You did not mention what motherboard you are going with, and that makes a difference in what video setup you should go with. I would also not buy a video card with ddr3. DDR5 or don't bother, the difference is well worth it. One faster card is a better option than two slower ones.

What brand video is personal preference. Nvidia has the best opengl drivers right now, AMD has better directx support.

I would not max the motherboard out with memory if it can take more than 16gb. Many of the motherboards now can use the max the processor supports. (32gb)

And if you do max it to 32 gig, set up a ram drive for paging. SATA and SAS drives can't compete with a ram drive in speed, no where near close.

SSD drives are a personal choice. I stopped stocking them, you do the math on that.

The day the last free page gets written to on the SSD, plan on wiping it and erasing it with the utility to get the speed back. You will know when that happens, you will get strange one or two second system hangs when the drive has to erase pages. Page erases can take 2 seconds a page. If you do get an SSD, get one with a 5 year warranty, you will thank yourself later.

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