Planning to upgrade my motherboard

Matt Hiep-Vo

Reputable
Mar 4, 2014
6
0
4,510
Approximate Purchase Date: 2-3 weeks
Budget Range: 150$
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming; Light Video-Editing; Home Theater PC
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: Motherboard (Using a Raidmax 535W 80Bronze)
Do you need to buy OS: No
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com
Overclocking: Maybe
SLI or Crossfire: No
Your Monitor Resolution: 1 1680x1050; 2 1920x1080
Why Are You Upgrading: I'm looking to take advantage of a more modern chipset and benefit from other things as well.

Hi guys. So I just built my computer a couple of months ago and I have some questions. I'm looking into upgrading my motherboard so that I can have a better chipset to go with my processor. What I'm wondering is whether or not I can just upgrade my motherboard by itselfs because every other component will remain the same.

I understand that with a new motherboard I will have to install the drivers for said motherboard. I'm asking because I really just want to install a new motherboard to get some extra benefits (i.e.: SATA 6GB/s, more PCIe 16x slots, etc.) without having to reinstall or clean install Windows 8 Pro (Retail Model) to the computer.

I don't know if this makes a difference but I have 2 Seagate Barracudas 500GB installed. One of the harddrives is the main boot drive and stores everything on it while the other is a slave drive and is blank at the moment (full formatted capacity). So if I could get some help, I'd really appreciate it and if there is anything that I should know, I'd really appreciate the contribution.

Motherboard I'm looking to purchase:
GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3P AM3+/AM3 AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...)

My build:
Gigabyte 78lmt-usb3 rev. 5.0 (AM3+ socket)
AMD FX-6300 (AM3+)
G.Skill Value 8GB DDR3 Ram (2x4GB) (Gonna add another 8GB to have 16GB total)
Zotac Geforce GTX 650 Ti Synergy Edition (Also planning to upgrade to either a GTX 760 or GTX 770 depending on which is the better bang for buck)
2 Seagate Barracuda 500GB
Raidmax 535W PSU
Windows 8 Pro (Retail Model)
 

Matt Hiep-Vo

Reputable
Mar 4, 2014
6
0
4,510


That looks like a really good motherboard! Thanks.
But as for the installation of the new motherboard (assuming i get the new one), would it be possible to do so?
What would I have to to do? (Pretty new at this, so all the help I can get the better.)