Buying new "everything" after a power spike(?) fried it all

uninterruptible power supply (UPS). I have one, run everything through it.

As for building the PC, I have a core i7 an early one, its always delivered with 12 gig. Some would say eight gig is sufficient (64 bit of course).
Go to Tom’s Hardware for the latest info and discussion. Think about inputs and outputs, USB3 is backward compatible.