Whats the hype around UEFI?

Mario1 · Oct 11, 2011

Okay guys... I don't get 1 thing - what's up with all the hype around UEFI?
What's so "modern" about it that everybody want?
UEFI looks like your BIOS after plastic surgery.
Might be a "next gen" technology (or at least some people consider it as one), but I still don't find any benefits from it over the good old BIOS..

CompuTamer · Oct 11, 2011

It's just better.

I think.

Not really sure.

I think that part of the deal is that it exposes hardware directly to the OS. It removes a layer between software and hardware.

Instead of OS>Bios>Hardware it's OS>Hardware with UEFI

I think.

I might be completely wrong, as i'm sick, and my brain doesn't work well at 101F.

Mario1 · Oct 11, 2011

CompuTamer said:
It's just better.

I think.

Not really sure.

I think that part of the deal is that it exposes hardware directly to the OS. It removes a layer between software and hardware.

Instead of OS>Bios>Hardware it's OS>Hardware with UEFI

I think.

I might be completely wrong, as i'm sick, and my brain doesn't work well at 101F.

The only benefit I saw from the UEFI is that you'll be able to use HDDs bigger than 3TB without doing any extra work.
Gigabyte and MSI already offer the same thing with the good old BIOS.
Plus even if you're right I don't think you really benefit from that anyways (removing the BIOS).

hokiealumnus · Oct 11, 2011

That's close to it - BIOS after a facelift. There are other tangible benefits. The main two are
1) The ability to boot to drives > 3TB
2) The storage medium to hold the BIOS is larger for a UEFI, so more features can be added and it also gives the ability to save OC profiles on boards with that feature without making a compromise on space elsewhere. MB manufacturers have been running out of room for a while now. IIRC the former max was like 2MB, now it's 8MB (those are just recollections off the top of my head; not positive on their accuracy).

Mario1 · Oct 11, 2011

hokiealumnus said:
That's close to it - BIOS after a facelift. There are other tangible benefits. The main two are
1) The ability to boot to drives > 3TB
2) The storage medium to hold the BIOS is larger for a UEFI, so more features can be added and it also gives the ability to save OC profiles on boards with that feature without making a compromise on space elsewhere. MB manufacturers have been running out of room for a while now. IIRC the former max was like 2MB, now it's 8MB (those are just recollections off the top of my head; not positive on their accuracy).

1) My Gigabyte motherboard already supports that so its all good.
2) Hoping that Gigabyte could utilize the 2nd BIOS chip for more storage in future.

P.S Another question - What's up with ASRock releasing motherboards with PCI-E 3.0 and why aren't other manufacturers doing it?
All the high-end boards on the market that were released not so long ago are PCI-E gen 2.0. Does this mean that the pci-e 3.0 graphics cards won't be out soon or something?

hokiealumnus · Oct 11, 2011

Gigabyte uses 'hybrid EFI', which basically tells me it's an EFI but no GUI to go along with it. They're rumored to be going to full GUI-based UEFI with their coming X79 boards.

Ignore PCIe 3.0 anything right now. It's possible next-gen AMD and NVIDIA cards will use it, but unlikely. Cards aren't even saturating full 16x PCIe 2.0 lanes right now, plus no controllers on the market have that sort of bandwidth. What good is PCIe 3.0 without the chips to use it?

Mario1 · Oct 11, 2011

hokiealumnus said:
Gigabyte uses 'hybrid EFI', which basically tells me it's an EFI but no GUI to go along with it. They're rumored to be going to full GUI-based UEFI with their coming X79 boards.

Ignore PCIe 3.0 anything right now. It's possible next-gen AMD and NVIDIA cards will use it, but unlikely. Cards aren't even saturating full 16x PCIe 2.0 lanes right now, plus no controllers on the market have that sort of bandwidth. What good is PCIe 3.0 without the chips to use it?

Okay man, thanks a lot for clarifying that.
Good to know that my Gigabyte 990FXA-D3 won't need an upgrade soon.
Gigabyte does indeed have a "Hybrid EFI" technology or w.e, but I have no idea what it is.
Really hoping that its the way you said it - EFI implemented, but no GUI.
I don't see any additional chips on the motherboard tho, which leads me to believe that it's some kind of software-level EFI (e.g - a program that can control the BIOS in real-time, which isn't anything new)...

Whats the hype around UEFI?

Mario1

Grammer, its my favoriate thing

CompuTamer

Member with Some Fancy Text Under His Name

Mario1

Grammer, its my favoriate thing

hokiealumnus

Water Cooled Moderator

Mario1

Grammer, its my favoriate thing

hokiealumnus

Water Cooled Moderator

Mario1

Grammer, its my favoriate thing

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