You went further than your initial requests with your last list.
It's fine (and based on my suggestions) although you don't really need a i7: a i5 as I listed, or a bit better model of the i5 line will be OK and clearly less expensive. i7 is of course great in itself.
The Crucial RAM is totally OK. I would have said Kingston DDR3 2 x 8 Go 1333 MHz HyperX FURY CAS9 or the one you listed.
Both Crucial and Kingston make their own RAM in totally up-to-date factories. (Crucial being actually the public brand from Micron which is a major actor on the RAM market, and Kingston being a smaller -and private- company but the first private company in their domain, and the 94th private company in the USA based on Forbes report).
Here are the 2014 return rates I know (from a big reseller, based on more than 100 kits sold by reference), just FYI, all PC RAM kinds together:
- Kingston 0.36% (0.29% in 2013)
- Crucial 0.57% (0.41% in 2013)
- G.Skill 0.97% (0.91% in 2013)
- Corsair 1.20% (1.41% in 2013)
Regarding Xeon's: actually Xeons and i7 are close models but the Xeon architecture will bring nothing to the running several AO clients. Running several AO clients and running the tasks a server has to run is different.
Basically, running several AO clients is running several heavy tasks; and what a server runs is usually a huge multitude of small(er) tasks.
You need high performance on a few simultaneous things while a server is better with good performance on a lot of simultaneous things. Xeons are made to have a high output for several "smaller" things (more L3 cache memory for example).
The i7/i5 architecture will be better. Believe me, if a Xeon was better, I would have a Xeon. We have Xeon's on our bots and web servers because it's better for that usage. (
This is the main server which is overkill BTW but we have a deal on it)
Unless you're a watecooling fan, don't bother watercooling your GPU. It's more complex than for a CPU, it will void your warranty, and will also make any intervention on the card less easy.
Regarding the PSU, I'm really annoyed the store doesn't have the Antec HGC. I will look for information on what they have but the HGC was really the best choice for you.
Here are the higher return stats (based again on the stats of a reseller, for more than 100 units of each model sold : or course this may depend on what people DO with their PSU: for example buying a well-priced one and overloading it):
- 4.46% Cooler Master G550M 80PLUS Bronze (yes that surprised me too, a bad series within the whole series?)
- 3.39% FSP RAIDER S550 550W 80PLUS Silver
- 2.48% Zalman ZM-500LX
- 2.26% Akasa Venom Power 550
- 1.84% Zalman ZM-500GS
- 1.54% Cooler Master B-Series 500W
- 1.49% Zalman ZM-500GT 80PLUS
- 1.47% Corsair CX500 80PLUS Bronze
- 1.44% Cooler Master GX 550W 80PLUS Bronze
- 1.35% Thermaltake Smart SE 530W
The HGC is around 0.95%, was at almost zero (surprising) in the first half of 2014.