Upgrade question for my new prebuilt

[erocdrummer]

Hello, I recently bought this computer with the intent to buy a new video card ASAP:

IBUYPOWER 502D3 Athlon II X2 250 (3.0GHz) 4GB DDR3 500GB HDD Capacity Dedicated ATI Radeon HD 5450 Graphics (512MB) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Power supply is 480W.

Got it on Amazon for $430.

My question is, what is the best video card to upgrade to? I'm not -TOO- concerned about price/value, would just like to upgrade to the best possible GPU for this setup.

Another (less important) question for a little down the road: would it be a pain to upgrade the CPU? I really dont know where to start for that upgrade, but might consider it later...

A little background: I have NO building experience, but basic knowledge. I am aware this is a cheap, low end computer. I bought cheap vice building my own because it seems this will be easy to upgrade AND build my confidence/experience before eventually building my own computer from scratch next time around.

Thanks in advance for any advice
-Eric

After a little research, seems like this would be ideal: Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 1 GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card $114 on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-DisplayPort-PCI-Express-100283-3L/dp/tech-data/B0035K6H2C/ref=de_a_smtd

Would this work? Thoughts?

 

[mlcaouette]

Hey tigerdirect.com has the sapphire HD 5850 extreme for $139.00 with promo code FPY30190. As long as the PSU you have is a quality brand like corsair, antec, seasonic, or xfx you should have enough juice to run that card. You should be able to upgrade to any AM3 cpu easily. Another good tiger deal was the phenom II x4 955 for $99.00 with promo code XGF30241.

Come to think about it, you might not be able to upgrade to that cpu I mentioned cause I don't know what M/B you have so I don't know if it will support the 125w phenom II's.

 

[striker410]

A good idea might be to upgrade to a 5670. A 5670 is going to be a bit lower powered, but it will be a painless upgrade experience. A 5770 is a wise upgrade, but remember that it will need an external PCI-e connector. Make sure your power supply has one before buying.