How much is important to have ECC RAM?

I ask that because I was offered a server that uses a good consumer processor (Intel i7-980) with lots of RAM (12 GB) that, of course, is not ECC. :)

ECC is good to have, but it is not essential so you can take that i7 configuration. Most probably you will never have any problems, I also sometimes run desktop computers as servers and I still manage to have good uptime and stability.

EEC is always best to have but can be expensive, Basicly it corrects itself where as non EEC does not, Many errors could cause a server crash.

I use the Intel i7-980 - 16GB DDR3 non EEC version, Very powerfull machines, What price you getting that for.

ECC is not actually that important for Single Processor multi-core "servers" (a core i-7 is not a server class processor hence why the quotes)

If you are using Multiple Opteron or Xeon processors, than you should be using ECC memory since those machines are designed to use high fault tollerance

Its always best to have than not though I suppose.

Also no I7 uses EEC...