Possibly opting to upgrade rather repair my PC

Some of you may have commented in my posts at BSOD and inability to start up now (Sorry - I don;t know how tor refer to other threads) but it now looks as if I will need to take the PC to a repair shop for repair or upgrade.
Current specs
Intel I7 12700K Twelve Core 3.6 GHz.
MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 Motherboard
Corsair 32Gb Vengeance RAM
Two BenQ monitors
Not sure about display card as I can't access PC but it was a fairly high end card.

Main use is editing photos/video, admin and publishing work (village monthly magazine).

Do I upgrade or pay for repair. Obviously repair cost could be anything but if I go for upgrade, what would be a reasonable items. As a rough guide let's say £500 budget.

Sigurd said:

Do I upgrade or pay for repair

Click to expand...

That's a pretty decent looking system. If you have a decent power supply... I would probably go for repair.
Especially if it's a trusted shop.

To upgrade just the motherboard, CPU and RAM, you're looking at approx. 650 - 700 L's


This could be a decent but not too costly, upgrade...

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/fsK9Vw <----- budget friendly




This is probably the kind of upgrade I would consider for photo/video editing...

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cnhZBL <----- NOT budget friendly

Sigurd said:

Some of you may have commented in my posts at BSOD and inability to start up now (Sorry - I don;t know how tor refer to other threads) but it now looks as if I will need to take the PC to a repair shop for repair or upgrade.
Current specs
Intel I7 12700K Twelve Core 3.6 GHz.
MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 Motherboard
Corsair 32Gb Vengeance RAM
Two BenQ monitors
Not sure about display card as I can't access PC but it was a fairly high end card.

Main use is editing photos/video, admin and publishing work (village monthly magazine).

Do I upgrade or pay for repair. Obviously repair cost could be anything but if I go for upgrade, what would be a reasonable items. As a rough guide let's say £500 budget.

Click to expand...

I'm not suer it'd be practical to do an upgrade for £500.

Example: I7-14700K, £320 (Amazon UK). MSI Pro Z79-0-A, £240 (Curry's). Corsair 2X16GB DDR5% 5200, £112 (@ Corsair).

You already have a system that's one tick below what I'd call high-end.

I've never paid for a PC repair, so I can't guess what the cost might be.

I'm not good at diagnosing hardware faults. I might start with bootable memory test software. Example: Memtest86+ | The Open-Source Memory Testing Tool

In the US, Best Buy - Geek Squad is $300/hr +
And that was before this ridiculous inflation.

The worst part of upgrading, is that often if you replace one you have to replace the other.

Meaning Motherboard/CPU/Ram. But this isn’t always the case if your Motherboard isn’t obsolete. Unless of course it’s the motherboard. But knowing what is failing, it could be either of these things or more than one of these things.

Simply take it to the PitStop repair store, ask them to do a repair quote.
The problem is, they may charge you to run diagnostics to conclude, then charge you for the repair and new hardware costs.
I couldn’t tell you how many pounds (or euros) that may cost you.

However, if you just ask for all 3 parts, it might not cost you much more. But a Motherbord/CPU/Ram for 500, might yield less than what you already have in your case.

It is a conundrum.

The alternative is going through all the recommended diagnostic suggestions in this forum. This will, without a doubt, be time consuming, Ian.

Tread lightly at the PitStop repair store. Ask the right questions, try not to give them an excuse to offer an upgrade if it isn’t needed.

I can only guess (knowing where you live) these guys will be friendly and will have time to have a chat and gladly hear the processes that failed, which you have performed to date.

Either way, the minute you walk into that store, it is going to cost you.
Maybe you could limit their options and tell them your proffered budget is £500, (including their costs) Their costs wont be cheap, you could be left with a £200 upgrade out of £500

That’s a blind guestimate. £300 for their efforts.

The other alternative is to get guidance in here to buy £500 worth of new hardware, without the need for the PitStop. Which is basically what you asked:

I need a Motherboard, CPU and Ram for 500.

Later: I did a little looking. £500 may be do-able for an upgrade. if it's the CPU, MB, and RAM (switching to DDR5). But that assumes you'd do the installation yourself.

To complicate matters, you could contemplate a Ryzen 7000 or 9000 series CPU, especially if you wished to help drive Intel into the ground.

(I'm CPU agnostic. See my two systems.)

Having stopped subscribing to PC magazines a few years ago and had, as you have commented, a decent system anyway that I was perfectly happy with, I have lost track of general pricing levels. Obviously higher than I would have guessed. So yes, perhaps repair would be best.

I'll take it in shortly, ask them to repair it and go from there.