This advice is only for After Effects since you posted this in the After Effects forum. You will have to balance what I say about After Effects with the requirements of any other software you use. For example, my processor advice will not hold true if you do a lot of Cinema 4D work.
Anyway, for After Effects:
You want the fastest clock speed on a processor you can get. (4 GHz or more). The number of cores doesn't matter very much.
You want at least 16 GB of RAM. I would go for at least 32.
You want at least two SSDs - one for your operating system and one for AE to use as its cache.
You want at least one more, large, hard drive for your renders, etc. (this could be a "normal" hard drive instead of an SSD if cost is a factor)
You want a decent graphics card, but nothing crazy. That is, unless you plan to do a LOT of work with Element 4d or other third-party effects that use the GPU. AE natively uses the GPU for a few things. It uses it to accelerate a growing number of effects and it uses it for the obsolete ray-traced renderer. And, as mentioned, some third-party plugins, like those from Red Giant, render on the GPU too. So, depending on the tools you plan to use, you may need a really good GPU setup.
Does that help?
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