Hi y’all, i used to be so prolific at the whole pc building thing. but now i’m out of the game with age and not buying stuff in a while. so here’s my question:
my PC is fine and i upgraded parts of it during the years. but it may be time for a new motherboard, since mine only supports 32gb of RAM which isnt enough anymore.
what do I need to do to replace my motherboard? I guess, i’d have to re-install everything, right? Isn’t windows and all the software kinda bound to my motherboard?
since i’m fine with my 2060Super, i guess getting a new PC is not worth it, my case and hard drives are fine. i will need new RAM and SSDs. So what should I look for in a motherboard?
thanks for reading this ramble
Really depends what you have now and what you are looking to achieve. The “core 3” i call it, are mobo, ram, and cpu that needs to be generationally compatible. These tend to but not always be purchased at the same time.
If you are keeping your C drive, then no, you dont have to reinstall everythimg. Windows licensing is weird now. I think its supposed to be transferrable if you disable the previous computer since it is account bound. Someone else will need you comment on that. That is a ‘legit’ license issue. Most other software wont care if your cpu or mobo changes.
If windows is installed on a harddrive and not an ssd, then i would strongly reccomend you do a fresh install on a new ssd. You can plug in your old drive after install to transfer files. Then wipe it and use as storage.
As long as you pick a compatible mobo. Theres not really any difference between them for most people. Mostly just IO differences.
thanks for your comment. windows is on a ssd, but i’d like a second one to load some stuff faster. my stuff was bought and configured 10+ years ago so my SSD is 128gb