Upgrading Intel 11th generation to 13.

I purchased a new motherboard, a Gigabyte Z790 Elite AX, an Intel processor, i7-13700K, and, Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5600( 2/16 Gb modules) memory.
I plan on using the existing M.2 Gen 4 2Tb C: module and the D: 8 Tb SSD from the old desktop.
Here is my question. Will the M.2 drive boot with the new MB bios? Or will I need to boot to the OS disk?
Any thoughts, suggestions, or recommendations will be greatly appreciated!

Tom R.

I recently upgraded from Asus Z370 board to a Asus Z590 board. Plugged in all my drives, turned it on and it booted right up. Just had to install the chipset drivers to clean up Device Manager, it's been super stable.

Others (most) people on here will say "clean install".

Thanks for your reply, Scott.
Much appreciated.

That is what I am hoping for. To need to re-install all the apps is such a pain, I definitely want to avoid it if possible.

Tom R.

In addition, since changing the motherboard is considered the same as a different computer, it may affect the activation status of Windows 11 if the device's digital license is not linked to a Microsoft account used in Windows 11.

Thanks Brink.

I think it is associated with my MS account. Not 100% so I will find out when I hit the switch.

Tom R.

Going from Intel platform to Intel platform or AMD to AMD should be fine, Windows is pretty good at detecting hardware changes and updating drivers accordingly, but as mentioned above you should update the chipset drivers from the manufacturers site at least and you might have to phone MS for re activation.
A clean install is not always necessary and both the above for chipset & activation still apply regardless but with the added joy of having to install all your apps, games, personal files & changing all the settings to how you prefer.... again.

Windows 10 and 11 have most drivers built-in, so you can even go from AMD and Intel and have a good chance that the drivers will be updated and boot into the desktop. After that make sure you manually update all drivers before you restart. I have seen cases that it booted the first time, but then installed automatically some faulty driver and after restart there were BSOD. If you manually update all drivers you eliminate that risk.