Help needed in choosing components to build a $1400 machine

Hey, Im looking for help to build a new rig.

I use the computer mainly for 3D animation (maya, blender, xsi, after effects, zbrush, nuke, realflow, etc...), this includes animating, rendering, video editing, compositing and working with high polygon models

2D animation and for working with graphics (toonboom, mangastudio, flash, photoshop, painter, etc...)

I also plan to use it for gaming (Guild Wars 2 :3 etc..)

And casual use (internet, writting, watching movies etc..)


I have $1400, I already used $280
to buy a Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 Desktop Processor
(I know a lot of people complain about the stock cpu cooler, any recomendations for that?)

So that leaves me with $1120 to buy: Video card, motherboard, RAM, power supply, case, optical drive, hard drive, cpu cooler

I'm located in Mexico, I can get mostly anything here, but the prices are always higher. I plan to buy everything online and have it sent at a friends house in the US
so that I can pick it up in a couple of weeks

I am willing to buy online (if I can get everything online, the better) in sites that dont require the billing and the shipping adresses to be the same when paying with a credit card

I'm not reusing anything of my old computer except keyboard, wacom tablet and cintiq

I still havent decided if I want to run the pc on linux or in windows.

I dont plan on getting any aftermarket cooling, except if I really need it... do I really need it?