the high-res texture pack.

Edit: yes, that Skyrim benchmark was done after patch1.4. It has the cpu compiler improvements. And they were using the high-res texture pack. See this page for more info:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review/15
You see that the AMD6970 is on par with the gtx570. The AMD6970 has more vram, but isn't faster than the gtx570. And they seem to around the same price. So getting an AMD card (a bit slower, but more vram) will not help you, even at Skyrim.

Weird. I was running vanilla Skyrim on my old gtx260. With 4xMSAA, 16xAF, a few mods (but not the high res texture pack) at 1920x1200. And I was getting 30-40fps in most places. The gtx560ti should be twice as fast. Also note, most benchmarks for Skyrim you will find on the net were done in November 2011. That means before the "cpu compiler enhancements" were done. That means those benchmarks don't have much relevance to todays Skyrim. Here is one such example (but it doesn't incluse the gtx560ti ?)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074.html
The gtx460 is the predecessor to the gtx560ti. The gtx560ti has the same amount of vram (1GB). And is ~20% faster in general. If you look at that benchmark, 4xMSAA Ultra 1920x1080 (settings I like), the gtx460 has 42.5 fps (which means a gtx560ti would have close to 50 fps). And the gtx570 has 66 fps.

One more benchmark. Lots of settings and resolutions tested.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680/36/
But note, done with Skyrim version 1.2. More CPU dependent than the current game.

Tough choice. One reason why I like the gtx560ti is also because it is quiet and cool. And gtx570 uses more power, and therefor produces a bit more heat and noise. I guess you need to check a few more benchmarks on the web, and think a bit about it.

Too bad nobody knows when the gtx660 will be released. :/

Man that's a lot to think about! ugh now i really am pondering w/c card to get haha the quite cheaper GTX 560 or Noisy slightly(?) better 570.... heh good thing i have 1-2 weeks to think about it

Would get a video card with more than 1 Gb of memory! If you are going to invest in a new rig...get a 680 and you're good for at least a couple of years! Cores are not THAT important...the video card IS and especially the card's memory.

Get a Corsair H100 cpu cooler...they work really well. Get a larger power supply...500w is wimpy...be able to upgrade to SLI in the future.

Don't agree with that at all, I run on on ultra with 16x AF and 8x AA @ 1080p (i5 2320 stock + GTX 560 TI 1gb) with the high res texture pack and i get a mostly solid 60fps.

Just tried 1920x1200 (a totally unnecessary resolution imo) and still get 50 - 60 fps in most places.

I call BS on that benchmark, A 560 ti is more than enough card for Skyrim.

Anandtech.com is a very respectable hardware tech-website.
Just calling their benchmarks [censored] is a bit too enthousiastic.

We don't know how they have tested Skyrim. Where in the game, how many NPCs, how many locations, etc. So we can not compare absolute numbers. As we all know, fps can fluctuate a lot. I get 60 fps mostly when I am outdoors in the wild. But in cities, fps can drop. So you get a "mostly solid 60 fps" ? Stand at the top of the stairs in Whiterun, then look down on the tree and the village. What fps do you get ? I get 35 fps there, and I have a gtx680 myself. Whille I agree that the gtx560ti is an excellent card, and it's the card I usually recommend, and it is enough to play Skyrim, it is not "more than enough".

"1920x1200 (a totally unnecessary resolution imo)".
Do you know what "native resolution" means ? LCD/TFT screens all have native resolutions. Old CRT monitors do not. On a CRT, you can pick the resolution you want, and still have a nice picture. On a LCD/TFT you should always use the native resolution. If you don't then the monitor will convert the picture (called upscaling). This will make the picture more blurry. That would be a real shame, and it would negate so much of the work of the videocard to create a nice picture. Note, you need a DVI cable (digital) to get a nice clear picture. With VGA (anolog) you will always have a crappy picture.
The most popular resolution for modern monitors is 1920x1080. If you have such a monitor, you better use the native resolution.
I happen to have a 1920x1200 monitor myself. And such a monitor has been used in the Anandtech benchmark (and in many other benchmarks). Therefor I game at 1920x1200. And therefor I am interested in benchmarks at 1920x1200.

I get 52 fps (Fraps) 16x AF 8x AA HR Textures @1080p on a 1080p native (yes i do know what that means, thanks) Via HDMI. will happily provide screenshots if required.
On the same system connected to a HP LP2475w 1920x1200 native via DVI @ the native resolution i get 44 fps

If it maintains 40+fps with all eye candy at 1080p it IS more than enough.
a constant 60 fps is not required in a game like skyrim.

I agree that 60 fps in not required. But others disagree.
And you can always keep adding eyecandy.
Do you have "Transparency AA" enabled ?
Or Ambient Occlusion ? (I really like SSAO myself, I wouldn't wanna do without it anymore).
And there are always more addons and texture packs.
Or ENBSeries, FX injectors and other post-processing tools to add more effects. (I don't use those myself, btw).
Skyrim is a game where you can decide how much eyecandy you want yourself. And eyecandy is one of the reasons why console-players suddenly want to upgrade or replace their old PCs. Just for Skyrim. Because it can look so much nicer on a PC.

Anyway, my point was: you can not compare the gtx560ti against the gtx570, unless you have both cards. And can do the exact same benchmarks with both cards.

I agree with your bottom line. The gtx560ti is an excellent card. You can play Skyrim with it with very good graphics quality. But in the end, each individual player decides for himself how much eyecandy they want.

Fair points,

The only game i use SSAO in is Burnout Paradise - The Ultimate Box as it's selectable via the in game menu and doesn't have to be 'forced', That said it does incur quite a performance loss (does look really rather nice though)