Is it worth upgrading this 5-years old PC?

[ParadoxicLust]

Hello guys, I'm sure the community has enough of such threads of beating dead horses with, but my knowledge when it comes to PC components is basically pretty much useless after being swamped for years with work and studying (Thanx for the worst decision ever of becoming a physician).

Long story short, this PC was built years ago and I can see that its performance became almost unbearable with slow scrolling, slow processing, laggy HD videos and non-existent ability to game with anymore.
I'm not looking for a beast gaming PC, I just want to ask if it is salvageable at this time with a budget around 300$ to upgrade components that might show significant boost without having to build a new one from scratch.

These are my specs:
Mainboard : Gigabyte EP43-UD3L
Chipset : Intel P45/P43
Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3000 MHz
Physical Memory : 4096 MB (2 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Hard Disk : Western Digital WD3200AAJS-00L7A0 ATA Device (320GB)
Hard Disk : WD My Passport 0748 (1000GB)
Power Supply: COOLMAX CA-550 ATX POWER SUPPLY
DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH22NS50
Monitor Type : Sony SONY TV - 72 inches
Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium Home Edition 6.01.7601 Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
DirectX : Version 11.00
Windows Performance Index : 5.9 on 7.9

Thank you guys so much and looking forward for your kind inputs!

 

[animal]

Start saving your money. $300 will not be enough to build anything and with as old of technology as everything currently in your system is, no point in trying to upgrade because in essence, it would turn into a new build.

 

[md1032]

One of my friends still runs a Core 2 Duo system to this date, 64-bit, just like you. Your system will run significantly faster with a single upgrade to a Solid State Drive. I know, because I bought an inexpensive 120 GB SSD for said friend with a Core 2 Duo system. His system is unfathomably faster with the SSD. It is amazing how much faster you can make almost any computer when you remove the I/O restriction an old hard drive presents. You will be required to reinstall Windows, but I promise that it will be worth the effort. Your computer shouldn't even really feel slow right now to be honest. You likely need a reinstallation anyway.

Do yourself a favor, with a budget of $125 or so, go on ebay and look for a used 240 or 250 GB SSD. You only have SATA II, so buying a newer model will not help you. Look for outdated models like the Samsung 830, OCZ Vertex Plus, Vertex II, OCZ Agility III, Sandisk Ultra (not the Ultra Plus), almost anything of that sort. You can leave your other drive in the computer and use it for storage.

If you want, you can use the remainder of your budget for a GTX 750 Ti. That will also give you a really nice graphics upgrade that will keep your system going for a few more years.

 

[Vic 40]

I think you could do two things,upgrade the platform to a am3+ one or just get a newer gpu and see how it goes.

For the slow scrolling and such might it help to reinstall windows and use the latest drivers.

For such a system upgrade would you look at something like this,

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: AMD FX-4300 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($100.00 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($44.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($42.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X 2GB Video Card ($135.38 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Micro Center)
Total: $343.31
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-16 09:35 EDT-0400)

I also put a new psu in because of that you brand is in tier 5 in the next list,
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx
if you feel confident it will run with the old psu than that's up to you,looking at that it powers an amd 4800 should it be enough.

you could also go for just a better gpu which will help in games and the video part too i think,like ,
for nvidia:http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-n660gaming2gd5oc
for amd:http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-r9270gaming2gv305 (from thse two is this the better one)
A better psu is still recommended.
they probably/definitely will be bottleneckt by the cpu,but that also depends on which games you play too.Some do need more cpu power.

You could also indeed just save up for something better down the line.That choice is yours.