Help with modifying store-bought PCs

[mrpcguy123]

Hello all,

I am browsing the internet in search for a good gaming PC at the moment, with a maximum price of £700.00. Seeing as a lot of the graphics cards aren't that good in my opinion, the question I ask is: can I open up a store-bought computer and replace the parts? The games I am looking to play are Battlefield 4 and Garry's Mod (which lags on my laptop with a GT635M 2GB, 6GB of RAM and i7-3632qm).

I can't build my own now as I don't have the expertise to do it. I get the impression that pre-built store PCs are locked down and difficult to modify, but I may be wrong. Here's an example of one I wish to modify: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/hp-pavilion-550-179na-desktop-pc-exclusive-white-10138704-pdt.html

Thanks in advance for your answers!

edit at 17:30: i'll be able to respond in a few minutes to 1 hour, thank you.

 

[Mattz982]

well if you can get into it you can change all the parts, whilst it's really easy to change the parts, if you can do that you can build your own PC. Otherwise I would suggest going somewhere more boutique as I havent seen many stores like PCWorld selling good PC's. The processor is good in that but the graphics card it just awful and it's really bad budget management

 

[CV_Taihou]

Honestly it's a lot easier to build a computer than most people seem to think. If you're comfortable swapping out parts you might as well build a full system and get the best bang for the buck

 

[madmatt30]

Style with little substance is the norm with HP/dell/Asus prebuilds.

You'll find non-standard boards & crap quality psu's generally.

£700 will get you a decent quality prebuild with a midrange cpu & GPU - certainly something around the i5 4460+gtx 960 or equivalent.

Some decent sellers on both Amazon & eBay.