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?
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?