Building a new PC and reusing some parts

Cobo1742 · Oct 10, 2015

I'm thinking about building a new PC due to some problems with my current build, but I want to reuse some of my parts.

The parts on my current build are as follows;

CPU - FX-6300
GPU - R9 270x
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard
RAM - G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Storage - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
PSU - EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Case - DIYPC Solar-M1-R ATX Mid Tower Case

Now my plan is to upgrade these parts;

GPU - R9 390 or GTX 970
CPU - i5-4690k
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z97-HD3
PSU - Antec HCG M HCG-850M 850W

(I may or may not change my case, I haven't completely decided yet.)

So basically, would it be safe to upgrade these parts and keep my current hard drive, and other such parts? Or should I go ahead and get a fresh hard drive? The only thing keeping me from jumping to wanting a new hard drive is having to reinstall programs and games, and also not knowing how to move my current copy of Windows to a new system. (I bought a disc of Windows 8.1, but have since upgraded to Windows 10.)

glamdringfh · Oct 10, 2015

Hi Cobo,

-If you replace your motherboard you'll need to re-install your copy of Windows (8) and upgrade again. This might influence your choice of getting a second drive or not, so something to keep in mind.

-Your RAM should work just fine in your new motherboard, so that's good.

-Your new PSU is plenty of power for your new build, so that's good.

Basically as far as I can see you should be fine with transitioning with the parts you mentioned above.

NerdyComputerGuy · Oct 10, 2015

Evening,

All of those parts will be compatible, re-using the old hard drive should be fine although if you are going to get an Nvidia card instead of an AMD card then there may be compatibility issues with the drivers since you have AMD drivers installed on your HDD at the moment.

Although there is always the chance that it won't work since you are moving from intel to amd and drivers will have been installed on your hdd relating to amd only and so may not be compatible with your intel processor.

Go into settings on Windows and note down your license key.

Proceed with what you want to do and tell me how it goes.

Regards,

USAFRet · Oct 10, 2015

NerdyComputerGuy :

The license key for the OS is not displayed in "Settings".
There are several 3rd party tools that will find this. And actual licensing depends on what the original license type is...OEM or Retail.

Additionally, a Win 8.1 Upgraded to Win 10 is a whole different thing. The OP might have to go back to Win 8.1 with the original license (if applicable), and then upgrade to Win 10 again.

giantbucket · Oct 10, 2015

w.r.t. migrating an OS, i always do a fresh install and i've never upgraded any current-OS to a new-OS unless it was Linux

w.r.t. reusing hardware, i do it all the time. i have a bunch of random stuff just kicking around - graphics cards, hard drives, ram, power supplies, cables, more cables, heatsinks, etc. i now also have a spare mobo+cpu kicking around, and i regret scrapping an older one cuz now i'd have two mobo+cpu setups to play with.

this, by the way, is a spectacular reason to learn to use Linux. you can install a number of different versions (light or heavy), on several different machines, and all it costs you is some time and some learning.

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