Oh my god, Ultifd and Archmage in the same thread? This is like old times again!
But anyway, we have to look at usage here. For example, Arch, you're using the Phenom II X6 1055T. For the same price, you could get an i5-3450, which has higher clock speeds, way more power conservant, and scores notably better on CPU mark. The only downside is 4 cores versus 6. Technically, more cores would be handy for multithreaded applications, but in this case, the i5's higher clock speed and smaller architecture makes up for the loss of 2 cores. And for gaming, you don't need more than four cores (and many games don't utilize multiple cores well, still). If you were to do a lot of video editing, though, the i7-3820 would give you about the same "bang for your buck", but with a huge boost in performance, scoring nearly double in CPU mark than the 1055T. Hyper threading would allow up to 8 threads, which would work pretty similar to an octo-core processor. Of course, CPUs age badly, and two years makes a heck of a difference, but with current generation CPUs, AMD is seriously behind Intel.
And then there's the fact that you both mention your PSU. Let's be honest here, that's just a bragging point. As long as your PSU delivers enough power to run everything (and you both have plenty excess), that's all you need. Sure, modular cables and bronze+ certification is nice, but when describing your build to someone, nobody really cares. Your case is more interesting than your PSU (seriously, a good case can drastically improve airflow while making your computer look really awesome).
On Eliminator's graphic's card, I notice that it's underclocked to 775MHz, despite the fact that the same card from other companies runs at 850MHz. You should be able to overclock to around 900 or so MHz if you have reasonable cooling (use
Afterburner). Arch, on the other hand, seems to have already overclocked his. Despite being roughly a generation older, it defaults to 850 MHz.
An SSD like Arch's would certainly boost performance drastically. However, a 480 GB SSD is usually pretty expensive. Instead, I'd say go for two 240 GB drives (etc) and run them in RAID 0 to effectively double your read and write speeds. Of course, that comes at a cost: if either drive fails, all the data's gone. But then again, that's no different than if you used a single 480 GB drive. The answer is to obviously back up your stuff.
RAM is a finicky thing. For most people, 8 is plenty at the moment. The most I've ever seen a single program use is a very heavily modded Skyrim with all the big, custom texture mods, which brought the total to around 2 GB of RAM for a single program. If you do complex Blender rendering beyond just standard models, up to 16 GB could be useful (but only if you're doing extremely advanced things like fluid simulations. Just regular models and a ton of textures should be fine with 8 GB). 32 GB is pretty hardcore, and could come in handy in instances where you are performing multiples of these tasks, but it's pretty specific. More practical use of 32 GB of RAM would be in scientific usage, such as extreme data analysis. In which case, you'd probably want to spring for a processor that can handle that too, such as the server Xeon processors (yes, those $2000 babies).
What surprises me is that nobody seems to brag about monitor size. Sure, 1920 x 1080 is the de facto norm, but for a hardcore gamer, you can go further. But they're hellishly expensive, too. A 2560 × 1600 IPS monitor runs about a thousand buckaroos. A more honest approach is multiple monitors. A single 1920 x 1080 monitor is pretty inexpensive. $100-200 dollars for a TN monitor. That's good enough for most people. So add another (or two). It's a great productivity boost to have multiple monitors. Trying to edit and image while flipping back to a source in a different window? Just place one on each monitor.
Also, operating systems, along with antiviruses, are one program I'd particularly advise against pirating. It's rather unsafe, and if you're building this expensive computer, $100 for the OS is pretty fair. Linux is great, but I don't expect people to work for free. If you like what you pirate, buy it. Consider it "try before you buy".
