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[Putnam]

The Lazy Newb pack has many nice graphical sets built into it. The ASCII is basically impossible to understand, a graphical set... Less impossible.

Use one of them. Look at some screenshots to get an idea of which one you like and go with it.

Please don't try to make a matter of opinion some sort of objective statement by using phrases like "impossible to understand". What is true for you may not be true for everyone, especially in cases like this.

[Niddhoger]

It takes getting used to, that's for damned sure.  What helps is that you need to constantly be using the "k" command to look around and identify stuff.  It hurts a little at first, but you eventually get used to it. 

[KingKaol]

I think the default ascii are not the most legible, especially the ones squashed to be square (even the Sappho set is not a very good font, imo). I think the 16x16 MarbleDice derived sets (such as Kelora) are better.

Though I prefer ascii to graphics because the differences between tiles are more stark, I'm sure I could get used to it, especially with the 'let there be text' mod.. But generally with graphics things tend to blend together to my eye and make it hard to distinguish. Especially with multiple use tiles, it's not really possible to give graphics to all tiles resulting in a mixed look; a certain amount of ambiguity is required. I even tried for a while to use a barrel graphic but eventually gave up on it when I found that the same glyph was used for screw pumps and looked very ugly.

[Sanctume]

I think one drawback of using tile sets is when the tile set's representation of something does not match the ascii version used in explaining things in the wiki or in forum posts.

[Eldin00]

People have talked the graphics question to death here already, so I'll skip that part of the OP's question. Addressing other parts, choosing a starter pack can help out for a new player, since it includes some extra tools that can make things easier, though a few of the included things (like using the multilevel view with TWBT) can make things more confusing until you understand what you're looking at on the screen a bit better. When choosing a location to embark, you get to choose the size. Smaller sizes will give you better performance, larger sizes give you a larger play area (more resources, potentially more diversity of terrain/wildlife/plants/weather). A 1x1 embark translates to a 48x48 play area (with up to a couple hundred z-levels, depending on worldgen paramaters and embark site). Larger embarks (theoretically up to 16x16, but many embark sites will crash because they need more than 4GB of memory at that size) give you larger areas with dimensions in multiples of 48. As to performance from the machine you describe, my desktop has a slightly slower core i7 cpu, and with a large region, 100 year history, 4x3 embark (192x144 fortress area) , I generally maintain framerates over 50fps well into the 2nd decade of the fortress, and I find that memory bandwidth is my limiting factor rather than CPU power. Also, your GPU doesn't really matter for DF, it will perform the same on pretty much any PCIe 16x card as it will on your 970.

[AdjustingPriorities]

I personally described the curve to DF as more of a learning cliff, menacing with spikes of spiders, goblins, and lots of magma. Spiky magma.
Anyway, the important thing to remember about this is a very simple rule. What goes up, comes back down. You will climb this very steep hill, and feel good, before everything comes crashing back down. Probably on fire. However, you will avoid this path next time, only to fall again, probably dehydrated. And poisoned. See a pattern here?
There's a reason the motto of DF is "Losing is Fun!" You're gonna lose a lot. There is no goal to DF, so you can't win. Losing is your only option. That's not a bad thing though. You can choose to try and accomplish your own goals. Maybe you want to work out how to use danger rooms? Lose a few dwarves, find out that Urist mcSocklover beleives that just his socks make him invincible, and that menacing wooden spikes are not what you put in a danger room. You also learn how to make coffins. Maybe you wanna play with pumpstacks? Lose a few forts, figure out how pressure works, and that water cannons are cool until you shoot your mechanics at the invaders with it. Facepalm ftw. Hmm...now I wanna try making a Dwarven drop-cannon. That's actually a good example of how to play DF. Make a goal. Fail at it. Figure out how that failure is a good thing and learn from it.
In the long run, a fully functional, self sustained, impregnable fort may seem like a nice goal at first, and it sure is...but a perfect fort is a boring fort. Play a few games, learn what you like to do, how you like your dormitories, what you wanna do to start off, and then learn that sometimes, it's best to just sit there in a dumbfound silent acceptance as your little world goes to hell, only to have hell kick it's ass back out.
Laugh at your mistakes, be proud of your failures. And hope that someday, you will have a failure so spectacular, that you will inspire more people to play this wonderful game. Also, never forget the most important thing of all:
"Losing is Fun!"