Just a little update. Cut out the mesh in the case to increase airflow, enlarged the hole at the top of the motherboard plate for the 24pin to fit through, and RMA'd the board twice. Also installed push/pull fans on the rad, with a clear shroud between rad and push fan in order to eliminate the "dead spot" created when the fan is directly mounted to the rad. Still mounted on rear of case as exhaust, which offered lower temps than using them on front or back as intake per Corsair's instructions. CPU idle temp stayed around 28-29c with an ambient room temp between 70-75f...also using the "beta" ICDiamond 24carat thermal compound on CPU and GPU which resulted in a 2-3c drop on both.
First RMA = MOSFETs under the drMOS heatsink crapped out when I overclocked the core voltage from 1.375 to 1.475. After the replacement arrived, I did some research and found that many of these MSI 890fx-gd70 boards have the same issue with the MOSFETs dying...out of the box, or under a mild to extreme overclock. MSI wasn't acknowledging this, they were just sending out replacements that were still dying. This led to me RMA'ing the replacement since I was afraid to use it for what it was designed for, going with a Crosshair IV instead.
I'd also like to add that Newegg let me RMA this replacement, which was/is working fine out of the box, a month or two after my 30day return policy ended. Full refund in the form of in-store credit which I will use for the new board. The rep I spoke to on the phone knew quite a bit about these boards and this flaw, and they've apparently been speaking with MSI about it due to all the RMA's that have been submitted for this model. If MSI releases a revision that is fixed, then it would definitely be a board to check out. Until then, avoid it and go with Gigabyte or Asus.
Also looking at selling the PSU to a friend and buying the modular version, because I don't like seeing that huge mess of wires tucked above the HDD.
Got some better pics before I RMA'd the board again...