@MistaSparkle: i5 vs i7 in a nutshell (at least the i7s with 2xxx at the end that fit on the same motherboards as the i5, like the Z68 you selected (they have LGA1155 sockets for the CPU); there are 'real' high end i7s that use LGA2011 sockets and so you have to buy a more expensive motherboard to use and those are actually significantly different but only really show off their performance when doing things other than gaming):
They're the same, running within spitting distance of the same speed, with the same silicon.
But the i7 can juggle the threads it is given to remove some inefficiency when dealing with many-threaded code. The i5 has 4 cores and so you can run one thread on each core, the i7 has something called HyperThreading that just means it can juggle two threads on each core. It doesn't have more cores, it just pretends it does for the OS and then takes those extra threads (if any are provided) and sees if it can mush them together in a way that leaves less gaps or time waiting (the reasons for which are kinda beyond the scope of a quick post, that link gives some background). But there is a cost associated with managing those 8 threads of execution onto the 4 cores it can process on. There is a BIOS switch to turn it off because some things (like code that is written to divide itself exactly onto the cores you have) get slower because it adds overhead and doesn't do anything useful. Other times it can be a lot faster. Games (up to this point) have not been in the 'made faster' camp.
The expensive i7s (LGA2011) have lots of added memory bandwidth to go with their HyperThreading (twice as many potential threads means you may need to loop up more data in the memory to increase throughput, also lots of number crunching pro tools have obscene memory bandwidth requirements - again, not games, they don't really care) but they're off in $250 mobo, $600 CPU land (and you get 6 cores, there is a 'budget' model with 4 cores for $320 but with the added motherboard cost and needing to buy RAM is 4 stick blocks, it doesn't turn out the be cheap).
So that's why everyone says buy an i5-2500K for gaming, because the more expensive CPUs don't actually make games play better. They're offering features games don't benefit from. Now a solid state HDD (SSD), even just a 60GB model to use with Intel SRT to cache your spinning HDD rather than going the whole hog and dealing with moving files between drives. You'll really notice the added speed of that (one of the things a cache drive works great at is the second time you try to load a big static blob of data - games are all about loading screens and streaming in textures so they are ideally suited).
Playing games relies a lot on the GPU. Most of the sliders in a game for image quality are going to ramp up the GPU load a lot more than the CPU. That means buying an old, slow CPU will limit your gaming (so don't do that) but to see the really nice eye candy is all about focussing your money on the nicest GPU you can reasonable buy (there is usually a decent case to be made for the $250 models, sometime the $350 options are enough of a step up to be a strong contender even for a cheap build). As game engines transition from DirectX 9 to DX10 and DX11, one of the changes made was to move even more work from the CPU to the GPU. That's been a constant trend, speed stuff up by getting the CPU to push data over in a load screen and then let the GPU do all of the work internally on it as the game runs to save performance and leave the connection bandwidth free for pushing big new textures when needed rather than the CPU constantly telling the GPU every little detail of what to do (why send over the details of all the polygons each time, send them once and then send transformations to move them about on the screen as they animate - much less bandwidth and time wasted). So we're not at a time when the bar is swinging back in the other direction, GPU is king (for gaming) and spending money these is key to getting the best experience you can.
On your list of potential buys (and using NewEgg as my price source):
There is nothing wrong with going for a $50 (after rebate) Corsair CX600 V2 (600W) PSU. They're good, they're reliable (trusted) and 600W should be enough for your needs for the time being. If you're spending $80-90 of a PSU then you can buy a 750W model from a decent brand (Cooler Master often seem to have better prices and also decent reputation (I use them) for a good product, although enthusiasts really like whoever Corsair contracts to build their PSUs right now). Just don't buy a YumCha (off-brand) model because they're known to lie on the stickers so you have no idea what their actual output limit is and when PSUs break they can quite easily zap the rest of your computer when they die, which is why no one should go below $50 buying a PSU really.
You may be able to find a bundle on a case + PSU (again, avoid YumCha PSUs but I know Cooler Master do bundles and you get the same GX650 or GX750 PSU they sell on their own but the bundles are a lot cheaper than buying one of their cases and PSUs separately).
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