I built my first PC a few years ago, and it currently has an ASRock Radeon RX 6900 XT. I'm considering upgrading to an RX 9070 XT. Is the process simply removing the old card, installing the new one, and updating the drivers, or are there other steps I should take first?
3 Answers
Since both cards are AMD, the upgrade may work as a simple plug-and-play swap, but cleaning out the old drivers is still good practice. After installing the new card, it’s also worth reinstalling your motherboard chipset drivers and any related Ryzen software if needed.
The safest approach is to use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) before installing the replacement card. Boot into Safe Mode, remove the existing graphics drivers, shut down, swap the cards, then install the latest drivers for the new GPU.
Got it, thanks! I’ll use DDU before swapping the cards.
You can use AMD’s cleanup utility, but DDU is generally considered the more thorough option. Download the new driver beforehand, remove the old card’s drivers, power down and replace the GPU, then install the driver once Windows starts again.
Appreciate the advice. I’ll make sure the chipset drivers are up to date too.