For RAM, I know that I will need to expand at some point that is why I am keeping two RAM slots empty. I can always add 4 or even 8 more GBs later when I really need it.

I wouldn’t bet on that.

“And I’ll think about Intel motherboards – the cheapest I see at my nearby vendor for Core i5/i7 (P55 chipset) are at 80 LVL as well.”

Ouch. I wonder if locale has something to do with that; you can get Intel boards for much cheaper than that here in the US.

“I’ve tested SSDs for a local newspaper. The performance is great in testing and some specific workloads, but in real life use, especially on a desktop the difference is minuscule and certainly not worth tripple the price for a 1/7th of size.”

My recommendation came from having one in my laptop for a long time. It makes a real-life difference in many of the things I do daily. I can boot in about 3 seconds now, using stock Debian with no optimizations. Searching source trees with grep takes very little time, whether cache-cold or cache-hot. Restoring from hibernation goes insanely fast now. Installing, searching, building, name a verb and it goes faster.

(Also, let me point out that I don’t mean “SSDs”, I mean the X25-M specifically. Most SSDs don’t provide anywhere near the performance, even if they claim to support the same raw throughput.)

“Size is actually a more pressing concern for me personally.”

Fair enough.

Thanks for the Antec recomendation, looks like they also have nice cases. And I’ll think about Intel motherboards – the cheapest I see at my nearby vendor for Core i5/i7 (P55 chipset) are at 80 LVL as well.

Intel Core i5 is from the new Socket 1156 family that has dual-channel memory unlike the earlier Core i7 Socket 1366 with tri-channel memory, so this chip is actually best with two (or four) sticks of memory.

I’ve tested SSDs for a local newspaper. The performance is great in testing and some specific workloads, but in real life use, especially on a desktop the difference is minuscule and certainly not worth tripple the price for a 1/7th of size. Size is actually a more pressing concern for me personally.

In the process of doing so, I’d also recommend getting an Intel motherboard rather than another brand that uses an Intel chipset. Fewer cut corners, more polished workings. Furthermore, you can get a very capable Intel motherboard for much less than 80 LVL.

For the case and PSU, I highly recommend Antec. They make excellent cases with many nice features, such as built-in hard-drive suspension and other noise reduction features, thumbscrews everywhere for tool-free fiddling, rounded edges, modular power supplies to reduce stray cables, and strong rattle-free construction. They also have great support/warranties, for the occasions where I’ve needed a part replacement. And, again, you can get a great case and PSU for less than 70 LVL.

With DDR3 RAM, you should buy a third stick of RAM, and make sure your motherboard of choice supports triple-channel operation; this will give you a noticeable performance improvement.

The Samsung Spinpoint hard drives work great; good choice. Quiet and reliable.

Naturally, if you had some extra money to spend, I’d recommend an X25-M SSD. It sounds like you want more capacity than that, but you could always use it as a primary drive and use the Spinpoint as a secondary drive. A quick conversion suggests it would cost you about 137 LVL; trust me when I say that it represents the single best performance win you can get.