I decided to be prudent by factoring in the sale of my old computer into my budget for the new one.
Protip: don't do this if you are impatient, I only just sold it this week and I originally listed it online before December last year.
Anyway my i5 3570 is in the mail and my RAM arrived today! Once the CPU gets here I can build it. :D:D
Here is the RAM, I purchased two 1x8GB Corsair XMS3 ram modules with (arguably unnecessary) XMS heat spreaders (dual channel, 1333mhz, 9-9-9-24, 1.65V). In total that is 16GB of ram.
I use GM:S and often have a number of audio editors, image editors (with many massive files), while running the game on top of the IDE which seems to eat lots of memory. I also want to setup an OSX virtual machine to try and steamline an experimental process with Xcode, blah blah. Still more RAM than one might need.
Perhaps more importantly, my mini-itx motherboard (Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe) takes 16GB ram maximum and I feel it strange to not just max it out when I can. And of course, seeing how my first ever computer had 256MB ram, there is something wonderfully appealing to my younger child self to have 62x the amount I had back then bahaha.