I'm still playing with building myself, but you certainly make a good point about wire shelves. I'm looking at 'tech benches' at the moment, seems a nice compromise between case and no-case (I don't feel entirely comfortable having a board not securely anchored, but I'm kind of a huge wuss).
P.S. I never said thanks for this article, I built most of my stuff before I read this but it was still a good read nonetheless
with the horrible "push-clip" securing style
Oh man, I forgot about those. Yeah, they're terrible! I took them off (which was easy).
And yes, you're right about the case connectors. Those wouldn't fit a long video card. If you don't have a case, though, you don't need those connectors, so not a huge deal.
But...
My favorite board thus far is the MSI 890FX-GD70
Yeah, that's a nice board
. It's a shame the last slot is unusable if you have a case.
But, as I said, I probably wouldn't use a case again. I'd just buy a wire shelf from the hardware store, cardboard, and twisty ties. Heck, you could even use extenders and dangle video cards from an upper shelf with the mobo below it
