UEFI vs. Gigabyte "Touch BIOS"

Building a new rig in about a month based on i5 2500K. Haven't decided on a mobo yet. It's been 3+ years since my last build and it seems things have changed A LOT since then. Now, I plan to overclock, would like at least 4.5 GHz stable; I will be using it for gaming, blu-ray movies, and some light video encoding/photo editing.

I've been reading a lot about the new UEFI and then I hear that Gigabyte has its own version of a BIOS that's different as well. Either way I will be learning a new system, just wondering if one is head-and-shoulders above the other. I've been leaning towards a Gigabyte board so far, the GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 has everything I'm looking for hardware-wise, but if the BIOS is inferior, would it be worth looking for a board with UEFI instead?

Instynx said:

Building a new rig in about a month based on i5 2500K. Haven't decided on a mobo yet. It's been 3+ years since my last build and it seems things have changed A LOT since then. Now, I plan to overclock, would like at least 4.5 GHz stable; I will be using it for gaming, blu-ray movies, and some light video encoding/photo editing.

I've been reading a lot about the new UEFI and then I hear that Gigabyte has its own version of a BIOS that's different as well. Either way I will be learning a new system, just wondering if one is head-and-shoulders above the other. I've been leaning towards a Gigabyte board so far, the GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 has everything I'm looking for hardware-wise, but if the BIOS is inferior, would it be worth looking for a board with UEFI instead?

Click to expand...

The big thing with UEFI is that it conquers two of the last remaining *evils* of pre-UEFI BIOSes.

1. Keyboard reliance - Typical BIOSes - even for portable computers, such as notebooks and netbooks - still relied on keyboard access; a real problem if the keyboard itself was broke. UEFI can be used with any pointing device that can emulate a mouse (such as trackpads or even touchscreen monitors), and even without a keyboard at all.

2. Super-sized hard drives - This is the biggest bugbear of the BIOS as we have known it - incompatibiity with the 2 TB+ hard drives that are starting to become common at the high end (and will eventually make their way into the midrange) as price-per-TB continues the downward spiral it has been on since the advent of the PC.

Gigabyte's Touch-BIOS is a hybrid - a traditional-appearing BIOS that nonetheless doesn't have the 2.2 TB per-drive ceiling that a traditional BIOS would.

Most motherboard brands (it's not just a Gigabyte issue) charge extra for a full UEFI BIOS and/or restrict it to their higher-end models - so far, the only exceptions are ASUS's budget-imprint ASRock and Biostar. (Biostar differs from even ASRock in going entirely-UEFI in their LGA1155 lineup - and doing so at prices similar to, if not undercutting, both ASRock and Gigabyte.)

I don't even have a drive so much as one TB large; therefore, UEFI is far from critical for *me* except in a subjective sense. (I'm more than passing-familiar with mixing a BIOS with a pointing device - American Megatrends actually had such a critter in several motherboard brands, including ASUS. The growing influence of the Phoenix BIOS - especially after their merger with AWARD, and followup acquisition in turn by Intel - made the AMI BIOS in general, and the mouse-able variation in particular, a niche player at best.)

Unless you actually have at least one really large hard drive, UEFI would be, at best, subjective, if it weren't for the impact in terms of price. (My selection of Biostar's TZ68A+RCH had absolutely nothing to do with it having UEFI; remember, I stated that UEFI itself was merely of subjective interest to me personally. The TZ68A+RCH is simply the lowest-priced full-sized ATX Z68-chipset motherboard available locally - in fact, it's cheaper than *any* of Gigabyte's mATX Z68 offerings - or anybody else's Z68 offerings, for that matter, regardless of either formfactor or BIOS type.) In a way a case could be made that the TZ668A+RCH got selected in spite of UEFI - not because of it.

Wow, thank you for your reply! Better response than I'm used to getting, very informative and unbiased. Thank you. Nice to know about that HDD size restriction, I never knew about that before. I don't have any super-sized hard drives at the moment but it's good to know for the future. UEFI doesn't seem like it needs to be a major point of emphasis for me based on what you are saying. I'm more than comfortable navigating the traditional BIOS with a keyboard, so if that's what it takes to go with the Gigabyte, I'll manage.

Instynx said:

Wow, thank you for your reply! Better response than I'm used to getting, very informative and unbiased. Thank you. Nice to know about that HDD size restriction, I never knew about that before. I don't have any super-sized hard drives at the moment but it's good to know for the future. UEFI doesn't seem like it needs to be a major point of emphasis for me based on what you are saying. I'm more than comfortable navigating the traditional BIOS with a keyboard, so if that's what it takes to go with the Gigabyte, I'll manage.

Click to expand...

Still, that being said, I *did* select the Biostar for reasons of price - I mentioned that it costs less than any Gigabyte Z68-based motherboard, regardless of formfactor. (In the case of MicroCenter, the full-ATX TZ68A+RCH undercut the GA-Z68MA-UD2H by $30 and has two full-size PCI slots (the Gigabyte board, which is mATX, has none).) If your case can take a full-size ATX board, the Biostar may make better sense, especially if you have PCI cards from your current rig you want to keep.

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure the larger than 2.2TB issue is only with using them for boot drives - they work fine as secondary storage.

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the input. After a little more deliberation and research, I think I've settled on a board: The UEFI-equipped ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3. It has everything I need (USB 3.0, SATA3, and an old-school PCI slot for my sound card that isn't covered up by a GPU) and everything I want (PCI 3.0 for future-proofing, and it isn't freaking BLUE). Reading up on it on here and OCN, people are getting 5.0 GHz overclocks with this board, which would be awesome. And it'll be fun to poke around with the UEFI, even if it isn't really a necessity.

Instynx said:

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the input. After a little more deliberation and research, I think I've settled on a board: The UEFI-equipped ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3. It has everything I need (USB 3.0, SATA3, and an old-school PCI slot for my sound card that isn't covered up by a GPU) and everything I want (PCI 3.0 for future-proofing, and it isn't freaking BLUE). Reading up on it on here and OCN, people are getting 5.0 GHz overclocks with this board, which would be awesome. And it'll be fun to poke around with the UEFI, even if it isn't really a necessity.

Click to expand...

The Biostar has all the same features except support for tall overclocks (it tops out at 4.7 GHz, according to the TechPowerUP, Overclock3D, and Tom's Hardware reviews), has a second full-length PCI slot, and is half the ASRock's price (at MicroCenter Fairfax, VA) - before the current $40 bundle savings when purchased alongside any i3/i5/i7 (after the savings, it comes up less than half the Extreme4's price).

While I have no USB 3 devices (and no SATA 3 devices either, and only two that are SATA2!), I'm smart enough to know that it won't stay that way as I upgrade other parts. All the current hard drives I have on my upgrade shortlist are SATA-3, for example (starting with the WD Caviar Black 1 TB SATA-3 HDD/64 MB current-generation retail model, which would replace the SATA-2 Caviar EcoGreen as my Windows 7 boot drive).

I appreciate the heads-up, however I will be ordering through newegg more than likely, (no computer parts stores in Arkansas). I also have 2 USB 3.0 external hard drives and I ordered a SATA3 SSD for my boot drive. So far I have everything bought except the motherboard. Can't wait to get home!