Best thing to upgrade

[coolcup69]

Hi everyone

I am a long time reader, first time poster so please be patient with my somewhat limited knowledge compared to others on this forum.

I purchased my desktop computer about 3 years ago and it generally runs fine. I do not game a lot (mostly play football manager 2013 and civ 5) while otherwise using the PC for checking emails, converting some videos from my video camera, using MS office programs such as excel, powerpoint, word and outlook. I store most of my data on my NAS which I access through my home wifi network. The computer basically has applications as well as some day to day files on it.

My configuration is as follows. Hopefully I have included all the relevant data, please ask if anything else would be helpful:

Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit
Gigabyte EP43-DS3 motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16Ghz
4GB RAM
Graphics card is Nvidia GeForce 9600GT (the dx diag says it has 1904MB of memory)
Western Digital 600Gb HDD (of which 434Gb is free)

My question are as follows:

1. Is this an extremely dated PC for what I am using it for? Will I get a huge upgrade in performance if I bought a new PC for say $1000-$1200?
2. When I start up my PC I usually open Chrome, Excel and Outlook immediately. The computer is a bit slow to boot all these applications up as Windows is going through its start up process concurrently. Is this because I don't have enough RAM? I have also read that adding a solid state drive will boost this speed issue significantly. Some advice on whether I should go down a solid state drive route or upgrade another part of the PC would be most appreciated.

Apologies for the newbie nature of the question, I would just appreciate some advice and thoughts from other forum users.

Thank you

 

[rtlarson3]

first, if you in fact have a 32 bit copy of windows, only 3GBs of your ram is being used so that's something to consider.

For what you use your pc for it should perform well with 4GBs ram and your current setup. It is ancient as far as most people on here would be concerned, but your not gaming.

An ssd would grately reduce boot time and loading applications. even though your pc is old it should still get full utilization from an SSD.

 

[coolcup69]

Thank you for your prompt reply rtlarson3. Very much appreciated. In terms of the games I do play (Civ 5 and Football Manager 2013) would a new PC make a big difference in terms of performance or do you think the SSD will spruce it up enough and my existing hardware is fine to stay as is?

Also, could you please elaborate on what you meant by only 3Gb of ram being used in the 32bit system?