I'm not usually one to blatently promote Folding@Home, but in this case folding on the card would help you put your mind at ease. The points per day figures from that card may help you feel at ease about the purchase.
I got burned by the Cougar Point SATA bug so I personally have no problems buying tech later in its lifetime. Do you think you would've bought the next-gen cards at release?
As for your question about RAM, according to G.SKILL's web site, the 2 kits you listed are spec'd the same. Timings, command rate, voltages, and even height of the module. If your motherboard has one on the memory support list but not the other, then get it. Otherwise, you can try and guess which one will still be around when you feel like adding another 8 GB
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