Question Upgrading Motherboard and CPU

[linkzelda97]

I'm swapping from a ASRock Z270 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard and a Intel Core i5-7600K 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor , To a ASRock B450M Steel Legend Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard and a AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Processor

I wanted to know what I need to do and what steps ill need to take to switch them over, I've seen people talk about win 10 needing to be reinstalled with the free upgrade but I bought win 10 pro when I built my pc a couple years back, will that change that process? I also have a 2tb drive and a 500gb ssd that both have data I need to keep on them, is there a way to do the switch without needing to reinstall windows and loose that data?

 

[extreme_noob]

For a lot of uses, an upgrade isn't really necessary actually. The 7600K is still pretty competent, especially at higher resolutions, and if you overclock. If you really want to upgrade, you could also get a used 7700K, if you can find one at a reasonable price.

If you do upgrade CPU+Mobo, it is generally recommended to reinstall windows, but I went from a i5 3470 system to a Ryzen 7 3700X system without doing a fresh install. If you do decide to take the riskier path of not fresh installing windows, you can just reuse the drives. If you want to move the data onto a new drive or two, you can clone your data onto the new drive using software like Macrium Reflect.

If you do fresh install on the same drives, the activation code for windows 10 pro should just apply itself.