[CPUs] Upgrade - Reformat?

Mystikalrush

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Nov 22, 2006
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Hi quick question I've been slowly upgrading my PC off my Asus M2N4-SLI Board which is completly upgradable to now days hardware from my old and im currently using an AMD AM2 3500+ and was looking around newegg and found a perty good CPU id like to upgrade to. AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ From what I've read this one is perty famious around the block, So if i switch these two processors around will this cause he no choice but to reformat my computer?

(On a side note i dont want to go out my way and do some crazy file or whatever some people can do so they can avoid the formate phase, i have no problem doing so but im just asking so i can start to back up files.)

Thanks again,
Myst
 
No you wont have to format and reinstall. Only reason for that is a very bad virus or a chipset change. You can change out the mobo as long as the chipset is the same you won't have to reinstall Windows.

Its just drop in, boot up and go.
 


Huh. I wasn't aware that AM2 had single core CPUs in the Athlon range. Plus adding cores and having to reformat? That doesn't sound right. Its like adding memory. Just a faster CPU.
 

grieve

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Apr 19, 2004
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I agree with jimmysmitty, no format necessary...

Even when you make significant hardware changes updating the drives in the device manager will generally resolve most issues.
 

rockbyter

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only changing motherboard, chipset, everything but the hard drive all together will require major changes. On that note however you just run a repair install and your files stay intact.
 

polarity

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Since when does reformatting give a speed boost? Stock windows is slow and needs a lot of work done shutting useless things down to get any decent speed out of it.

Just go through Add/Remove Programs to get rid of stuff you don't use, run a registry cleaner, and defrag.
 


Um Windows XP Pro runs very fast when first installed. In fact my old system would load it from post in about 10 seconds. There is normally nothing useless when its first installed even with SP2. Now yes you can go through and turn off a lot of services to boost its speed but on that system it will be very fast.

As for Vista, it does take a bit more to load but it runs nice and fast after all the updates, especially SP1.