May be a little late, but just a small tip. Don't cheap out on the ram, minimum should be 16 gigs, 8 is fine, but 16+ won't cause you any headaches and you'll basically be able to run whatever as long as you have the right cpu and gpu to go with it. I personally use two Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 gb sticks. But use whatever is compatible with your motherboard. And at the end of the day, it all comes down to budget and personal preference. Also, use windows, I would not recommend Linux as an OS to play heavily modded games made by bethesda. Save yourself the pain, brother.