Sarge,
64 bit Windows 7 is not the limitation for RAM size. The restriction is with the BIOS and motherboard itself. Presently, most motherboards have a top amount of RAM to be 16 Gig. For any beginner, the more important stuff in a desk top computer is the CPU (at least Intel I3 or I5 or better and AMD has many quad core that are up to the task for less money). I do not recommend Asser as a system for any desk top since their motherboard and Bridge system are not exctly up to par nor is their quality of lasting value. There are many preassmbled desk tops out there of reasonable cost now. You are correct about the hard drive size if you intend to store lots of photos as being about 1Tera byte so you can use it for both photo storage and all the programs you run. I also recommend a good video card and monitor that has a calibration routine for color correctness.
One piece of advice would be to also include a removeable hard drive as a back up device for storage. Also, a good firewall program is recommended. Good luck in purchase though. May it bring you years of enjoyment.

Memory is for processing power and a disk is for storage. Unless you are are playing intense video games don't waste money on a separate video card.

Thats great of your acknowledging them Buddy, I always make a point of at least speaking to them, give them a thumbs up, go up to them and shake their hand, some form of acknowledgement. Am sure we all have our own way of doing these things. I think my feelings come from back in 66. I was headed home after 6 years in Viet Nam, yes 6 years, those of us finally coming home were given strict orders to travel in civilian clothes, never appearing in public in uniform. We didn't understand the reasoning for this until we landed in San Francisco and saw the protestors and the way what few men in uniform we saw were being treated.

Gary, Im sure many use photos straight out of the camera and with great success. BUT you must remember WHAT you are trying to achieve. As humans we look at a scene and several processes take place. Our eye captures the scene then our brain post processes the scene. Our brain has the ability to fill in all of the blanks. We have tremendous DOF, never see out off focus and all colors always have the proper saturation not to mention wide angle. Our brain does all of this for us not our eye. Later we look at a scene captured by our camera sensor on our computers and we are disappointed at what our camera captured. PP is our attemt to tweak the scene back to what our eye was seeing and our brain was recording. Our cameras, at least in the not to near future, are not going to do that. After 100 years film was doing a pretty good job. In 100 years probably so will our digital sensors but then we will be on to a new technology to start over again.
In the meantime we will continue to PP, HDR, stitch, composit and change lenses etc in an effert to present to the viewer exactly the scene we saw with our eye, then tried to capture with our cameras.
If you do NO PP at all to your photos they are not likely to look as you saw them. Most photographers will never have their cameras set to the proper defaults to capter every scene correctly in-camera since we would have to change them for virtually every shot. But with experience they will be good enough which is what we refer to as out-of-camera. Even the most basic settings such as 'white balance', is either on auto or we have tweaked it. How many even consider if they should shoot on sRGB or adobeRGB? Many of you do so I'm sure, but my point is that RAW is a tool that the camera manufacturer has given us to be able to even have the ability to transform our shot scenes to what we wanted our camera to capture but did not. RAW and PP are just two tools at our disposal to be able to achieve those goals.
Gary, you are not more or less 'chingon' because you are not using all the tools you paid all that money for in your expensive DSLR. It is not whether you shoot on auto, raw or jpeg or PP. It's all a matter of what you do to get the results you want others to see. To that end, do what YOU have to do.
Gary to answer your question, yes.

Good advice, however the only thing I have against going to the local store is the state tax. I purchased the D800 from a local store (Photo-Zone) and the tax was $240.

TECHNICALLY, you still owe that tax as a "Use Tax" which is a similar tax which is 'owed' by the buyer of products on which Sales Tax was not paid, such as purchases from out of state where no Sales Tax was charged, or where the Sales Tax was less than in your state.

But, I won't tell on you! LOL!! This is the exact reason that there is a push at the national level to make it a Federal issue that all Internet Sales be subject to the Sales Tax of the Buyer's location. Many stores have been complaining of this issue since many of them are required by law to collect that tax while other stores that are primarily online have somehow gotten by with not collecting. I used to work for a company here in Iowa that did custom printing and shipped to approx 44 different states and believe me, I spent 1-1/2 weeks every month filling out all the Sales and Use Tax reports for all those states!! There were only a couple states we did business in that did not REQUIRE us to collect the sales tax.
Therefore, based on my work experience I never complain about paying the Sales Tax on my online purchases when they do charge it, because without them collecting it from my online sales, my local sales taxes would probably go up.
I too enjoy the sellers that don't collect my state's sales tax, but I will never use that as a reason to buy online. If the only difference in price of an item is the Sales Tax I will buy local and pay the Sales Tax.

I normally buy everything online. I have become lazy.

Today I went to Chicago's downtown 'Central Camera.'

I was just along for the ride, my friend was testing the waters on selling his father's extensive collection.

We got there just before closing. My friend had to wait for a conversation with the store buyer.

I started poking around. Oops, s sale caught my eye. There were many in store sales that are never listed online or anywhere except in store.

I could not resist and bought 50 sheets of VC 20"x24" fiber paper for 1/2 price.

This is a much better deal than I ever get buying online.

The buyer showed up, he was the owner. He spent 2 1/2 hours after the store closed giving us great advice.

I used to shop at Central Camera when I went to school near it.

Now I realize I need to make regular trips in order to garner better store deals and gain irreplaceable knowledge direct from the owner and his great staff.

We discussed many topics, most I cannot relate here for various reasons.

I will now make regular trips to Central Camera, they have great prices that blow Internet sellers away.

I recommend all of us try our local store first, and I do not mean Best Buy.