Can I go from 680i to 780i and maintain current OS installations?

[HeXploiT]

I want to upgrade from my Abit 680i🙂(R.I.P) to a 780i motherboard and I'd like to be able to do this while maintaining my current installations of xp & windows7.
Will these chipsets be closely related enough that I can start in safe mode and install the new chipset drivers without having to do a complete install and lose my current installation?
Normally I'd just do new install but my system is running flawlessly after a year with my current setup and this is just a temporary upgrade so I figure it's not worth losing my perfect/speedy setup.(Over 120 apps installed).
Anyone try this yet?

 

[jkresh]

I just went from 780i to x58 on vista without an issue (didn't even uninstall prior chipset drivers before rebooting as I planned to use an image with universal restore, but the unviersal restore failed and vista worked anyway), I would guess that windows 7 will be fine, xp might give you an problem but the chipsets are kind of close and nivida's chipset drivers are universal now so it should work...

expect xp to not run quite as smoothly as it would with a clean install, but it shouldn't be that much of an issue.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

780i is just an upgraded 680i, so you should be fine.

 

[WT]

I went from a 650 to a 750 and it was easy peasy. Nothing to it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

What mystifies me the most -- the poster who went from 780i to the X58 chipset. Interesting to know that he could boot the system with the new chipset.

I remember headaches from earlier days trying to boot an OS under one chipset that had been installed under a different chipset, so I'm very cautious.

Being cautious, I sought the advice of replacement motherboard's manufacturer.

There's not much to do if you replace a 680i chipset with a 780i chipset. At most, you could install the latest drivers for the 780i board.

 

[starfireone]

Easy upgrade...just do the chipset driver update and you should be OK.

 

[Gillbot]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2275658&enterthread=y

 

[jkresh]

BonzaiDuck, switching chipsets in xp or below was a much bigger issue then vista (at least from my experience). Vista has actually been surprisingly stable when making massive hardware changes even without following the normal guidelines.