Upgrading xps 8300 motherboard

Motherboards get replaced with the same model board not upgraded. The cpu might be upgraded although that's not recommended.  What are you trying to do? No matter what you do, Windows 11 cannot be installed on the old 8300 or 8700. Wait until the end of this year when the rules are finalized.

Re: Can I put a xps 8700 motherboard in the 8300? Or what higher level motherboard can I use? 8500,8700?

you may install 8500/8700 or 8900 board in 8300 case and use the 8300 case power switch cable to turn on newer boards, but you will lose connection to all USB3.0 header on the newer boards because 8300 case front panel usb cable is 2.0 only, which is incompatible with usb3.0 header.  Some newer boards have eliminated all usb2.0 header, which means all your 8300 usb 2.0 ports are useless.
 In order to connect to usb3.0 on newer boards, you would need to install a 8500/8700 front panel assembly too to replace the 8300 one.  This may be technically more difficult than swapping motherboard.

you can drop in almost any micro ATX board with industry standard 9 pin FIO header in this case if you do not mind the loss of USB3.0.  

pros and cons of 8700 over 8300: Z87 chipset vs H67, top cpu i7-4790 vs i7-2600. both are 4 core cpu not as great as 6 core i5-8400/i7-8700 or better.  On the other hand a 8900 board/Z370 chipset and 8th gen coffee lake cpu is much more costly than 4th gen Haswell.

8500