I'm in Canada, and the cheapest price difference I can find between the 6700k and 6600k is about $120.

Is there much difference between the ssd I selected and the 960 pro? I looked at the 950 pro and with the savings on the ram the difference is still over $100.

Board is working perfectly for me, the price diff to the regular Hero was was roughly the price of a wifi/bt card, and I save a pcie slot. Fewer USB than the Hero, but it's enough for me.
And the LED headers are awesome (just picked up a cheap 5050 RGB strip, lovely)

For my 2 cents, if there are constraints in budget:
- The new faster SSDs are starting to reach diminishing returns in normal use. I have the 950 pro, while it's measurably faster than any SATA based SSDs, in day to day use I can't tell much difference (I used to have an crucial MX100…). Loading something in 2 seconds vs 1.5 seconds is not typically perceivable. Unless you run a ton of photoshop or video editing that needs high throughput...it’s generally better to have MORE SSD than a faster SSD. The newly announced 960 pro is even faster than the 950, but the bigger benefit is on thermal management vs 950 pro. The sticker (yes the label sticker) on the 960 now has a thin layer of copper that supposedly helps improve thermal headroom by 30% IIRC.
- If SSD speeds are important, another option is to use the U.2 connectors on the Alpha for the Intel 750 drive, where you can place it elsewhere in your case with better cooling. The M.2 slot on the alpha sits right under the 2nd graphics card slot, so if you are planning on CF/SLI now or in the future, thermal throttling on the M.2 card may become an issue.
- Same with RAM speeds. Many benchmarks and tests do not show any benefits for extreme RAM speeds, since the bottleneck in your system isn’t typically there. Again more ram is typically better than faster ram, but 16GB should be plenty for now, unless you run a ton of PS or video editing that can really use the RAM
- as others have said, getting the i7 6700k may be better improvement on overall performance if you drop down a bit on the SSD and RAM

What will you use the build for? That's critical to know where the money should be spent.
IMO, assuming the budget envelope given, stick with the Intel SSD or even consider cheaper SATA options like 850 EVO, and drop to lower speed RAM to subsidize the 6700k
Unless if this is for a gaming build, then keep the 6600k and spend the savings on the graphics card.

Side note: nice pick on the headphones, I have the same. Amazon typically runs specials quite often on the m50x, might want to look out for those

As for win7 on m.2, I haven’t done it myself but the general issue seems to be that win7 don’t have native drivers for PCIe/NVME drives, so making sure you have it on the USB stick should be sufficient. Win10 works well for me and I haven’t looked back…

It'll be a gaming pc. I already have a r9 280x and a corsair 1000 psu so I don't need a gpu or psu. I also for the longest time was planning on buying the 6700k but after some research I read it might not due much more for gaming. That and the price difference changed my mind.

I was looking at u.2 drives awhile back and it looks too expensive for the size I want. M.2 seemed like better value.

Thanks for the tip about the headphones, I'll be watching amazon.

In that case, keep the 6600k and save some money on the RAM for games or future upgrades!
Check the price diff between the intel drive with the samsung 850 EVO as well, and see if the slightly faster speeds is worth it. Day to day I really can't tell, maybe some games that have really long loads may be helped...