Upgrading my pc - potential issues advice please

Currently running a Xeon x5650, 12gb ram, 980ti and a foxxcon bloodrage mbo that ever since new has had random resets/freezing for example I can turn the pc on with any accessories plugged into a usb port or it wont post.

Iv just ordered the Anidees AI crystal case and am looking to buy a motherboard that is an "easy" overclocker for my xeon as I bought the chip from MM and the chap was running it at well above 4ghz with no issues on an asus board. This should keep my current rig strong for another year or two easily without spending a fortune on it.

EDIT - foxxcon mobo will only do 150blk x22 no matter what so this is defo my limiting factor.

What mobos should I be looking at?

My final question is that I'm on Windows 10 free upgrade from Windows 7, I do have a bought version tho that I bought in digital format, if I change my mobo I will need to reinstall windows from a usb stick/drive is this correct?

Thanks in advance.

I would think if you chage the motherboard and its an upgraded version of windows 10 it will locked to the old board. You will have to either buy new windows 10, or if your really lucky install windows 7/8 and run the upgrade again. you ,might have to go through the manual phone activation.

Socket 1366 boards are pretty hard to come by, and quite expensive for 2nd hand kit that's probably been thrashed to death already. sure its not time to look at skylake?

Kurgen said:

I would think if you chage the motherboard and its an upgraded version of windows 10 it will locked to the old board. You will have to either buy new windows 10, or if your really lucky install windows 7/8 and run the upgrade again. you ,might have to go through the manual phone activation.

Socket 1366 boards are pretty hard to come by, and quite expensive for 2nd hand kit that's probably been thrashed to death already. sure its not time to look at skylake?

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thanks for posting but -

For £100-150ish I can overclock my cpu to at least 4ghz and its as good as any current setup for gaming, skylake would require new mobo, ram , cooler and cpu to far more expensive for really not much of a jump in fps.

As for w10 I mentioned I have a new unused digital version but I wasn't sure If when I fit the new mobo windows 10 will still load but will it simply require a new key to work with the new mobo?

always best to do a fresh install with a new mobo. you might get lucky, but yes I would highly suspect windows will deactivate and ask you to buy or apply a new key

Phone activation / talking to someone on the phone and explain what you've changed should be good enough to keep the key.

managed to get an Asus Rampage 3 extreme on ebay tonight and have a new valid w10 key anyway so hopefully just a case of reactivating with my new key.