Benefit Of Using Win 7 64 bit and More RAM?

[dougdude9]

Hello Fellow Pro Tools 10 Users:
This is my first post in here and probably going to be one of many as I come from Cubase 64bit. So far, I'm glad I have made the change to Pro Tools 10, but I certainly have much to learn.

Right now I have Pro Tools 10 on a laptop running Windows 7 64 bit with 4gb of RAM. Some of my projects will be using lots of plugins and I'm worried as the projects grow in size, I'm going to run into problems with the laptop not being able to keep up. So, I'm considering building a workstation, but have a few questions as I know Pro Tools 10 is just 32 bit.

1. Would I benefit from using a Win7 64 bit machine with more than 4gb of ram? Since Pro Tools is just 32 bit, will it only use up to 4gb of ram since 32 bit OS's only use 4gb of ram? In other words, would I see a difference from using Win7 64 bit with 4gb of ram compared to win7 64 bit 12gb of ram?

2. Also, are xeon processors ok? Or should I look more to the i5 or i7 route?

3. Are solid state drives ok to use to install pro tools on? I wouldn't use it for the audio recording, but just for pro tools and the plugins.

Sorry for all the questions that are probably noob!

Thanks,
Doug D.