Is it necessary to have an expensive outlet surge protector for my PC?

3 years ago the store sold me an $80.00 Cyber Power System Surge Protector multi outlet with my computer. It stopped working and still under warrenty would cost a fortune to replace battery or send back for replacement or repair because it is heavy. Can I replace with something more reasonable in price and still have similar protection ?

Is it necessary to have an expensive outlet surge protector for my PC?software

If it has a battery, then it is a UPS, not a surge protector. (Although most UPS units have surge protection built-in.)

A UPS or uninterruptable power supply is designed to run stuff when the power is down, which you don't need; and any battery will go bad over time.

A $5 or $10 surge protector is much better than nothing, but there are differences in these devices. I'd recommend one with a rating of 1000 joules or more and a built-in circuit breaker.

If you spend $50 to $80 you can get a protector with 3 levels of protection, Zener, big MOV's (the usual type), and gas discharge. Probably overkill, but you never know.

We had a windstorm in my town %26 a broken tree branch knocked a high voltage line into the low voltage (120V) line. We had a microwave oven transformer blow-up, 3 surge protectors, 2 GFI outlets, and a DVD player fail. None of the computers or TVs were harmed because we had surge protectors on them. The DVD player had a tiny surge protector built inside, but it wasn't big enough to do its job.