Freidog

bad idea. You gain nothing. And it adds more resitance (however small) to the line (makes things worse). Plug in the 20 pin connector as is or buy a PSU that supports the 24 pin connector natively.

define need? All the power and ground busses (except the dedicated CPU connector's) are common, you don't loose the ability to power certain slots or devices by not having a 24 pin main connector. However, the extra pins are not there purely for show. Each PCIe x16 slot is designed to deliver up to 5.5A @12V. And another signifigant amount (about 3.5A) @ 3.3V. The added pins are designed to share that increased load (partiuclarly the load at 12V as a 20 pin connector has only a signle 12V return line). General rule: low power system, no problem. decent gaming machine, should be ok with a goo

A top mounted fan is a good idea, really helps with exhuast, especially that little nook between the PSU and 5.25'' bays where hot air can really stagnate. I wouldn't go nuts, 1 is fine, leave space for a second in case you think it's absolutely neccessary. With a 120mm fan, the PSU fan, and a new 80mm top fan you have more than enough exhuast. Think about how you're getting cool air to the CPU and GPU now. The 80mm side fan is a good start. An 80mm fan in the front by the HDDs won't really do much to help the GPU or CPU, but a quiet, low RPM intake fan isn't a bad idea up there to keep th

For light gaming, the S754 semprons are a good choice. Though I wouldn't go with the 3000+, 128K of L2 just isn't enough. The 2800+/1.6ghz or 3100+/1.8ghz have 256K of L2 and perform pretty well in games compared to the AthlonXPs of the same PR ratings. AthlonXP would be perferable if theres a decent amount of content creating (audio / video editing / creation) as the bigger cache and high clock speeds make a big difference. But don't worry about getting a "Sempron 64." If it's the same price as the 'regular' sempron, OK. But don't pay for a feature your friend is unlikley to ever use and ev