Help review my PC workstation build list, please and thanks.

[Hammerskjold]

ECC is not required for personal tasks (business/military/science is a potentially different story).

Yeah the monkeywrench was the compatibility issue, it is causing me a bit of a headache sorting out the whole ECC is required vs optional for a Xeon. Just to be clear, if I am going with a Xeon setup I'd much rather find a Xeon setup that can run non ECC RAM. VS -needing- ECC for it to work, at all.

As for your CPU price, the newegg canada's price seems better than your listed one, considering it also currently has a 20$ promo on top of the 299 listed price:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.asp...alParent=1

But you do realize, that isn't a Xeon processor you've got listed. That's a Sandy Bridge-E. Xeons aren't inherently better, especially for your purpose. I would avoid Xeon, as it is not designed for your purpose.

Hmmm? I did have the NCIX link list the 2 selections IIRC, one was the i7, and the other the Xeon that Lissa mentioned,

Xeon e5 2609, and the i7 3820 below it.

http://pc.ncix.com/ncixpc/ncixpc.cfm?uui...5151#PCTop

hopefully the link shows this correctly though.

I also have no clue who you're going to for quoting SSD prices. Newegg canada lists the same intel 520 120gb as 150. However the Samsung 840 Pro is currently king of the SSD Hill:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.asp...6820147193

That is just off the NCIX site, though keep in mind I haven't officially reached the price matching stage yet. This is more or less just finalizing the spec list, then I'll be doing the price matching game. But the newegg.ca links you gave definitely helps out when it comes to haggling time.

Even on newegg canada, Samsung's Pro version is favored over the Intel 520. Don't get me wrong, I love Intel but performance/price favors Samsung and reliability is tier one on both.

Good to hear, I'll pay a bit extra (within reason) for reliability on the SSD. Frankly I don't want to be futzing and troubleshooting tech problems, because I got other things on my plate. Obvious and basic maintenance aside, this rig needs to be as low maintenance as possible, since -I'm- basically the IT department right now.