New set up

Hello, after 10 fun years of recording on my Yamaha AW16G, I’m looking at going buying a DAW. I’ve done a certain amount of research and purchased the Tascam US-144MKII which came with Cubase LE5. After a play and more research, i think I’ve made my mind up. I want to build a pc with Core™ i7 Processor, 16GB DDR3 SDRAM, 2TB SATA HD and 256GB SSD. I will probably go with Windows 8 and Cubase 7 (I assume it’s advisable to load both on the SSD?). Is this spec sufficient to run Quantum Leap’s East West Strings? Is there a steep learning curve for Cubase 7? I’ve read it’s pretty intuitive.
Cheers
Chris