Do I have to reinstall Windows 8 when upgrading my motherboard, cpu and memory, but not my HDD?

I am upgrading my PC, but I'm sticking to my old HDD and gfx card. I would like to avoid reinstalling Win 8. Is this possible? Or, at least, is it possible to use Windows 8's refresh pc option?

UPDATE It worked like a charm. Windows acted as if it was the first boot and displayed the "Getting devices ready % " progress bar. I am not sure if this proves you can do it in every scenario, but my new gear is relatively modern (some gigabyte board with two PCIe 3.0 slots and USB 3.0 support + i5), so I guess we can agree the reinstall is unnecessary in most cases.

You might be able to get away without re-installing.

Your current installation will have drivers for the current motherboard. The new motherboard will require new drivers.

If Windows can cope with this difference then it will boot but the first thing it will do is ask you to install the new drivers from the motherboard installation CD. However, it might fail to boot. In which case you'll have to re-install Windows.

Make sure to backup your data before doing the upgrade. Then try it and if it works you'll have saved yourself a lot of time.

Another option is run Sysprep before you do the upgrade. It is found normally in the C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ folder. Just run the following command:

Sysprep /generalize /shutdown

This will strip out the hardware specific information from the computer (you will need to re-activate windows). On next boot it will re-initialize all the information it needs based on your new hardware.

Another option might be to use Acronis' so called "Universal Restore" feature, which supposedly (I've never tried it) allows you to restore your Windows system image to a different hardware environment.

If you have any Acronis product with this feature maybe you can use it to create a drive/partition image. First simply try booting up and see whether Windows can handle the change by itself. If not, you can give Universal Restore a shot or perform a repair install of the OS.