No matter how low I adjust my setting, audio keeps stuttering.

This is mighty annoying since otherwise, my arcane (and in some aspects ancient!) system runs the game quite smoothly.

One suspect is UE4 Shader Compilation - see this thread:
https://www.gog.com/forum/system_shock_series/shader_compilation_ue4

Another suspicion on Steam is related to a "Sound Channels bug"
https://steamcommunity.com/app/482400/discussions/0/3836550120028594903

My config: CPU: Q9550, RAM: 8GB DDR2, GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060
Fun fact: This config ran the demo just fine with effects set pretty high!

What OS are you running it on? are you still on a mechanical HDD?
both specs might have influence on the experience.

I also run an "ancient config" yet the game runs quite smoothly even on a mechanical HDD.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-7100 CPU @ 3.90GHz
RAM 12 GB
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Sound Device Creative SB X-Fi

The game is installed to an SSD. My OS is Win 10 21H2.
However your CPU is almost 10 years newer (2017 vs 2008).

Yet mine is a dual core, yours is quad.
My GPU is the only one pulling hard work. I do get stutering then crash after the trying to exit the cyberspace on Storage floor.

I haven't updated the game yet however I managed to pass the section by lowering the effects (specially shadows and post processing)

I also got slow performance on the flight decks area near the scape pods.

Stuttering on the Engineer deck made the game unplayable, yet lowering this settings allowed me to get at least playable frame rate.