Do I Have to Uninstall Windows To Change My Motherboard

[BLAZNGCOLDBACON]

2 months ago I built my own pc based on B350 and Ryzen 3 but I checked gaming performance of a Ryzen 5 1600 and I i3 8100 and they seemed the same (R5 was not overclocked). I now want to upgrade my pc to coffee lake architecture on preferably the Z370 platform or B360 if it supports overclocking. I want to get the i3 8100 as a placeholder until I can get a i5 8600k. I was thinking, since that I solely remember only installing 3 motherboard drivers (chipset, LAN, audio), that I could just uninstall those drivers and just put in the new board and install the new drivers. I will back up my games anyways just in case. I have the full retail version of Win 10 Home.

 

[WildCard999]

Do a clean install to avoid any conflicting drivers or possible issues and backup any important files.

 

[mazboy]

odds are you will be introducing all manner of problems if you try to keep the old install of the OS on the old drive. Solve the problem right off the bat by doing a wipe (at least I would wipe: others will argue) and then a clean install ("custom" not "repair")of Win10.

 

[USAFRet]

1. Don't change from a Ryzen 3 to an Intel i3 8100.
If you're going to change, wait a generation.

2. If you DO simply have to change now....yes, you should do a full wipe and reinstall on the new hardware.

 

[caqde]

2 months ago I built my own pc based on B350 and Ryzen 3 but I checked gaming performance of a Ryzen 5 1600 and I i3 8100 and they seemed the same (R5 was not overclocked). I now want to upgrade my pc to coffee lake architecture on preferably the Z370 platform or B360 if it supports overclocking. I want to get the i3 8100 as a placeholder until I can get a i5 8600k. I was thinking, since that I solely remember only installing 3 motherboard drivers (chipset, LAN, audio), that I could just uninstall those drivers and just put in the new board and install the new drivers. I will back up my games anyways just in case. I have the full retail version of Win 10 Home.

AMD has new Ryzen chips coming out this year to compete against Coffeelake I would wait until they are released before making your shift. Remember that the main performance uplift that coffeelake has over Ryzen is due to the clockspeed differences between the platforms. Ryzen 2 (Zen+) is going to have incrreased clockspeeds over Ryzen and are due to be released in April and be compatible with your B350 motherboard after a BIOS update. The last thing you want is to swtich platforms for a minimal performance uplift only to find out that you could have had a better upgrade path by staying where you were. Also remember that the AMD platform has an upgrade path to Ryzen 3 and 4 chips and Intel will likely only allow for you to upgrade to an i3/5/7 9x00 series chip..