No you don't need to reinstall anything. I just switched from Intel E3 1230 V3 to AMD R5 3600 less than a month ago, switching platform+generational upgrade, it was just plug and play, and my hard drive was cloned from my old hard drive, on which the operating system was upgraded from Win7 to Win10 when it was free.
As Linus said, Windows 10 is smart enough to handle it, it just goes: "ehhhhh.... okay?" and then set basically everything right. If you are asked to reinstall windows, you probably checked a wrong box somewhere when Windows was trying to fix things.
Yep, it "just works".
Except for all the times it fails.
As is asked and answered here multiple times a day...
There are 3 possible outcomes:
- It boots up just fine.
- It fails completely
- It boots up, but you're chasing issues for weeks/months.
I've seen all 3.
Anyone who says it always works simply hasn't done it enough times to see it fail.
Win 10 is much better than previous version. But by no means 100% guaranteed to work. No matter what Linus and his team says.
And it's NOT a matter of "checked a wrong box somewhere". It never asks you to reinstall. Rather...the thing never boots up.
Before the new hardware, prepare for a full reinstall. OS and everything else.
Then, if you're brave....try the old drive and OS in the new hardware. It might work.
But if it fails, you'll be prepared, and won't be fretting about losing your personal files.