Simple question for anyone who has upgraded from Zen 2 to Zen 3...

RareAir23

Limp Gawd
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Sep 25, 2006
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Hi all. This just popped into my head and is meant for those who have upgraded their Zen 2 CPU to Zen 3: when you completed the hardware side of the upgrade have you had to completely reinstall Windows and your system after the upgrade or would the build of Windows you were running with Zen 2 run fine on Zen 3? Thanks in advance for your answers and advice. Out!
 
Haven't done Zen 2 to 3 yet, but you should be fine.

I did swap an i3 7100 guts over to a Zen 2 / x370 without any problems. Just took Windows a hot minute to load drivers.
 
I wouldnt even worry about reinstalling windows. Heck back in the day on XP I reused the same install going from my XP 2500 to my core 2 duo system without an issue for 2 years. Then I upgraded to windows 7 and used that install when I upgraded to my 3770K rig and used that for 3 years.
 
Hi all. This just popped into my head and is meant for those who have upgraded their Zen 2 CPU to Zen 3: when you completed the hardware side of the upgrade have you had to completely reinstall Windows and your system after the upgrade or would the build of Windows you were running with Zen 2 run fine on Zen 3? Thanks in advance for your answers and advice. Out!
Do it if it makes you feel better.
 
I moved from Zen 1 (1700) to Zen 2 (3900X) without reinstalling windows and everything was cool.

However when I upgraded motherboards (same system, 3900x at that point, went from X370 to X570) I came across a few issues due to motherboard driver conflict shenanigans. I did a windows restore, not a full reinstall, and that fixed it. It's been stable ever since then though.
 
i just changed from a asus x470 to gigabyte x570 mb without a clean install. windows booted up normal. once in windows i just unistalled all the asus stuff and installed the gigabyte stuff. system has been 100% solid. now im just waiting on my new cpu to come in. i did have to reactivate windows after the mb change.
 
I changed from a 3600x to a 5600x and did not re-install Windows. Picked both CPUs up just fine. No issues. No reactivation nonsense.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. To give a couple of more details, I already have Ryzen based system ready for Zen 3 (Ryzen 7 3700X, ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero X570, 32GB G.Skill Trident-Z DDR4-3600 CL16 RAM) and in my case I'd only be changing out the CPU and possibly a new air cooler for it. From what I gather, if I'm only changing out the CPU and leaving everything exactly the way it is Windows 10 should pick up the new CPU and continue to run fine. Also, I've already flashed my BIOS to a AGESA 1.1.0.0 compatible version. Thanks and until next time I am out!
 
Thanks for the input everyone. To give a couple of more details, I already have Ryzen based system ready for Zen 3 (Ryzen 7 3700X, ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero X570, 32GB G.Skill Trident-Z DDR4-3600 CL16 RAM) and in my case I'd only be changing out the CPU and possibly a new air cooler for it. From what I gather, if I'm only changing out the CPU and leaving everything exactly the way it is Windows 10 should pick up the new CPU and continue to run fine. Also, I've already flashed my BIOS to a AGESA 1.1.0.0 compatible version. Thanks and until next time I am out!
I switched from Intel 6600K Z170 board to Ryzen 7 5800X B550 board. Only thing I did was reinstall chipset, graphics and sound card drivers ;) It worked like a dream for a week and then I broke it with memory overclocking :D so yea you can use your current system, eventually you'll break it and then you you'll reinstall.
 
I always do a clean install when I do a hardware swap. Only time I wouldn't is for like memory or storage.
 
Windows doesn't care.
yup, it really doesnt care anymore, im impressed all the time. ive got a build on a ssd that i have been swapping between 6-8 different laptop models (with different specs within the same models) and it just fires up, every time. sometimes i will see the "getting hardware ready" for 10-15 seconds and then it just boots.

I always do a clean install when I do a hardware swap. Only time I wouldn't is for like memory or storage.
those days are long gone...
 
yup, it really doesnt care anymore, im impressed all the time. ive got a build on a ssd that i have been swapping between 6-8 different laptop models (with different specs within the same models) and it just fires up, every time. sometimes i will see the "getting hardware ready" for 10-15 seconds and then it just boots.


those days are long gone...
I know and the days of reinstalling windows is a hassel.
 
I'm a user that went from zen 2 to zen 3, just dropping in a new cpu. Everything ran as if nothing had changed - so no worries there. If you are changing your motherboard or operating system hard drive, then you will have to reinstall windows to get your system running again.
 
If you are changing your motherboard or operating system hard drive, then you will have to reinstall windows to get your system running again.
You can very often clone your current OS harddrive for the newer one that will replace it (specially that it will rarely be a smaller drive)
 
If you are changing your motherboard or operating system hard drive, then you will have to reinstall windows to get your system running again.
not any more. mobo, you can recover inaccessible_boot_device by booting to safe mode, if it complains at all. hdd/ssd, clone it and boot right back up.
 
Just upgraded my whole system from i7 6700k to amd 5800x, and it went mostly smooth, would not post with the cpu, luckily i got a board with a bios recovery feature and got it updated.

booted fairly quickly and every thing seems to be working, was installing drivers and stuff this morning but had to leave for work.

i think you will be fine with just a cpu swap:)
 
I’ve gone from X370 to multiple different X570 motherboards, and 1700X-2700X-3700X all on the same windows install. No big deal these days
 
generally using same install on totally different hardware goes pretty trouble free .. like an Intel system to an AMD one .. it's when the hardware is similar that I have ran into issues like say an AM4 B350 to x470 ..etc .. I'll just do a fresh install regardless because it doesn't take but 30-60 minutes depending on how distracted I am throughout the process .. but not with a CPU swap
 
You shouldn’t need to reinstall with just a CPU upgrade. Sometimes, at least back in the day, if the upgraded CPU had a new instruction set, a reinstall would be required to take advantage of that new instruction set. Everything else would still work just fine though. I do not know if Win 10 also has this limitation but it shouldn’t matter either way. I do not believe there are any novel instruction sets going from Zen 2 to Zen 3

However, don’t forget to update your bios and allow windows to boot up with that new bios prior to swapping the CPU.
 
It's hard to say for sure... I did a zen 1 to zen 2 upgrade (1600 to 3700x on the same motherboard) and windows hated it and refused to boot with the new cpu without failing (kept going to recovery). If I put the 1600 back in it would work fine. I eventually had to just re-install windows to fix the issue as even running recovery didn't fix the problems. I think it may have been Ryzen Master causing some issues, but that's just my speculation. I never did determine exactly what was causing it because I couldn't get past the boot/recovery loop. On the flip side, I upgraded my sons 6600k to a 3700x and windows was happy to keep chugging along, but we eventually reinstalled just to clear everything out a few months after the swap (not due to any real issues, just cleaning house).

ps. My experience was on an Asrock B450 Fatal1ty itx/ac board. Same bios, same ram, same everything besides CPU.
 
I don't think an OS re-install is necessary just for a CPU swap, unless you're moving over from AMD to Intel or vice-versa, then maybe... But even swapping from an older AMD x370 chipset to x570 I still wouldn't consider the OS re-installed necessary, nor should it cause any issues.
 
I don't think an OS re-install is necessary just for a CPU swap, unless you're moving over from AMD to Intel or vice-versa, then maybe... But even swapping from an older AMD x370 chipset to x570 I still wouldn't consider the OS re-installed necessary, nor should it cause any issues.

I'd think the same thing to if I didn't have the exact opposite experience. I have seen plenty of people who didn't have any issues as well, so seems a bit of hit or miss. ThreeDee seems to have seen similar issues as me, but as you can see by the other half dozen or so that had no issue it seems maybe we're the exception, but just a point of data that it's not always smooth sailing so be prepared (I always back up everything prior to making any hardware changes so it wasn't a huge deal, just a time waste to re-install/update everything especially on my slow internet).
 
It's hard to say for sure... I did a zen 1 to zen 2 upgrade (1600 to 3700x on the same motherboard) and windows hated it and refused to boot with the new cpu without failing (kept going to recovery). If I put the 1600 back in it would work fine. I eventually had to just re-install windows to fix the issue as even running recovery didn't fix the problems. I think it may have been Ryzen Master causing some issues, but that's just my speculation. I never did determine exactly what was causing it because I couldn't get past the boot/recovery loop. On the flip side, I upgraded my sons 6600k to a 3700x and windows was happy to keep chugging along, but we eventually reinstalled just to clear everything out a few months after the swap (not due to any real issues, just cleaning house).

ps. My experience was on an Asrock B450 Fatal1ty itx/ac board. Same bios, same ram, same everything besides CPU.

You probably needed to uninstall Ryzen Master, especially Ryzen Master since its a very low level app. RM will load whatever settings specific to the chip it was run on. That's why its not a good idea to go overclocking testing with RM as it will try to load whatever overclock profile and if it isn't stable you can be stuck in a booot loop.

I've gone from 1600x, 1600AF, 3900x, 3900xt to 5800x and now back to the 3900xt w/o windows even noticing.
 
You probably needed to uninstall Ryzen Master, especially Ryzen Master since its a very low level app. RM will load whatever settings specific to the chip it was run on. That's why its not a good idea to go overclocking testing with RM as it will try to load whatever overclock profile and if it isn't stable you can be stuck in a booot loop.

I've gone from 1600x, 1600AF, 3900x, 3900xt to 5800x and now back to the 3900xt w/o windows even noticing.
I had all overclocking disabled in RM and only ever used it for monitoring. I only overclock in the bios, but as you said its low level so I think it may have been interfering. Even after I put my 1600 in and uninstalled ryzen master, my PC still wouldn't work properly (boot failure would force me to windows recovery) when the 3700x was reinstalled, so still not positive it was really the cause. Anyways, like I said, I had no issues going from 6600k to 3700x, and others haven't had issues while a few did, so just throwing in my experiences as it's not always smooth sailing.
 
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