Question on motherboards
Community Forums/General Help/Question on motherboards
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| I am not up to date on PC motherboards and have a question regarding mine. I currently have a 5 year old Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 motherboard in my PC ... if you look at the "Support and Downloads" section in the link, you can see the last Windows OS supported is Windows 7 ... there are no drivers for Windows 8/8.1 My question is if I were to install Windows 8.1 on this machine, will the correct drivers for the motherboard be automatically installed or will Win 8.1 install "generic" basic drivers. This motherboard comes with with a USB application which enable USB 3.0 to work in Win 7 and without that application USB 3.0 ports won't work. Additionally I am also considering a new PC build ... I'm currently looking at the Asus Maximus Impact motherboard which happens to be Windows 8.1 ready. My second question is if I invest in a machine with this motherboard, will the next version of Windows 10 work on it or should I hold off from purchasing a new machine until Win 10 compatible motherboards are released? Thanks! |
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| As far as whether the drivers will automatically be installed: it's a bit of a crapshoot, some hardware works great out of the box, others with more exotic chipsets may still need 3rd party driver installs. Windows 8 still uses the same driver model as windows 7, so unless the vendor was shortsighted and exit the installers if anything other than win7 was detected, it should work as-is. (I ran into a similar problem myself with a laptop, all drivers installed except the intel graphics adapter -- the installer for that one ran Ok after a right click -> properties -> compatibility -> pick older windows version) As far as the next version of windows is concerned: windows 10 continue to use the same driver model so technically any windows 7/8 should work, as long as the programmers didn't go out of their way to be stupid. Anyway: There's already a free preview download of Windows 10 out now, so if you really are curious and ready to do a reinstall anyway, you can grab the windows 10 iso and give it a shot, no cost. It's time limited and will stop working in a few months, but in the mean time you can try it out. Will require a full reinstall when the final version is released, though. |
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| All of the above aside, going from Windows 7 to Windows 8, is like going from a chauffeur-driven limousine, to a knackered old unicycle with no seat. It'll still get you from A to B, but be a massive pain in the ass compared to what you had before. |
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| Stock Windows 8 blows chunks, but it's quite usable after installing the free ClassicShell program that brings back the start menu and skips the tile drivel. |
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| Stock Windows 8 blows chunks, but it's quite usable after installing the free ClassicShell program that brings back the start menu and skips the tile drivel. Agreed - you can switch off or replace most of the nonsens. I use Win 8.1 + all regular update + ClassicShell and it's nearly Win7. The taskbar surely isn't as pretty but on the other hand Win8.x supports a few things regarding touch & pen input that I need on my laptop/hybrid so that downgrading to Win7 isn't a realistic option. The tile-based interface is still there but completely in the background for the few apps I need/want there. The next PC I build will probably have Win10 - which basically is Win 8.x too - but I'm not afraid of it anymore... ;-) |
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