$300 CPU/MOBO Upgrade

[ATMINSIDE]

You'll want to do a fresh install after jumping several generations. You could probably get by without it, but honestly I've found it's 9/10 times more trouble than it's worth.

Windows 8 has all the drivers built in, I would agree for Windows 7 though.

 

[mrgoodkat]

Mostly worried about my game installs on G: drive and what effect reinstalling the OS on C: would have. Could I just backup my Docs/games folder and restore them on a fresh OS install?

 

[Theocnoob]

Mostly worried about my game installs on G: drive and what effect reinstalling the OS on C: would have. Could I just backup my Docs/games folder and restore them on a fresh OS install?

What about the registry? That's the problem. The games would be installed, but not in a way that Windows could understand. It might still work but for anything that needs net connectivity to run like steam connected games it probably wouldn't.

 

[mrgoodkat]

My understanding is that steam games sort themselves out after a new OS install by validating your game files and then updating required files that are missing.

I didn't think about registry entries for other games not tied to steam. That's going to be a problem. Most are digital downloads and I just don't want to spend days re-downloading them.

 

[Theocnoob]

My understanding is that steam games sort themselves out after a new OS install by validating your game files and then updating required files that are missing.

I didn't think about registry entries for other games not tied to steam. That's going to be a problem. Most are digital downloads and I just don't want to spend days re-downloading them.

Oh, you have one of those slow connections, eh? That's got to suck.

Personally, I wouldn't go the route you want to go. I would reinstall everything fresh with a new OS install. That doesn't mean your method won't work. It just means I've never tried it before.

 

[mrgoodkat]

Well, everything went very well and running much cooler. The board in particular runs a whole lot cooler under load. Also comes with some solid software that makes things like speedfan, etc, unnecessary. UEFI is also really great - coming from someone who has only used BIOS before this.

Very impressed with ASrock. I spoke with a friend in Japan and he says that is pretty much the only motherboard option there. So it looks like they went from a budget option to an enthusiast option with significant shares in some important markets.

Most importantly, the games I am playing at the moment are not optimized for more than one core so I'm seeing some impressive performance increases in those games, over the i7 920. Around 30-40 fps and they run much more smoothly, overall. Finally able to take advantage of SATA 3 and PCIe 3.

Thanks for the help.