Phenom 9950 upgrade

[manimalgb]

Hi,im currenty running a 9950 phenom with a Gigabyte M68m-sp2 mobo with 4gb of crucial ballistix ram with windows xp as my OS.
Ive got a budget of £200 to update the mobo,cpu and ram, ive already ordered windows 7 to get into the 20th century!
We use the PC mainly for office based programs for the kids homework, internet browsing,watching the odd movie and the occasional game of command and conquer!!
Im upgrading as either the mobo or ram is giving me problems so now seems like a good time.
As far as a cpu goes im leaning towards intel, possibly the i3-2120,but am not quite sure which mobo and ram to go far based on what im using the pc for.
Could anyone kindly gie me some pearls of wisdom into whther the i3 will be quicker than the 9950 and where to go with the mobo/ram choice.
Thanks

 

[malbluff]

The first thing to bear in mind is your power supply. If it's old/on it's last legs, unless you renew it, you run the risk of it failing, and destroy your new components, with it.
Having said that, assuming your case will take micro-ATX motherboard, no problem. Upgrading to i3 will give a good boost, but I would suggest Ivybridge i3 is best, specifically i3-3225. That has the best graphics, even capable of light gaming, without the need for a seperate graphics card. Something like:

Intel Core i3-3225 Dual Core 3.3 GHz
Asus P8H77-M LE Micro-ATX Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance Blue 4GB 1600 MHz C9 DDR3 RAM

Those three items come to about £197 on SCAN. They don't currently have the i3, in stock. Presumably other places do. It's worth getting that particular model, as it's the only one with the best graphics. But do, please think about PSU condition condition, first. Having said that, DON'T go and by a "cheap and nasty" one. That could be almost worse than an old, decent one.