Webuser Forums: Is it time to upgrade Motherboard/CPU?

New season greetings all,

I'm a bit of a newbie for modding a computer as this was built for me a while ago, so here goes, I have as follows:

MB: Gigbyte GA-K8NF-9, socket 939, NVIDIA nFORCE4 chipset
Proc: AMD Opteron 148
Mem: Cosair 2GB Pc 3200 DDR SDRAM
GC: Geforce 7600GT 256Mb PCI-Ex
OS: XP pro

I mainly use my computer for Photo/video, internet and gaming (online).

The problems started a couple of months ago with a slowness to change inbetween or run a couple of applications (internet and/or computer based) and has steadily got worse with downloading from the net. Even my games got juddery or froze. I done the usual clean up procedures but still the slowness is still there?
The suggestions I have had so far range from more memory to upgrading the Mobo and/or the CPU to Dual core or Quad?

I know this sounds a right mess, but if I its possible, I would rather upgrade (simple enough for me) than have to splash out on new stuff, right after Xmas and the new year.

Any advise would be most welcome.

Many thanks in advance.

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