Computex 2021, AMD | Nvidia

Yep, Windows 10 will continue to work even if you changed the motherboard + CPU + GPU, my friend had an old Phenom II CPU + an old HD 5870 card, he switched to a Ryzen 3000 + 6700 XT, and Windows continued to work flawlessly.

 

First gen new memory is generally on par or worse as compared to the run of the mill last gen offerings. I remember a sort of grumbling and disappointment with Brisbane when AM2 released (as well as the first 775 Prescotts), same happened with SDR ->RDRAM, SDR->DDR1 jumps. Only DDR3 seemed to be less painful, but the early gen DDR3 sticks were mediocre at best (and after HCH9-based "samsung green sticks" appeared, they made everything apart from top OC bins irrelevant).

 

Oh man, I remember RDRAM now -- only because you mentioned it. Damn. Whatever happened to that expensive, hot garbage? Obviously not much lol...

I had a pretty favorable memory of DDR1 vs the outgoing SDR EDO, I also remember the FPM -> EDO being a good transition too. However, I also remember the DDR2 -> DDR3 transition being crap, and honestly the DDR3 -> DDR4 being a latency crap-fest in the beginning.

Some good memories were made during the era of the BH5 sticks that would do 1-2-2-5 timings

 

It used in the PS3. Complete Combo of Cell and Rambus!

 

RAMBUS is just an IP company now isn't it? Exist only to collect royalties?

 

That's good to know. My desktop still has a Phenom II and a Hawaii GPU and now that the Ryzen 5 5600X is starting to get back in stock I'm ready to upgrade.

 

Nope, they still develop at least memory controllers and PHYs

 

I upgraded from a phenom II & 680 GTX to a Ryzen 5 1600 and 8GB RX 580 without changing my install. Didn't even have to boot in to safe mode to load the drivers!

I remember being somewhat impressed.

 

Not sure of your process, but in my expetience you've been safe for sure since Vista if you remember to uninstall drivers before switching hardware between manufacturers, usually works even if you don't

 

Yup, same here. Windows has gotten a lot better about upgrades.

 

The only thing that can be tricky is if you go to a motherboard configured in uefi mode without the legacy boot options, from a old style bios/mbr boot setup.

But even that is pretty easy to anticipate and fix.

 

Usually my biggest problem is if the NIC doesn't have a driver, but it's easy enough to grab one off another PC and install it.