For context, my i7-10th generation laptop motherboard died. I use it for school for a course that requires design software. Took it to several qualified technicians who were unable to revive it. Now, the laptop is only about 3 years old and cost me a fortune and so obviously I cannot afford a motherboard or a new laptop of the same specs. However, I have found an i5- 10th generation motherboard that fits my budget. For the same budget I can also get a refurbished laptop with a warranty but with lower specs like an i5 6th gen and smaller screen inch size. So my question: which should I choose?
Go for the motherboard. Warranties on ‘refurbished’ devices are only useful if you run out of toilet paper. It’s an almost 8 year old device, there were multiple skus in reach generation, if the laptop you’re considering had one of the higher power ‘h’ or ‘hx’ Quad-Core skus it will probably actually not be that far off in terms of CPU performance from your current machine but it will use a lot of power and have inferior graphics (unless you’re 10th gen was also a high power one). If however is one of the low power dual core ‘u’ skus it won’t be useful for anything beyond basic web browsing and word processing.