My cousin upgraded to i7 recently and he is willing to give me his old cpu and mobo for around like 200 dollars. The cpu is an intel Q9550 and the mobo is an Asus maximus formula 775 (i think). I know, he's basically giving them away for free. However, here's the question. Can i just take out my old cpu and mobo and pop in the new ones or do i have to reformat. I don't really want to back up ~500gb of data...
tldr; Can i just exchange them without reinstalling windows7?
My current specs:
Intel C2D E6400
gigabyte P35
2gb ram
9800gt
Windows7 professional 64bit
Your Windows install will have chipset etc drivers for your current setup, but it's likely you won't need to reinstall Windows.
Also to point out.. he's hardly giving it away for free. Also your motherboard is P35 chipset, which means you don't need his one if you don't want it.
[editline]03:46AM[/editline]
On an unrelated note, I'd get more memory. Using < 4GB of RAM on a 64-bit OS is a bit silly.
if you've got less than 4 GB including the GPU's memory, you gain performance with 32 bit over 64 bit.
also, just take the CPU, your motherboard supports it.
I totally didn't say all that buttsex.
[editline]03:58AM[/editline]
Damn, it un-capped my caps :mad:
[editline]03:59AM[/editline]
But yeah, either take just the CPU & upgrade your RAM or wait and get a whole new system in a while.
I know my mobo supports it but that mobo is sexy as hell and has way more overclocking and cooling features.
[QUOTE=y0haN;21517016]I totally didn't say all that buttsex.[/QUOTE]
I like to load threads and let them sit in tabs for a while before I post, occasionally hivemind
[editline]03:04AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=aydin690;21517031]I know my mobo supports it but that mobo is sexy as hell and has way more overclocking and cooling features.[/QUOTE]
you'll have to reinstall Windows if you switch motherboards
Well you can just put in the new mobo and cpu and not reformat but just install again then all the old files will go into a windows.old file and you can just move them to your documents and such.
[QUOTE=ButtsexV2;21517082]
you'll have to reinstall Windows if you switch motherboards[/QUOTE]
Not likely, no.
[QUOTE=B1N4RY!;21518726]Not likely, no.[/QUOTE]
So, what's the answer? Do i need to reformat or no?
When I upgraded my motherboard and the CPU from a Athlon X2 5000 to Phenom II X4 925, Windows 7 booted fine, and installed all the appropriate drivers for me.
Just boot it up first, and then reinstall if windows BSoDs continuously.
You have a better chance of having to reinstall than you do not having to.
When I switched to AMD after an Intel rig, I had to reformat.
When I switched my Intel motherboard for a different Intel board, I didn't have to reformat.
I don't think you will have to reformat, but you might.
It's probably about chipset then.
Just be prepared to reinstall, don't count on not having to.
You need drivers, BIOS changes, ect. So no, it's not as simple as switching.
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