well in the build of a pc you really aren’t going to use more than 8 gigs under a windows pc platform. And as for audio cards, look at one that is not onboard, as in connected to the motherboard. The processing power of the cpu’s is always a major consideration; I would make sure that the cpu and mb are made for more audio processing than for gaming…As well, Pro Tools under a windows platform, just like Pro Presenter has a lot of issues including as you say speed of the program. It is a Mac proprietary software rewritten for the ibm compatibles, great software just awkward under windows.
One more thing on noise, unless you are building an extremely large pc with “super” fans you should be okay. Always look for the better quieter ones and include that thought process when you choose a power supply as well as they have cooling that can be attenuated as well.
