I bought this Xigmatek HDT-D1284 with the intention of getting the optional mounting kit but unfortunately that's been discontinued (I did find one store in Poland that had it in stock but when my friend ordered it for me, it turned out the website was just out of date), so I'll just have to use the included AM3 clip, which secures to the standard bracket.

So I was just finally getting round to fitting the motherboard, etc in my case and noticed that my Asrock 880GMH-U3S3 has the mounting brackets secured with pushpins. I recalled I had some bolt-on/screw on brackets somewhere, so dug through my stuff and found my Biostar TA790GXBE uses screws and a backplate but has the large single bracket that surrounds the CPU socket, compared to the Asrocks two pieces that only go on two sides. I understand the two pieces is meant to be slightly better for cooling (and perhaps is better for clearance with large heatsinks as well). I then found my MSI 990FX-GD80 brackets, which are two individual pieces like the Asrock along with a backplate , although I can't find the screws for them right now (the TRUE rev.c I'm using on the MSI board has it's own bolts so I'm not using them on there, so they must be around somewhere).

So what I was thinking of doing is taking the screws from the Biostar board and using the MSI brackets and backplate (or the Asrock brackets and MSI backplate with the Biostar screws assuming they fit together, which I guess they should). I'll have to either use the pushpins from the Asrock brackets or wait until I find/buy some screws to reattach the bracket to the Biostar board but I'm not planning on using that anytime soon, so that's not a problem.

It's only because I've got to ship this PC to my brother that I want to make sure it's mounted as securely as possible but before I go ahead, I wanted to ask whether you think it's worth it or if swapping the pushpins for screws/bolts and a backplate isn't really going to help much?

It seems Xigmatek have a new mounting bracket, the ACK-U01. I've been e-mailing them the last few days trying to find out if this is compatible with the HDT-D1284 because if it is, it would solve all my problems. I guess it's just a matter of whether the crossbar fits into the slots in the HDT-1284 base or if they changed the design of the slots for their newer heatsinks.

EDIT: They've confirmed it is compatible

EDIT2: Aw, man. After popping out the default Asrock CPU brackets held on with pushpins, struggling with the dodgy instructions (I found some correct instructions on their website after a bit of headscratching
http://www.xigmatek.com/console/uploadf ... manual.pdf ) it turns out the holes on the mounting clips are too close together by a matter of mm, so it's impossible to align both holes with the screws attached to the backplate I hope it was just a badly manufactured batch and they can supply some clips with the holes in the right place.

It's a bit weird that the instructions, in picture 6, show that the inner slotted holes on the AMD mounting clips should be used as these are majorly too close together to line up with the screws. The outer holes are close but as I say, out by a few mms which is enough to prevent them lining up with the screws.