Can you upgrade a pre-built computer? | Biden News

Although it is not always cost-effective and sometimes proprietary connectors make it difficult, you can upgrade almost all components in all pre-built desktop computers.

Prebuilt computers can offer a pretty solid value, especially when parts are scarce. But can you update them like you could with a computer you built yourself?

You Can Upgrade Anything, At a Cost

Before we dig into the specifics, let’s get something out of the way right out of the gate. You can upgrade any pre-built desktop computer if you’re willing to throw enough money at it.

You can swap the case, buy new fans, put in a different hard drive, swap the PSU, buy more RAM, swap the CPU or even replace the entire motherboard. If you’re willing to spend, there’s no real limit to what you can trade in or upgrade. Even for machines that have their own connectors or parts, you can almost always work around that by replacing parts, buying adapters, etc.

Realistically, though, you probably don’t go that far with a prebuilt PC simply because when you start changing out major components, the increased expense wipes out the biggest thing that prebuilt PCs have going for them: savings.

However, whether you have a pre-built PC that you’d like to upgrade, or you’re considering upgrading the one you already have, here’s a breakdown of what you can upgrade and some things to be aware of as you plan your upgrade path.

Upgrading a Prebuilt PC, part by part

Whether or not a special upgrade is worth the hassle largely depends on your budget, how much you want, what the upgrade offers, and your willingness to take care of rebuilding your machine.

We can’t give you specific advice because every machine is different, but what we can do is highlight how easy or difficult a particular upgrade is and whether it’s generally worth it or not.

RAM

Adding more RAM to a pre-built PC is really simple and, of all PC upgrades, about as plug-and-play as it gets.

With a RAM upgrade, the most important thing to remember is that you are limited to the generation and style of RAM your prebuilt computer’s motherboard supports. For example, you can’t put DDR5 RAM sticks in a motherboard that only supports DDR4.

If your pre-built computer is a little light on RAM, this is generally a very simple and inexpensive upgrade.

Hard Drives

Hard drive connections are standardized, and you won’t find pre-built computers with weird drive connectors. Swapping out a mechanical HDD for an SSD is a fantastic upgrade that we often recommend.

The only hard drive upgrade issue you’re likely to run into is a lack of more advanced hard drive connectors like an M.2 slot. That will limit you to using regular SSD drives instead of the more advanced NVME drives.

Generally upgrading the hard drive is a simple operation, although you will need to clone the drive if you want to copy everything, including the OEM-licensed copy of Windows, from the old build to the new build.

GPU

The motherboard interface for GPUs is standardized. You can drop any card from today or even older cards into the PCIe x16 slot without any problem.

If you’re having trouble upgrading the GPU from your pre-built, it won’t be the PCIe x16 slot, it’ll likely be the case, the PSU, or a combination thereof.

If your pre-built computer uses the processor’s iGPU or a smaller video card, then it’s possible that the case simply isn’t big enough to accommodate the size of bulky modern cards. Some of the cards on the market now are so long that they require you to buy cases with enough depth to accommodate them.

Furthermore, the power requirements of GPUs continue to rise, so the PSU included with your pre-build may not be able to handle a GPU upgrade. On the really low side, the PSU may not even have the proper power connections needed for the stronger GPU.

PSU

If you’re upgrading your pre-built PC and find that the existing PSU is underpowered or you’re just not impressed with the quality of the PSU that came with it, you can upgrade it. Considering that the PSU is the foundation of the build, it’s always good to have a quality one.

Swapping one PSU for another is trivial if the motherboard has standard power connectors. If you have a pre-built one from a company that uses proprietary connectors—like Dell and HP do on many of their machines—it’s a little more difficult.

With proprietary connections, you’ll either find that you’re locked into a particular PSU or you’ll have to hunt down adapters for that specific pre-built PC line to allow you to use a standard non-state-of-the-art PSU with that motherboard.

CPU and CPU Cooler

CPU sockets are standardized, and you can usually, easily, upgrade a CPU as long as it uses the same socket and the board supports the chip. You’ll have to remove the cooler, stick the new CPU with new thermal paste and replace the cooler, but it’s not that much of a hassle.

One thing to be aware of if you want to upgrade the cooler instead of just replacing the old one is that some pre-built manufacturers use non-standard cooler mounting holes and plates. In that case, you can’t just insert an option for that particular socket type.

Motherboard

Upgrading the motherboard is a big upgrade because you have to disassemble your pre-built computer to swap out the motherboard, and you may need additional parts if some of the components from your old build (like the RAM) aren’t compatible with the new motherboard.

Overall, we’d advise against it, as it rarely brings real improvements unless you upgrade to a better processor, better RAM, or both.

Once you’ve reached the motherboard replacement stage, it’s less like upgrading a pre-built computer and more like building a brand new one with cannibalized parts.

Computer Case

For the most part, pre-built PCs tend to have either boring cases or cases that are so colorful and loaded with that playful RGB glow that you might be tempted to swap them out.

And even if the dull design or excessive RGB effects don’t bother you, often pre-built machines have terrible airflow and cooling.

As long as your pre-built computer has a standard motherboard (or at least standard board spacing, even if the board has proprietary connections) you should be able to pull it from the old case and drop it right into the new case.