I think for 1k CAD being about even with 1k USD you could have gotten a setup similar to mine an HP C-3000 enclosure that holds 8 blades and gotten as I did a few HP Proliant BL-460 Gen 7's with equal CPU's from Ebay there are many to choose from and yes 16gb is just fine but I overkill also with 64gb in my main blade running Windows and 16gb in another running Linux. ODLK1 WU's average 3.5mb per task but I also have my main rig running with my storage array. Yes the machine is loud with 6 massive turbo fan's but the power consumption is insanely low @ about 350watts each even with my 2 x 15k SAS drives in raid 1. There is a plethora of these systems out there to the point where people are finding them in dumpsters , they really do not sell on Ebay so you can get them for a song and dance , literally $25 for a machine with 2 xeon CPU's and 16gb ( of course ECC ) and you have a vast choice of CPU's. Yes its loud and yes loaded down with all 8 systems uses about 1.6kw but it crunches pretty damn well. ODLK1 seems to be a pretty crappy project to crunch any more now that its been whitelisted for a while , and people crunching via their work systems without permission screwing the rest of us honest people paying the power bills out of our own pockets , I am thinking of going back to Amicable Numbers where my MAG was 180 and I am lucky @ 55 with ODLK1. We really need more projects on the whitelist especially with grcpool making it impossible for the solo crunchers.. Now on another note it looks/seems like a pretty bad ass server and no matter what anybody says as long as you are happy with the deal and like what you got who cares what we say :) its all personal opinions and meaningless. Look threw the projects and number of crunchers and number of hosts and dig into them a little bit and you will find where you fit in best. It takes a while of crunching to build up that RAC and MAG follows , same with payout. Unfortunately with the current value of Gridcoin its hard to justify the electricity cost but over time things will recover and the value will be there. Just keep crunching and stick in there and all good things come to those who wait.