left over upgrades

right, heres one of the most annoying members again, but there are a few outdated parts in my pc. (im gradually replacing all components). I have a budget of around £50 - £75 (not that high but i have other things to buy) to upgrade a few things. here are the things i DONT need replacing:
graphics card
motherboard
cpu
RAM
PSU
sound card

here are some things i would like to upgrade
hard drive ( I have a IDE 80gb one at the mo and those IDE calbes are annoying)
DVD drive (again, i have a IDE one)
speakers (I dont even have any at the moment, i use my headphones)
CPU cooler (not vital but the one i have isnt so effective and its a tad noisy)
Case (not vital)
keyboard (not vital but one good for gaming)
mouse mat (a good gaming one)

now I don't expect to be able to upgrade everything on that list with that budget although I dont really want to spend loads on one piece of hardware.

I think you really need to ask youself what you'll get the most gain from. Ball's in your court on that one.

hmm yea but i was wondering if anyone had any recommendations, or have found any good deals/combinations that might help me.

Does your mobo support SATA? Looks like you have two IDe devices so on most SATA mobos there is one IDE connection so they must be on the same cable?

Of the things you mention, they are not usually sold togther in a bundle so you are looking at individual deals. A decent size HDD ( say 500GB) is going to eat a sizeable chunk of your budget - circa £50 to £55. I would check for the Westerndigital AAKs HDD or Samsung Spinpoint F1s to come on "today only" in Scan and go for one of them.

The HDD should give you a sizeable benefit in terms of speed (and space)

well my motherboard supports SATA II and my hard drive and DVD drive are on the same cable, thats why i want to upgrade. I doubt I'd need 500gb since I only plan to put music, games and homework on there and I managed that on a 80gb with around 20gb left. Itll be nice to have something like a 160gb or 250gb. Either that, if i manage to find cheap 80gb hard drives, I could buy two and use them i raid which will increase my performance. Is there any good deals going on, or any brands i should stay away from?

oh and does anyone know of a cheapish CPU cooler thats quiet but adequate for a tiny bit of overclocking? I have a AMD athlon 64 x2 3600+ on socket AM2. It runs at 2GHz but i'd like to push it to 2.2GHz or something.(if thats possible).

One vote for a set of new speakers. Seems to be the only thing on your list you actually need. Upgrading to SATA drives seems a bit of a waste imo if the IDE drives you currently have are working without any problems. Unless of course you are after better performance.


I wouldn't know what to recommend in the way of speakers but there may be some ideas here
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-vs-5-1-a.html
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-speakers.html
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-speakers.html

i would go for the speakers, out of all those things it will make things more comfortable and enjoyable when playing games or even using your computer, but up to you really.

you may be able to get a few things in that budget all at once:
e.g. DVD drive (~£20)
cpu cooler (~£25-£30)
keyboard (~£20)
mouse matt (~£5)