Welcome to the Community,
personally I'm using a PC similar to yours and setup a bunch of VM including some vSphere labs. My lab setup is similar to the one in "Building the Ultimate vSphere lab" and works as expected. If you have trouble setting it up, take it as a challenge to improve trouble shooting skills 
In addition to the books and materials you mentioned, don't forget to review the Blueprint as this is the most important document. You can find this at VMware Certified Professional 5 – Datacenter Virtualization (VCP5-DV)
Although not a dedicated study guide, Scott Lowe's "Mastering VMware vSphere 5" is also an excellent book.
André