AMD to Intel build WITHOUT re-installing Windows?

BrianInEngland · Sep 8, 2024

Currently running an X570 system, looking to do a new build soon. I'm considering the X870E AMD boards/CPUs but also looking into the new Intel Z890 boards and CPUs as AMD have possibly delayed the launch of the 9000 series X3D chips until next year.

I've been reading up, the general best practice is to do a clean install, that would take some time to do but Windows seems quite good at hardware changes in recent years from what I can gather.
Assuming I don't want to go down the clean install route could I change to Intel hardware without problems?

Windows licence wouldn't be an issue as I have a Retail licence.

Has anyone here done it without major issues?

OAT · Sep 8, 2024

I went the other way AMD > Intel and then restored the image.
As long as you let WU install drivers and reboot a few times in between, it should go OK.

BrianInEngland · Sep 8, 2024

OAT said:
I went the other way AMD > Intel and then restored the image.
As long as you let WU install drivers and reboot a few times in between, it should go OK.

Good to know, thanks. AMD to Intel if I decide to go Z890, if not I might just get a new AMD board and a 7800X3D

Catnip · Sep 8, 2024

I did it at work without issue. I just had to make sure that I had all of the driver packages and let WU do the rest.

I did have a bit of a panic when it would no longer boot, but that was a TPM thing I think. Once I figured that out and re-booted a few times it worked fine.

I must say that the new Intel hardware runs circles around the old AMD stuff. I am a convert!

Dru2 · Sep 8, 2024

I would urge since you're moving from an AMD processor to an Intel processor, which also means switching motherboards, to do a clean install. This insures drivers the appropriate drivers are installed and nothing conflicting is left over from the old install.

Good luck.

Marcus Vinicus · Sep 8, 2024

The last time I changed the motherboard and CPU and didn't reinstall Windows (a long time ago) the issue was afterwards there were a lot of junk files and old drivers left behind that were very difficult to track down and get rid of.

For me if I change the core components like mobo and CPU etc. I always do a clean reinstall of the OS. That gets me the full performance benefits.

Dru2 · Sep 8, 2024

Marcus Vinicus said:
For me if I change go core components like mobo and CPU etc. I always do a clean reinstall of the OS. That gets me the full performance benefits.

Same here. Agree.

Bree · Sep 8, 2024

BrianInEngland said:
Has anyone here done it without major issues?

Dru2 said:
I would urge since you're moving from an AMD processor to an Intel processor, which also means switching motherboards, to do a clean install. This insures drivers the appropriate drivers are installed and nothing conflicting is left over from the old install.

Marcus Vinicus said:
The last time I changed the motherboard and CPU and didn't reinstall Windows (a long time ago) the issue was afterwards there were a lot of junk files and old drivers left behind that were very difficult to track down and get rid of.

I did it the other way, Intel to AMD to migrate my Windows 10 from an old Legacy bios/MBR PC to UEFI/GPT on my System One below so it would be offered the Windows 11 upgrade. I didn't really have a choice, in my case there was software I needed to keep that cannot be reinstalled.

Junk drivers do not usually cause conflicts, they'll not be loaded if there's no device to use them. Some can prevent turning on core isolation memory integrity though, just by being there. Most can be uninstalled in Device Manager, you'll see them if you 'show hidden devices'. For the harder to find/remove ones I used DriverStoreExplorer.

GitHub - lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer: Driver Store Explorer [RAPR]

Driver Store Explorer [RAPR]. Contribute to lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

BrianInEngland · Sep 9, 2024

Bree said:
I did it the other way, Intel to AMD to migrate my Windows 10 from an old Legacy bios/MBR PC to UEFI/GPT on my System One below so it would be offered the Windows 11 upgrade. I didn't really have a choice, in my case there was software I needed to keep that cannot be reinstalled.

Junk drivers do not usually cause conflicts, they'll not be loaded if there's no device to use them. Some can prevent turning on core isolation memory integrity though, just by being there. Most can be uninstalled in Device Manager, you'll see them if you 'show hidden devices'. For the harder to find/remove ones I used DriverStoreExplorer.

GitHub - lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer: Driver Store Explorer [RAPR]

Driver Store Explorer [RAPR]. Contribute to lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I don't use memory integrity anyway

Bree · Sep 9, 2024

BrianInEngland said:
I don't use memory integrity anyway

I turn it on whenever it is possible, it does require all drivers on the system (whether in use or not) to be compatible though. Most are, or have updates that are. Only a couple of my oldest machines have vital drivers that do not have a compatible update, in my case the display driver. For those I have to choose between using the Microsoft Basic Display adapter (with memory integrity) or the proper driver (without). No contest really, I use the proper display driver.

Why turn it on? For once Microsoft have written a very readable explanation....

Microsoft said:
Memory integrity works by creating an isolated environment using hardware virtualization.

Think of it like a security guard inside a locked booth. This isolated environment (the locked booth in our analogy) prevents the memory integrity feature from being tampered with by an attacker. A program that wants to run a piece of code which may be dangerous has to pass the code to memory integrity inside that virtual booth so that it can be verified. When memory integrity is comfortable that the code is safe it hands the code back to Windows to run. Typically, this happens very quickly.

Without memory integrity running, the "security guard" stands right out in the open where it's much easier for an attacker to interfere with or sabotage the guard, making it easier for malicious code to sneak past and cause problems.

Core isolation - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

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