Swapping to similar motherboard

[ryanfergo]

Yesterday I was a bit careless and ended up damaging my MSI Z97 G45 motherboard, and now it's dead. I have a MSI Z97 Gaming 3 mobo on the way as a replacement.
After a quick google I can see that changing my motherboard means reinstalling windows, but since these motherboard are so similar and use the same chipset etc. will I still need to reinstall?

Cheers

 

[marko55]

No you will not. Once Windows boots, just download and reinstall the chipset driver (INF) for the new board and you should be good to go. May need to install the audio driver for the new board and and non-intel USB 3.0 drivers for the new board.

 

[Zerk2012]

You might and might not try it and see. Those boards use very close to the same stuff the lan and audio are actually the same.

 

[Tradesman1]

Should be OK, make backups of your data files - plug the drive in and give it a go. If it transitions OK will want to download/install the latest mobo drivers for the new one. Run a registry cleaner (Wise has a good free version) and will prob have to reactivate Win - which is no big deal