I went from a 1700X to a 3800X and did not have to reactivate Windows. Always back up your data if it’s important to you before you do something like a hardware swap. Here’s what I did.
1. Suspended bitlocker
2. Updated the BIOS to enable 3xxx series compatibility (Crosshair VI Hero Wi-fi). This also re-set the BIOS to Stock.
3. Swapped the new CPU in.
4. Worked in BIOS to re-apply settings, including enabling the fTPM again (along with Memory settings, PBO, SVM, all that stuff).
5. Booted into Windows.
6. Verified fTPM was visible in Device Manager. Re-enabled Bitlocker so it would accept the new key.
Some things I learned from the experience.
1. As always, if you modified your BIOS a lot, record all the settings and knobs you flipped because it’s a pain to put it back.
2. Memory Support between Ryzen 1 and Ryzen 2 changed things massively. I had to struggle to get my 2x16GB B-Die stable at 2933Mhz on Ryzen 1. On Ryzen 2, I could do 3400Mhz at CL14 timings by flipping a couple of knobs (basically setting the speed and making sure voltage was at 1.35.
3. Your Windows 10 installation will continue to act as if it is running Ryzen 1 when it comes to features. That means things that have come up with Windows 11 will still remain, such as enabling of VBS, MBEC, HVCI, etc. that will still be off on your Windows 10 install. That won’t prevent migration to Windows 11, but it will leave you in a strange state where those features would technically be enabled, but they’re not because Ryzen 1 didn’t support them when you installed Windows 10.
All the same, the migrations from Ryzen 1 to Ryzen 2 was ultimately smooth, and got me not only solid compute improvements with the Virtualization workloads I run (as well as games), but made getting the most out of the Memory I bought trivially easy. That said, I would still plan a Windows 10 re-installation before migrating to Windows 11.