New mITX mid range gaming build + my opinions on the components

[Brunsathon9000]

As of 20 minutes ago I've ordered the final bits for my new setup- which will be used equally for work and general multimedia as it will be for gaming and emulation.
Here's the specs and a price breakdown for those that are interested:

Silverstone Sg05BB-450 : £ 96
ASRock H67m-ITX : £ 69
Intel i5 2500K : £147
MSI Hawk 6870 : £136
Kingston HyperX Blu 8gb ram : £ 50
Seagate 320gb 2.5" 7200rpm HD: £ 38
Samsung Slim Optical Drive : £ 19
Akasa Low-profile CPU Cooler : £ 17
Akasa slim sata power adapter : £ 3
______
Total : £575
(+around 25 quid getting it delivered from various places )
I did also buy a scythe shuriken and a 3.5" sata drive, but more on that in a bit
Thought it'd be useful to give a bit of info on some of these bits and my experience with them- particularly with installing them; (as I'm a novice with these things myself ) as sometimes it's hard to find good info / little details when it comes to building a small pc. I'll seperate it in to posts, starting with my initial attempt...:

 

[Brunsathon9000]

A few days ago I started off putting the bits and pieces together, deciding to use just the onboard gpu with the 2500k rather than sit and wait to get a proper one.

SILVERSTONE SG05BB-450 (The Case)
It came in a simple brown box, but was more or less packaged well enough. Accessories were bare minimum- just the screws and the power cable.

After inspecting the case I was very worried about the build quality. Previously I've owned a beast (only in terms of size) of a coolermaster aluminium case, and a shuttle sn78sh7. The build quality of both of these were far far better. The metal used for the sg05 is steel afaik. The it feels heavier, yet more fragile (can easily be bent and warped). It has a strange slightly lumpy paint finish all over as well- as if it was painted for a kid's DT project. Even more worryingly, the grill over the front pan seemed bent and was not flush to the rest of the case: fortunately I managed to fix this however by removing the front of the case and realligning/bending some of the fixtures to make it flush.
The build quality leaves a fair bit to be desired.
5/10 thus far.

ASRock H67m-ITX (The Case)
Decided to go for this as I'd previously had a good experience with the ION 330. It was cheaper than the other options, and had both sata 3 and usb 3. I myself am not interested in overclocking, so a z68/p67 wasn't on the agenda.
It came in a box that was half open in the package it arrived in. Always worries me when there's no seals! The box also smealt like someone had their lunch out of it- but heyho whatcha gonna do

The little rosette in the top corner had me a bit worried. A one year extended warranty? If that's the extended warranty, what the hell was the original one? I'm hoping it's just a year on top of whatever the original warranty was though (fingers crossed it's not 3 months).
Accessory wise was the usual- sataii and sataiii cable, various booklets, driver CD- AND, to my amazement, a lovely pair of cheapo cardboard 3D glasses with a red and blue lens. No idea what they intend me to do with that. Wear them I guess.
Installation was a relative breeze, shoved the ram in, secured the cpu, added the thermal paste, and then I hit a bit of a snag.
I bought a scythe shruiken, thinking that low profle more or less meant small. No, I was wrong. This thing is a nightmare. There's two problems- the first, it more or less covers the GPU slot (see : http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=19574144#post19574144 for my predicament); but even worse, I'm not in a position where I cannot get ANY purchase on the push pins to turn and release them as they're so far in under and behind the ram. AND I CAN'T REMOVE THE RAM AS THE HEATSINK IS AGAINST IT. It's like a bloody leech.
Other than my inability to research in to what size of heatsink would have been appropriate, the motherboard thus far has seemed fine. The labelling on the board was a bit lackluster (on previous boards the different sockets and whathave you were clearly labelled- had to refer to the manual on this occasion. Not a massive deal but y'know). The back panel for the USB ports and ethernet and what have you didn't fit very well in to the back of the case either, but then again I've always had this problem.
Nothing to complain so far, but early days.
8/10

If people are bothered or have any questions I can go in to more detail, I'll upload more stuff as I go along anyways I guess .
Blurry pic of the build thus far (well, kind of ish ): http://s1.postimage.org/bivsfzoqb/Photo1111.jpg

 

[Brunsathon9000]

This is awful. Graphics card arrived- was actually 27.5cm not 25.5cm, so didn't fit. Promptly shoved it on ebay.
The sata cable for the slim optical drive is TOO SHORT. By around 2-3cm. Why the hell is it so short!? It's ridiculous. Literally 2-3 cm too short.
Losing money by constantly selling stuff on ebay, so gonna get a 6850 and a sata extension of some sort and be done with it.

 

[Brunsathon9000]

You do realise you can return any items bought online within 7 days under the Distance Selling Regulations Act?

No I did not- I'll definitely look in to this!

That sounds really odd. How long is the cable? I'll check it against mine.

Is it a full size Sata, or a slimline connector on the back of the slimline drive, or do you need an adaptor. If you need an adaptor it might add the couple of cm you need.

I bought a combined power/data cable for slimline drives by akasa. I think it's around 20cm long. I just presumed that the length wouldn't be an issue- maybe these are intended for laptops? I'm weighing up whether to just get an adaptor to shove in to the back of the optical drive so I can connect a standard sata power cable or whether to look for a longer version of the cable I already have.

The move to steel body of Silverstone cases has been a disappointment to me. Also the reduction in colour choice to just black knocked my interest, as I don't fancy buying the 300W model just to have a silver case.

Looking forward to pictures.

Yeah it really feels like a bit of a step down in truth. Forgot to say that the optical drive cage was a bit warped as well (small lumps)- not an issue but just detracts further from my idea of the quality of the product. I'd of preferred silver too, but heyho- live and learn I guess

Will upload some more pics next week sometime I guess

 

[Brunsathon9000]

Especially since the description was wrong.

I weighed up my options and ultimately decided to stick with ebay. From what I read (which in truth wasn't too much!) they'd refund me the cost of delivery and for the item but not the cost for me sending it back (which would cost atleast £4-£5). Added to this I wanted the money pretty sharpish, I flogged it for a rather underwhelming £124. Heyho. Still might send an angry e-mail to msi (where I actually got the measurements from), but I doubt anything will come from it- if even a reply.

Have ordered a dual fan xfx 6850 (which I intend to overclock a tincy bit) and a longer version of the akasa cable I already have (which I could have bought for 40p more originally if I wasn't so hasty in ordering!).

6850 will arrive tomorrow, but cable will arrive later in the week. Who knew building a pc would take so long!