Does UEFI provide any performance benefit?

A

Appa

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I got into this discussion with a friend. I say it does not, and is just a new visual interface for your BIOS. He says that it allows the computer to operate faster than a traditional BIOS and provides performance increase across the board.

What do you say? :confused:
 
I have no idea. I'm reading the wiki page now to learn more about it.
 
It supposedly helps boot times but I see it as more of an improvement to an aging interface (although, I do like the old fashioned one at times) and the allowance for bigger boot drives. Outside of that, I personally haven't really noticed much difference. Then again, I'm not exactly timing it so it might be faster. Also, I haven't disabled the Marvell controller yet as that makes boot times a tad longer. We'll see.
 
In the latest bios update for my MSI Big Bang Xpower they added 2.2TB Infinity booting, so other than the new mouse capable interface that's the only difference I see. Oh and the boot times being slightly faster.
 
skizzled said:
It supposedly helps boot times but I see it as more of an improvement to an aging interface (although, I do like the old fashioned one at times) and the allowance for bigger boot drives. Outside of that, I personally haven't really noticed much difference. Then again, I'm not exactly timing it so it might be faster. Also, I haven't disabled the Marvell controller yet as that makes boot times a tad longer. We'll see.
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If you are like me and NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER turn your computer off, boot times matter NONE!!! I have no boot times lol ... only when I clean my fans and hell I do that most of the time with the power on. These computers are made to run 24-7/365. Well my intel box I am posting on gets turn off a lot but that is due to overclocking and getting the settings solid. Oh and the change water in my coolant system I have to power down period and all that stuff.

No Sleep
No Hibernation
No Hybrid-Sleep

I only let my LCDs power down and my hard drives spin 24-7. I do use Asus EPU application and set it to low power mode but its still up and running.I have hard drives that are regular desktop drives that have been running for 4 years almost 24-7. People that have hard drive problems are the ones that turn off and on every day of the week.
 
The new uEFI is cool and everything, but the system I'm building in the next week doesn't have it: Gigabyte P67a UD7. I do not care either way. I mean how many times are you going into the BIOS once you have it set up.

If you want faster boot times get an SSD!
 
tangoseal said:
If you are like me and NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER turn your computer off, boot times matter NONE!!!
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Definitely. I never turn off my computer so improved boot times really mean very little to me. But, its cool to have the latest and greatest. :p
 
I really like the UEFI. The old BIOS always reminded me of some kind of DOS/BSOD.
 
tangoseal said:
I have hard drives that are regular desktop drives that have been running for 4 years almost 24-7. People that have hard drive problems are the ones that turn off and on every day of the week.
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I've got regular desktop drives that I've been turning on and off every day of the week for 5 years and have never had a problem. But cool story bro anyway.
 
evilsofa said:
I've got regular desktop drives that I've been turning on and off every day of the week for 5 years and have never had a problem. But cool story bro anyway.
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Well, generally, the HDDs tend to die more than those running 24/7.
 
I wouldn't say it increases system performance, but my computer boots through UEFI really fast.
 
evilsofa said:
I've got regular desktop drives that I've been turning on and off every day of the week for 5 years and have never had a problem. But cool story bro anyway.
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same, ive still got like a 6 year old maxtor thats never failed me. on/off daily.

I dont know if it's just placebo, but i tend to see (or think i see?) computer performance degrade the longer its been on.
 
hmz said:
I really like the UEFI. The old BIOS always reminded me of some kind of DOS/BSOD.
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I'm almost going to miss it.

I do WPF and Silverlight development now so I work with lots of eye candy but I started out in this racket about 20 years ago. Going into a BIOS always makes me nostalgic for the 'old days' when that interface was the typical 'UI'.
 
I haven't got to play with one of these new boards yet. Do you HAVE to use a mouse, or is still navigable with just a keyboard?
 
It's 64 bit. Supports GPT. Has the ability to have software wrote for it. Imagine having a basic web browser and OS built directly into the mobo? It's possible with UEFI.
 
tangoseal said:
People that have hard drive problems are the ones that turn off and on every day of the week.
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wow what a load of +++++++++

hard drive in modern PCs will automatically sleep after a certain amt of time so your point is moot since they will still power up and down as dictated by wondows.

I got a pentium III machine that is still running to this day that was built in 1999. got a celery 300a machine going as well both with the original drives that are 12+ years old.
 
bigdogchris said:
It's 64 bit. Supports GPT. Has the ability to have software wrote for it. Imagine having a basic web browser and OS built directly into the mobo? It's possible with UEFI.
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Yeah, you can have drivers written for UEFI supporting all kinds of hardware. It's pretty much a small embedded OS. It makes OS development a lot easier too as it automatically puts the CPU into a known, protected state, without the boot loader of the OS having to manage these details.

Personally I don't really care much either way, but I am interested in trying a UEFI-equipped mainboard some time :)
 
polive said:
The new uEFI is cool and everything, but the system I'm building in the next week doesn't have it: Gigabyte P67a UD7.
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Yes it does. Just that they kept the old BIOS interface for familiarity. It's UEFI behind the scenes.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
wow what a load of +++++++++

hard drive in modern PCs will automatically sleep after a certain amt of time so your point is moot since they will still power up and down as dictated by wondows.
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That's true only if you haven't messed with the power settings inside of Windows. You can turn off this power feature, so your disks never go to sleep.
 
Cmustang87 said:
That's true only if you haven't messed with the power settings inside of Windows. You can turn off this power feature, so your disks never go to sleep.
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And if you own a SSD, you've probably messed with your drive sleep settings.
 
EUFI has advantages as it can initialise the machine faster and support boot drive > 2.X TB. good enough for me to consider those a performance advantage
 
Appa said:
I got into this discussion with a friend. I say it does not, and is just a new visual interface for your BIOS. He says that it allows the computer to operate faster than a traditional BIOS and provides performance increase across the board.

What do you say? :confused:
Click to expand...

I don't know what is the point of UEFI:confused:? old school BIOS is fine for me and I can OC with them just fine.
 
the current uses of UEFI as implemented on the new batches of p67/h67 motherboards are really just BIOS replacements so for the average non OEM builder there is virtually no difference to be seen.

The Flexibility and extensibility come into play for ODMs and OEMs since you can have drivers loaded into ram for all kinds of hardware and no longer be limited by legacy the BIOS.

Raid controllers wont need a separate bios and the video modes available are much less limited.

A manufacturer can write in support for that hardware of the machine to streamline the boot process and /or have more powerful deployment and recovery tools.

So much in the same way that having a WinPE rescue cd can do more than a dos based on a UEFI based machine could have full blown AV/Security at the hardware level that is network configurable or update-able.

For the average DIY builder who just installs the OS and isn't imaging or cloning across different builds or doing custom boottime optimization through the use of drivers the only thing UEFI adds is the ability to boot a GPT partition and a gui layer for the old BIOS interface.

here is a link detailing the differences a bit more: http://www.logic.nl/Products/Technology/BIOS-and-EFI.aspx
 
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