Can i just swap my CPU and motherboard without reinstalling windows?

[Dio27]

I have been thinking about upgrading to AMD Ryzen and of course that means upgrading my motherboard as well. However i have seen a lot of conflicting views on whether I need to reinstall windows. Some people say it won't boot at all and you to reinstall and reactivate. While some tutorials online say to uninstall the drivers and play around in the registry and yet others say it will automatically just load the new drivers and everything will be fine. So which of these are true?

Here are my specs.
Gigabyte ga 990fx gaming motherboard
Amd fx8320
Windows 10
Gtx 1060 3gb
16gb DDR3 Ram.

 

[Paul NZ]

You could but not a good idea. Do a clean install

 

[USAFRet]

I have been thinking about upgrading to AMD Ryzen and of course that means upgrading my motherboard as well. However i have seen a lot of conflicting views on whether I need to reinstall windows. Some people say it won't boot at all and you to reinstall and reactivate. While some tutorials online say to uninstall the drivers and play around in the registry and yet others say it will automatically just load the new drivers and everything will be fine. So which of these are true?

Here are my specs.
Gigabyte ga 990fx gaming motherboard
Amd fx8320
Windows 10
Gtx 1060 3gb
16gb DDR3 Ram.

Going from that to a Ryzen...you really, really, really need to do a clean install.
And you might not have the choice. It simply may not boot up.


Changing motherboards, is a 100% maybe.
It might work, it might not.
It might, but with lingering issues you only find later.

And since there is exactly 0% experience in doing this with a Ryzen system....anyone who says it will absolutely work is just blowing smoke.

 

[Dio27]

I have been thinking about upgrading to AMD Ryzen and of course that means upgrading my motherboard as well. However i have seen a lot of conflicting views on whether I need to reinstall windows. Some people say it won't boot at all and you to reinstall and reactivate. While some tutorials online say to uninstall the drivers and play around in the registry and yet others say it will automatically just load the new drivers and everything will be fine. So which of these are true?

Here are my specs.
Gigabyte ga 990fx gaming motherboard
Amd fx8320
Windows 10
Gtx 1060 3gb
16gb DDR3 Ram.

Going from that to a Ryzen...you really, really, really need to do a clean install.
And you might not have the choice. It simply may not boot up.


Changing motherboards, is a 100% maybe.
It might work, it might not.
It might, but with lingering issues you only find later.

And since there is exactly 0% experience in doing this with a Ryzen system....anyone who says it will absolutely work is just blowing smoke.

So uninstalling the old drivers and preinstalling the new ones won't work? Because if i need to reinstall all my games it could take months as I only have 250gb of Internet that has to be shared with a family of 4. And if Ryzen is untested, what about skylake? Are there any that you are certain that I could upgrade to?

 

[wpgwpg]

Believe USAFRet. As a rule, whenever you replace the motherboard, you have to do a clean install, and you may have to buy a new Windows license. There are no absolutes here, but if you make this change, you should be prepared.

 

[Danra]

You need to do a clean install.

AMD Ryzen and motherboard are both new technology.

 

[USAFRet]

And if Ryzen is untested, what about skylake? Are there any that you are certain that I could upgrade to?

No.
With any motherboard swap, it carries a good probability of requiring a clean install.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And you won't know until it doesn't.