EFI a must have?

E

Ehren8879

Supreme [H]ardness
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With EFI now an option, I'm torn between which P67 board to purchase. I've had my eye on a Gigabyte UD4 that only offers the traditional bios, while many other well rated competitors are offering EFI solutions on their boards.

I'm certain EFI is the future standard due to key benefits, but should I let it influence my purchase looking into the future of this platform?

The more I read about it, I'm leaning toward the MSi's GD65. Decisions, decisions.
 
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I am. The native 3TB HDD support wins me over. I expect to own one of those over the lifetime of the system.
 
If you plan to use it as your primary computer into 2012 and beyond, I would get EFI.

If you are the type of person who upgrades every 6-12 months, getting EFI right now shouldn't matter much.
 
I intend to keep the board for a while, but I'm also concerned with resale one day. I think EFI is enough of a game changer to warrant having it as a feature. Sorry Gigabyte.

What about boot time? Are these EFI boards improving post time?
 
But, Gigabyte's UD4 claims support for booting from a 3TB+ hdd according to their site.

Isn't EFI just a GUI for the same old bios underneath?
 
EFI isn't BIOS. It's more of a successor. Apple used something similar called Open Firmware before they went Intel. I remember using it in tech support once or twice back in the 90s, because you could perform some simple operations without booting the OS. Very handy sometimes.

That being said, I'm very fond of the 1500 mA USB ports on the Gigabyte that can also charge when the box is 'off.' Is there any SB EFI MB that offers that?

Otherwise I might do BIOS again.
 
What are advantages of EFI compared to bios ?

Just 3TB+ hdds and mouse support ?
 
enc0re said:
EFI isn't BIOS. It's more of a successor. Apple used something similar called Open Firmware before they went Intel. I remember using it in tech support once or twice back in the 90s, because you could perform some simple operations without booting the OS. Very handy sometimes.

That being said, I'm very fond of the 1500 mA USB ports on the Gigabyte that can also charge when the box is 'off.' Is there any SB EFI MB that offers that?

Otherwise I might do BIOS again.
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I'm pretty sure I've seen it on at least the Rampage III Formula. I'd be surprised if one of the P8P67 boards in ASUS' lineup didn't have it.
 
Didn't Windows 7 use a 100mb boot partition? So wouldn't the 3TB support mostly be for legacy OS without this? I'm rather sure most linux distros don't need UEFI to boot to a 3TB drive - since they all could be useing a boot partition?

Or is that not how this works?
 
Ehren8879 said:
I've had my eye on a Gigabyte UD4 that only offers the traditional bios,
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That's the first reason im not buying a gigabyte p67 mobo, that and the 6 sata ports that they include(except on the $300+ ud7), even the basic asus p67 mobo has 8 sata ports.
 
I've scoured the interwebs all day and still can't find anyone talking about boot time difference between UEFI and BIOS. However I've almost made up my mind on the GD65, mostly because EFI is something new to be familiar with. All other features are pretty much equal to me.

I've had my fun with BIOS
 
I can't find it now either, but on one review site, they had a regular bios boot in 28.xx seconds and the EFI boot in 22.xx seconds
 
Megalomaniac said:
I can't find it now either, but on one review site, they had a regular bios boot in 28.xx seconds and the EFI boot in 22.xx seconds
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So 6 seconds the one time a month I actually reboot the machine (versus suspending)? Not terribly compelling. The EFIs do look nice though, and some of them seem to provide some pretty robust information/usability. Not sure it's enough to drive my purchase decision though, unless everything else is even.

Ehren8879 said:
I've scoured the interwebs all day and still can't find anyone talking about boot time difference between UEFI and BIOS. However I've almost made up my mind on the GD65, mostly because EFI is something new to be familiar with. All other features are pretty much equal to me.

I've had my fun with BIOS
Click to expand...

Although with multiplier only overclocking, and the improvements in software overclocking, how often are you even going to be in the BIOS anymore?
 
In Anand's system specs he listed two SSD's, but in the boot time section he didn't say which one he used (or if he used a rotating drive). :(
 
EFI is a nice feature but for my usage model doesn't make much difference. I've messed with the BIOS exactly twice ever on my current PC (Core 2 Duo owned since early 08 - once on initial setup and once when I added a hard drive) and I don't see that changing on the new build. Wouldn't effect my purchase decision either way.
 
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