I've redone my computer three times over the past year and here is what I learned from that experience...
1) RAID - do yourself a favor and run a RAID setup on your drives.
2) SSD's - 2 minimum if you're serious about processing. 1 to run your OS and 1 to run as a dedicated PS scratch disk.
3) Can never have too much ram
4) Get yourself a storage drive for your images
5) Buy a full size case right off the rip. If you run RAID, storage drives and mulitple SSD's you're going to have a hell of a time packing that all in a mid size case (especially w/ a large video card).
I believe I have around $1,300-1,500 into my setup over the past year of continuously adding to it. I'm sure it could be had for cheaper. The setup runs pretty darn well for what it is. I would say that the biggest bottle neck now is the processor. i7 next?
AMD FX-8350 8-Core Processor
G.Skill 32GB Ram
Asus R9280x Video Card
2 x WD Red 3TB Hard drives (RAID)
1 WD Black 2TB storage Drive
1 250GB Samsung 850 Solid State Drive
1 128GB Samsung 850 PRO Solid state drive (PS scratch disk)
Corsair Obsidian 750 Full Tower
etc. etc.
