Inquiry: Motherboard Upgrade (From ASUS to ASUS)

sushiserv

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Aug 15, 2009
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I thank anyone who views/replies to this thread in advance for taking the time out to read this:

I am looking to upgrade my motherboard from my aging (4 years now) M4A785TD-V EVO (link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131398) to a newer AM3+ motherboard that has onboard USB 3.0, and SATA 6Gb/s to fully utilize SSDs.

I am currently looking at other full-size ATX boards here:
+ full list: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006519%2050001315%2040000022%20600138080%20600009016&IsNodeId=1&Manufactory=1315&name=ATX&Order=PRICE&Pagesize=100
+ the cheapest one I have my eye on: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872

The main point:
I am attempting to avoid a clean installation of Windows, because it is extremely time consuming, and I would literally have hundreds of programs to reinstall.
The only drivers I manually installed onto the board were straight from the driver disk and there were not a lot
- VIA Audio Driver
- AMD Chipset Driver (basically ATI Catalyst; has since been uninstalled and replaced with AMD VISION EXPERIENCE (or something) since I now use video with my AMD HD7870, and ATI is dead, long live AMD.)
- RealTek RTL8111/8112 LAN Driver

The new motherboard has similar/the exact drivers, so I am inquiring if I could get away with simply switching the board out. Backups would be made, of course.

And the last question:
Will I see major performance gains switching to a new motherboard solely for SATA 6 Gb/s when I only have one SSD I use for gaming? Should I just save my quid and keep my SATA II board, and just get a PCI slot for USB 3.0?
 
Yes you could get away with simply switching boards, and yes you should see an improvement moving to the faster sata, but only if your processor can support it

I'd say go for the motherboard, as it will allow you to upgrade the cpu should you ever see fit