I be upgrading my computer! Buy me items pl0x!

[Jason]

So yeah, after blabbing on with my brother yesterday about his second HDD and shit, I decided it was probably time to upgrade my computer, since it hasn't had any upgrades for like 2-3 years or something...

Right, so at the mo I've got and AMD mobo and CPU, and graphics card, lol, and I'm wanting to upgrade the mobo and CPU, I'll switch out the graphics card later on. My specs are, according to HWMonitor anyways lol:

Mobo: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. M4A78LT-M
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (3.2ghz, 6 cores)
GPU: AMD Radeon 6950 (Can't remember how much RAM this card has though)

Basically, I'm wanting to switch over to... the dark side! ... Yeah, I want to try Intel, since I've always gone AMD lol.

I'm on a budget at the mo, of £400, I don't know if that's good, or bad, for what I'm wanting... like I said, at the mo I'm only wanting to upgrade the mobo and CPU, since my graphics card will still work on it anyway (I'm assuming, AMD and Intel don't get along too well in the real world, lol), unless ofcourse, you think it will be bottlenecking the CPU you recommend me, and if so, tell me a graphics card to aim for, and I'll save up and get that shortly after, I'm hoping for something that isn't TOO expensive, but will still perform greatly along the CPU and such.

Oh, I also know this will mean I need a new PSU too, I'm currently using a Corsair 650w which has been great so far, but if I need a bigger one... yeah, feel free to recommend something.

 

[Ellie]

I'm gonna be completely unhelpful here. Is there an equivalent of the ULTRABOOK specification for PCs?

Also this.

 

[Xhukari]

I'd definitely say to focus on RAM and CPU (motherboard only if needed to change).
What even is HWMonitor? Go into the start menu and search for DXDiag, and tell me what you got.

Depends what you want to do though... It doesn't *really* look like you got much there to upgrade. You are of course free to switch over to Intel, the Intel I7 is on a very good architecture (which these days is much more important that brute power)... in lame-man terms, brute power is just what it has, architecture is knowing how to use what you got to its fullest potential. You will also want the highest MHz and highest GB you can get on your ram, of course this is entirely based on what is compatible with your motherboard. Unless you want uber-sexy-amazing graphics on your PC games, you don't need a good GFX card really. I currently play my games on my laptop; an I7 2.9GHz, 6GB 1600MHz RAM laptop. I exceed 360 graphics. And thats with a crappy Intel 4000 onboard GFX card... so yeah. And try to avoid upgrading the motherboard if you can, all that does is allow you to put in better/different brand hardware into your computer, any performance improvements from the motherboard are insignificant. Good brands for RAM include Corsair and Kingston.