Reinstalling windows 8 to a new hard drive?

[jpb199]

Basically, I have just bought a new motherboard for my computer because I bought a new graphics card that performs around half the speed in my old motherboard (it has a PCIe 1.1 slot) because the motherboard will not let it use over 75 watts of power. Anyway, to install the the new motherboard I will need a new OS because the windows 7 I have installed now is OEM and will only work with my old motherboard. I have a spare 80gb HDD lying around and I want to install windows 8 to it, however, if I buy a new SSD in the future can I use the windows 8 disc that I used to install windows 8 to my 80gb drive to the SSD and will the install be just like installing to a new version of windows?

Any help will be appreciated

 

[unksol]

Yes. You may change any part with windows 8 as long as you own the system, including the motherboard. The license terms have changed with windows 8.

Http://personaluselicense.windows.com/en-US/default.aspx

As such I would upgrade your windows 7 install to 8 unless you will reuse it with the old board.

Also ALL versions of pcie can only draw 75W. Additional power is drawn from the PSU. Upgrading the motherboard will not change this. A newer pcie revision will increase bandwidth only.

what card are you trying to run? Anything up to a 7850 should not take a big hit in a pcie 1 x16 slot

 

[jpb199]

I'm running a gtx 660ti, power usage never goes above 75 watts and gpu usage in games is pretty low even when I have a low frame rate (i run crysis at around 25 fps with full settings and if I turn them down to medium I get the same fps)

Im trying to upgrade everything in my computer, then assemble all the old parts back together and give the computer to my brother, thats why Im thinking of upgrading to windows 8 because the windows 7 probably wont work with my new mobo

 

[unksol]

need full system specs. 25-40fps is to be expected with a 660Ti on crisis. it's not a very good card for crysis due to it's memory bandwidth.

www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/7

But if your GPU usage isn't approaching 100% you do have a temperature problem or a bottleneck. low usage could also cause the low power usage. Or your PSU is too low. But its absolutely not the PCIe slot. As you can't see below a pcie 1.1 slot would only cost a 680 a couple percent.

www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

judging by the age of your board it's probably a CPU bottle neck, but with out system specs it's hard to say. Check temps and usage of both the CPU and GPU while in game.

 

[AWaldo]

I will say you should watch which version of Windows you end up with; I recently had to upgrade my mobo and hdd too and I had bought the upgrade version of Win8. Which meant I had to install Win7 on the new HDD first and then upgrade it to Win8- Could not do a direct Win8 install.

 

[jpb199]

need full system specs. 25-40fps is to be expected with a 660Ti on crisis. it's not a very good card for crysis due to it's memory bandwidth.

www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/7

But if your GPU usage isn't approaching 100% you do have a temperature problem or a bottleneck. low usage could also cause the low power usage. Or your PSU is too low. But its absolutely not the PCIe slot. As you can't see below a pcie 1.1 slot would only cost a 680 a couple percent.

www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

judging by the age of your board it's probably a CPU bottle neck, but with out system specs it's hard to say. Check temps and usage of both the CPU and GPU while in game.

My specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon II x4 640 @3 ghz
8gb corsair vengeance memory
Msi gtx 660ti
500gb seagate hardrive
650w power supply

I didnt expect a bottleneck from my cpu, seems good enough for gaming to me, my gpu usage hardly ever hits 80% let alone 100%, also temps never go above 60 degrees C

 

[jpb199]

I will say you should watch which version of Windows you end up with; I recently had to upgrade my mobo and hdd too and I had bought the upgrade version of Win8. Which meant I had to install Win7 on the new HDD first and then upgrade it to Win8- Could not do a direct Win8 install.

Yeah, I was looking at that, have to get a OEM disk

 

[unksol]

I will say you should watch which version of Windows you end up with; I recently had to upgrade my mobo and hdd too and I had bought the upgrade version of Win8. Which meant I had to install Win7 on the new HDD first and then upgrade it to Win8- Could not do a direct Win8 install.

All upgrade versions of windows allow.clean installs. You did not need to install windows 7 first. You just didn't know how or check

 

[unksol]

My specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon II x4 640 @3 ghz
8gb corsair vengeance memory
Msi gtx 660ti
500gb seagate hardrive
650w power supply

I didnt expect a bottleneck from my cpu, seems good enough for gaming to me, my gpu usage hardly ever hits 80% let alone 100%, also temps never go above 60 degrees C

That CPU would definitely be a bottleneck.

 

[jpb199]

That CPU would definitely be a bottleneck.

Hmmmm, interesting, I checked my cpu usage during game and each core never reached over 80% load (I know overall cpu usage can be misleading because single cores can bottleneck) thats why I ruled it out...

 

[AWaldo]

All upgrade versions of windows allow.clean installs. You did not need to install windows 7 first. You just didn't know how or check

No, I checked. It will always install cleanly, but then it will tell you your product key is only for upgrading. I understand there are way to do it by changing the registry, but people have had inconsistent results from that and it is pretty straightforward to install 7 and then reupgrade. This works even if your new install of 7 hasn't been verified by Windows yet.

 

[unksol]

No, I checked. It will always install cleanly, but then it will tell you your product key is only for upgrading. I understand there are way to do it by changing the registry, but people have had inconsistent results from that and it is pretty straightforward to install 7 and then reupgrade. This works even if your new install of 7 hasn't been verified by Windows yet.

No. You don't. There is no reason to touch the registry.

www.intowindows.com/download-windows-8-iso-from-microsoft-using-product-key/

 

[unksol]

Hmmmm, interesting, I checked my cpu usage during game and each core never reached over 80% load (I know overall cpu usage can be misleading because single cores can bottleneck) thats why I ruled it out...

Tried downclocking my phenom II to test and minimum FPS took a hit and when I took AA off gpu usage went down because the CPU couldn't keep up with it anymore. Even though the CPU wasn't pegged. And I only have a 6970.

The motherboard should really have no affect, so if it were me I wouldn't do it till you can do the CPU and board. And then you'll have the option of going Intel if you want instead of HAVING to go AMD for the time between getting a board and getting a new CPU.

Personally Im in the same boat but my overclocked phenom 2 is holding on fine without current games. And im hoping for steamroller.

 

[AWaldo]

No. You don't. There is no reason to touch the registry.

www.intowindows.com/download-windows-8-iso-from-microsoft-using-product-key/

Yep, that's exactly what I tried. Still told me my key was for upgrade only.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/2344-73-questions-win8-upgrade-clean-install-help

 

[jpb199]

Tried downclocking my phenom II to test and minimum FPS took a hit and when I took AA off gpu usage went down because the CPU couldn't keep up with it anymore. Even though the CPU wasn't pegged. And I only have a 6970.

The motherboard should really have no affect, so if it were me I wouldn't do it till you can do the CPU and board. And then you'll have the option of going Intel if you want instead of HAVING to go AMD for the time between getting a board and getting a new CPU.

Personally Im in the same boat but my overclocked phenom 2 is holding on fine without current games. And im hoping for steamroller.

Fair play man, I've already got the board though :/ anyway, have you seen logans vid on the amd 8350? Beats the i7 in some things! Im going to save up for that because there's no way it would bottleneck my gtx 660ti, anyway, i'll go see what my graphics card performs like in one of my friends PC sometime (hopefully tomorrow) and see what kind of fps I can get on that (he has a i5), then ill be able to see how much my CPU is bottle necking. I would go the Intel route because their CPU's are better but price to performance AMD just wins at the moment