the_culture wrote on Nov 24, 2011, 15:22:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33
4GB RAM
Radeon 470 512MB
W7 64-bit
Wots a "Radeon 470"?
You mean a 4750, right? As for upgrading you need to replace everything but the main priority should be a decent mobo (Asus P8-something/Asrock equivalent) and a gamer quad core CPU like the i5-2500K which you will then want to overclock to run at 4+GHz. Asus boards ship with automatic overclocking capabilities and tools so as long as you have sufficient air cooling then 4+GHz is very easily achieved.
Next you should definitely upgrade your GPU to something like a GeForce 560/560Ti.
Then while RAM is as dirt cheap as it is nowadays get a nice 8GB kit. Like Corsair Vengeance PC-1600 with 8-8-8-24 timings at 1.5V. Amazing high performance memory with a lifetime warranty and very affordable at the moment.
That ought to be your upgrade path for the next couple of months. ATI and nVidia will be launching their 7xxx/6xx series early next year which is just a few weeks from now so you might maybe even want to wait for ATI's 7850 or nVidia's 660Ti/670 before upgrading your GPU.