Switching to Ryzen

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As long as you aren't trying to run a second gen ryzen on a 300 series chipset that hasn't had a bios update to make it compatible with the second gen you should be fine. If you are then you are going to need to apply for a boot kit from AMD or to borrow a first gen CPU to update it.

What Intel CPU are you moving from, and what Ryzen are you going to?

>What should I expect
That will depend on what you're upgrading from. If you had a post-Sandy Bridge i5 or i7 you probably won't notice much improvement except for the platform goodies like USB 3/3.2 and M.2. It should run cooler than most recent Intel processors with similar cooling setups, but you won't get much OC headroom out of it regardless of what you use to cool it.

If you're upgrading from something older or a Pentium or i3, the difference will be noticeable in some applications, and the additional features are almost worth the upgrade by themselves.

>can I just swap the parts and use the same old drives
You can use the same drives but you will likely have to reactivate Windows. Also if you are moving to NVMe for your boot drive or you are currently booting in legacy (MBR) mode, you will probably have to reinstall.

But seriously, if you don't have a solid state that is probably a better upgrade unless you are using something really old.

What this guy said .

BIOS/UEFI doesn't require video drivers. Windows supports basic graphics mode which also doesn't require drivers, but to get all the performance of your video card you will need drivers.

I7 6700 to ryzen 7 2700
Got everything put together, and it turns on, but not getting any output to the monitor... Anyone know what causes this?

If your motherboard has a video connector, ignore it; ryzen 2700 doesn't have builtin graphics, you need a dedicated card.
Also, some old motherboards (like gigabyte aorus) only support ryzen 1000-series, and require a firmware upgrade for newer processors. You need to check if that's the case.

GPU in top PCIe slot, display cable connected to GPU? There may also be a configuration in UEFI to change the default display output. Also probably a dumb suggestion but make sure you have power hooked up to GPU if you need it.

This too. If you bought a X370/B350/A320 board you need a first-gen CPU to run a BIOS update before you can install the 2700. AMD will send you a loaner kit for free.

Or take it to a repair shop, they already have those kits.

It's a 450 board, Def have power to the gpu but I'm gonna try with a 1050ti which does need it. I had this happen once before and it was a Cpu Power issue, doesn't look like that this time tho. Pics incoming in a min