Help a newbie out..burning smell

If nothing turned on at all, then there was a problem with power delivery. That implies that the PSU failed, although I'm not sure of exactly why it failed (assuming that PSU failure is the problem). If you skimped on PSU quality in favor of price, then that might be related to your problem. Very cheap PSUs are almost always junk that is worth even less than what they cost.

Yeah...a burning smell is never good. Check the psu for anything in it, check the wires are not kinked or cut, and check if there are any blown capacitors on the mobo. If there are blown capacitors, you need a new mobo. Did you use the standoffs that came with the case or motherboard? If you didn't, you had a short, which is why nothing turned on. If your lucky, it may still work.

Yeah I definitely skipped quality on the PSU. It was 30 bucks for a 585w HEC. I've already shipped it off for a refund, I don't even want a replacement. Everything inside of it looked correct so it's undoubtedly just cheap.

Yes I did use the standoffs unfortunately. They came with the motherboard so I assumed it wouldn't create an issue. Unless I'm imagining things I swear I can smell the scent near every location they were installed. So this probably means new MoBo as well.

Now all I'm really concerned about is the CPU, GPU, RAM, as I don't really have a way to determine if they were damaged too. I felt the CPU immediately after the incident and it was cool to the touch...I guess this means no power reached it? Maybe the other parts were lucky in the same way? I just don't wanna be a complete dick and mail every single item back.

Thanks for the input!

Testing the video card, CPU, and RAM in a functional motherboard shouldn't cause problems, so if you get another motherboard and test the other components, you should be fine, but I'm not sure about whether or not they would work. Once a component is dead, it usually can't kill other components when you test it with other components, but I can't guarantee that it won't. If you want to, then test them with a new motherboard and PSU, but if you don't want to risk it, then you might get yelled at (figuratively) by the companies that you RMA them to if they're still functional. Personally, I'd test them with a new motherboard and PSU. If they are dead and they manage to break your new PSU and motherboard, then you could just RMA them all, including the new parts that die, but it's unlikely that a dead CPU, RAM module(s), and video card could damage an otherwise working system. Chances are that the CPU works and the RAM and video card might work too.