As JRPGfan has said, it's pretty hard to upgrade notebooks/laptops. You're better setting yourself a budget and try to build a desktop PC, nowadays they can be quite small.

An RX 480 may be bottlenecked by his CPU.

I added to it before you replied

I assume that is directed to me since I started the thread (someone else chimed in with their specs). Are you saying that spending the money on the new RX 470 would be pointless and I should go for a current card that is on the market right now? If so, what would you suggest?

Your CPU will be a bottleneck for anything over 1080p for sure. You will also see about 10-15% less performance on most games compared to similar benchmarks for the same video card, this may increase as games get more demanding.

With that said you will get amazing performance out of an AMD R9 380 or a GTX 960. So long as you stay at or under 1080p for resolution you should be able to get near-MAX on all settings and get a stable 60FPS for all but the most demanding games. They will run better, and look better than anything the PS4 can put out.

You could also wait for the RX 480 to come out and actually be in stock, you will likely wait a couple months unless you get lucky. It will be cheaper and perform better than both my suggestions above, but entails a wait. You will also likely lose closer to %20 performance vs standard benchmarks due to your i3 CPU. 

You should not have to worry that much about that performance loss though since you can always upgrade your CPU later. Any Motherboard that can run an i3 can run an i5 so when you get the cash together later you can upgrade your CPU and get performance gains throughout your entire system.

There is quite a bit to consider when upgrading huh?

A lot to consider but cool to finally have an understanding of this stuff. Always shied away from it because I like the plug in and play of consoles. Honestly, it's Microsoft's announcement about Xbox Play Anywhere that started me thinking about doing this.

Doing a quick search of graphics cards on ebay, the ones you mentioned are at the same cost or even higher than the RX 470 coming out that I'm considering. You think demand for that will be high too?

Yeah I think you run the risk of getting bottlenecked by your CPU.

I think a RX 480 might be more than you need for your CPU.

But no, the RX 470 will be great value, and be one hellva a boost for your computer (im assumeing your just useing its integrated graphics card now?).

4 gigs more of ram, and a RX470, and your PC should be respectable enough to game with.

If you have a motherboard that can OC, you might look into giveing your CPU a overclock.

Should be able to get atleast 200-300mhz more outta it.

How high is your power supply rated ?

Some of those cheap complete packaged PCs you buy from like Dell, ship with minimum required specs on stuff like the PSU.

If thats the case you might have to buy a new power supply as well (when you put in a new graphics card).

Yes, I expect the demand for the 470 will likley be higher than the 480, depending on price.

Additioanl thoughts, It is rare that a new-release and highly anticipated card sells at MSRP or are easy to get during the first couple of months. If you do not mind waiting for the 470 then that may be a better choice but as of now there is no release date and the price has not yet been announced. Typically the x70 series cards relealse 1 or 2 months later than the x80 cards. So if the 480 releases on the last day of this month the 470 will not release until sometime between end of July and end of August.

If you compare the demand to Nvidia's side of the coin, right now the GTX 1080 and 1070 are both totally sold out everywhere but ebay. They were released 5/27 and 6/10 repsectively. The next shipment is expected to sell out just as fast. It is just like the PS4 and PS3 releases, the hardware manufacturing cannot keep up with demand.

If it were my money I would pay the extra amount for the 480 vs the 470 (if it is within $40) with the expectation of upgrading the CPU later. Yes, your GPU will be bottlenecked by your CPU for a while but it is only temporary, and to be hondest even the 470 will be bottlnecked, just not as much.

I have a 500w power supply shipping to me at this very moment. :)

OK. Got a question about power supplies. I got a 500w supply thinking that's fine. But now I'm seeing in specs for different cards things like "2 x 6pin". What do I need know about the specs of a card to make sure it works with my power supply?

Well here is a quick breakdown of the PowersSupply connectors.

The 4+4, 4+2 (or 8PIN) will be the for you CPU.

The 6 or 6+2 (or 8pin, not the same as above) will be for your GPU.

The 4-PIN molex is for you old style IDE Drives, but are mostly used for Case fans and other miscelaneous internal compononts, you should not have to worry about the number of these anymore.

The Sata Power is for Hard Drives, SSD's, and Optical Drives.

The power rating determines MAX output of the PSU. A Silver can run at high heat and output 70% of rated volume, Gold, is 80-85% and Platinum is 90%+

You typically want Gold-Rated PSU as that is best bang for buck.

When you order a modern PSU it generally has 4 6+2 pin connetors for your GPU. You can find out for sure by checking the specification on the sitre you ordered it from. If you look at it a get a bit confused by the specs you can post a link and I will take a look and let you know if you ordered an appropriate one.

Typically though, so long as you ordered a known name brand PSU you should be fine for anything outside of SLI for graphics cards (linking more than 1 GPU together).

Edit*

There are also figures such a power output on the 12 Volt Rail and similar nomenclature. You do not have to worry about this information unless you plan on running really high end equipment, multi-SLI GPU's, and or heavy overclocking. If you are buying a new PSU it will have enough power on the needed power rail.