I recently received a grant to build a dialect atlas using ArcGIS, and I need to buy a computer. I found the minimum hardware requirements to run ArcGIS (http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/system-requirements/10.2/index.html#//015100000002000000), but I'm wondering what sort of requirements I should look at in order to run ArcGIS really well for at least the next three years. One question I was specifically interested in was whether it would make sense for me to get a really good video card, and whether ArcGIS could use the GPU for processing. Would I see any benefit from having a high end video card like a geforce GTX 970 over a more modest card like a GTX 750? I'm not sure what size data sets I'd be using, but at most I'd be mapping an area the size of the eastern Mediterranean.
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