Get the intel chip. AMD chips have a bazillion cores because their technology is severely outclassed by newer intel chips and it's the only way for them to stay competitive. I'd recommend 16 GB of RAM for photoshop, RAM is cheap.

SSDs are getting to 1$/GB and make a HUGE performance increase for accessing and writing files (boot up, copying files, saving/opening, etc.) They also have no moving parts and are thus much more reliable. If you get one of those ancient spinning platter hard drives, make sure you back up your photos somewhere else.

For photography I'd recommend an IPS monitor. It'll put you over budget (they go for about 500$ and up) but they are the standard due to their excellent colour accuracy (especially when viewed from an angle).