Recommended specs for these games

[steelslasher]

Buying a new pc, have a budget of around £350-400 would like some recommendations on what hardware to buy. I plan on playing the following games:
xenoblade
monster hunter
last story
brawl
mario kart

my old pc had a HD6850 (which blew up) and i think it could just play xenoblade at 1080p with 2XAA but i cant remember if my phenom 1090t was bottlenecking it so i went for a HD7850 with i5 3470 which is an upgrade

i did a bit of looking around and i have the following parts:
Intel Core i5 3470 3.20GHz Socket 1155 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor ~£140
Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2 Socket 1155 VGA 7.1 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard ~£35
8GB 1333MHz Memory CL9 £20
Xenta 600W 12cm Fan PSU - 1x 6pin PCI-E 2x SATA £20
Casecom JL-68 All Black Case £25
PowerColor HD 7850 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card ~£140

comes to around £400, i already have os and hdd so YAY!

i have a few compromises i would consider:
downgrade gpu to 6870 (costs £40 less)
4GB instead of 8GB (dont think i need 8gb any way, 4gb was enough before)
smaller psu if i dont need 600W

[LordVador]

6870 will be enough indeed.
3470 is a good processor but 3570k is a better choice for games like Xenoblade/MH/TLS. 2500k is fine too.
More RAM is useless

[ExtremeDude2]

If you get a "K" you'll also need a new mobo

[DefenderX]

Or you could buy a Z77 MoBo from Asrock with "No-K Overclock" option

[Axxer]

Or you could buy a Z77 MoBo from Asrock with "No-K Overclock" option

I'm pretty sure it won't be able to OC to 4.2/4.3 GHz that way though.

[DefenderX]

Ask admin89, it should work

[steelslasher]

6870 will be enough indeed.
3470 is a good processor but 3570k is a better choice for games like Xenoblade/MH/TLS. 2500k is fine too.
More RAM is useless

Xenoblade and tls ran at 100% with a 1090t, a 3470 should be able to do even more and a 2500k should then be overkill

[Shonumi]

6870 will be enough indeed.
3470 is a good processor but 3570k is a better choice for games like Xenoblade/MH/TLS. 2500k is fine too.
More RAM is useless

Xenoblade and tls ran at 100% with a 1090t, a 3470 should be able to do even more and a 2500k should then be overkill

Those two games will run fine on that CPU with HLE audio, but you'll probably get noticable slowdowns when using LLE audio. That's why the "K" models are recommended, since you can OC as much as you need to.

[rpglord]

6870 will be enough indeed.
3470 is a good processor but 3570k is a better choice for games like Xenoblade/MH/TLS. 2500k is fine too.
More RAM is useless

Xenoblade and tls ran at 100% with a 1090t, a 3470 should be able to do even more and a 2500k should then be overkill

Dont lie lol. If by tls you mean The Last Story,then certanly that did NOT run at 100% with 1090t.
Maybe 70% max with correct settings

[admin89]

The Last Story and Xenoblade run 100% with Phenom X6 1090t ? Sorry but it's hard to believe

Those Phenom X6 single threaded performance is not that great . You may have good performance with Xenoblade but you sure have slowdown from time to time . The Last Story will not run 100% on i5 3570k (stock) or i5 2500k(stock) or i5 3470 . If you reach lazulis city (TLS-Pal version) , your FPS will be cut by half or more

The Last Story need i5 3570k @ 4.2GHz or i5 2500k @ 4.5GHz to run well (The Last Story doesn't need "EFB copy to Ram" anymore )

And if you go with "NO-K overclock" function (only for Asrock Z77 mobo) , i5 3470 can be overclocked to 3.9GHz . If you're hardcore gamer , a single slowdown will kill the mood . Since you're not a hardcore gamer , i5 3470 @ 3.9GHz + Asrock Z77 mobo are your best bet

Edit : It seems someone has messed the ini file again . The Last Story need "EFB copy to Ram" .

Edit 2 :

HD7850

Should switch to Nvidia GTX 660 or stick with Directx 9 and OpenGL backend forever
http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=22966