HP Pavilion PC converted to a gaming pc

[joekikas]

Hello everyone. I am too novice at PC gaming to determine what's good and not good, so I decided to turn to the experienced in the forums. I have a desktop HP computer. It's a Pavilion P7-1517C model. Here are the specs
http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03632874

My question to you all is, can this PC be upgraded to at least a mid level gaming PC for under $800?
Or am I better off investing in a Alienware entry level desktop or something similar. I've studied the PC specs and information from the link I provided but honestly I don't know if I am limited only to the upgrades the website recommends or if I can upgrade any component on it to anything I want. I would appreciate any help I can get. Thanks in advance.

 

[CountMike]

Brand name, ready made computers are rarely successfully upgraded, mostly because of inflexible BIOS and "Just enough" PSU. Best you can expect is to get a discrete GPU and eventually stronger PSU depending on GPU requirements.

 

[wogfor]

My own experience with upgrading a prebuilt (an HP Pavillion) was that I threw lots of $$ at it, and though it did have some big improvements, I was still dissatisfied with the results. One of the big things was the case was very poorly cooled and heat was a big factor with no provisions to add additional cooling.

I finally built my own system and regret the money spent as I could have channeled that money spent into an even better gaming rig.

Your experience may differ as your processor is a bit newer than the one I was starting with but not by much.