AMI or AWARD: any preferences?

[Dufusyte]

Which is your favorite BIOS, AMI or AWARD? Does anybody have a preference?

- Does one boot up faster?
- Is either more stable?
- One have more features?

 

[Scorpion]

If anyone has had much experience with using AMI they will most surely tell you that it kicks @$$! AMI doesn't support overclocking though, that's why you don't see it mainstream anymore. AWARD is a decent bios with a decent interface.

I would much rather have an AMI bios though.

 

[atom]

I'm not sure, but I doubt the BIOS brand will affect boot up or stability all that much. It's too hard to say because a bad BIOS from a certain company can affect stability, but that isn't the fault of AMI/Award.

As far as features, they all have pretty much the same features, it's up to the motherboard makers which ones they want you to be able to tinker around with. I have a MSI board, and I didn't even notice for a few days that it had an AMI BIOS, the interface is exactly like an Award BIOS.

 

[Burn]

It used to make a difference awhile ago, in interface I mean. But the bios reflects so much now on the motherboard manufacturer rather than AMI/Award.

 

[T2T III]

If given the choice, I'd pick Award. Why? I've had a system with an AMI WinBIOS before. Everytime I'd enter into the setup, my monitor would flake out like it was going to explode. Since that time, I've frowned on the AMI bios.

I do think that Award owns AMI (or the other way around). I thought they merged a few years back.

 

[Dufusyte]

Award and Phoenix merged. AMI is separate.

 

[Jhhnn]

AMI is still around, I have amibios on my msi ms6309, I think msi is one of a few mfgs who use it. It works well,definitely has all the o/c goodies, but is quirky in ways different from current award versions. Some of the stuff that can be manually controlled with some award just happens automatically in the background with ami, at least the version I have. The current amibios has a better interface than older versions, very much like the award system. Better than award? dunno. Different? Yep. The ubiquity of award bios is its biggest advantage, damn near everybody has it, and is consequently better supported by the online community.

 

[dszd0g]

Since about 1996?(When did Windows 95 come out?) I would choose Award over AMI. When Windows 95 hit the market AMI couldn't do PnP properly and almost got kicked out of the BIOS market. About 1997 they seemed to have fixed most of their problems. Since then AMI seems to be trying to get back the market Award stole. As of about 6 months ago when I tried an AMI BIOS I liked Award much better. AMI has been catching up. Maybe they will be better than Award again sometime soon. At this point I still choose Award. Also, the mobos I like tend to come with Award BIOSes anyways.

 

[Perce]

I remember that dszd0g!!! I hated AMI with the first version of PnP!!! What a nightmare!! My vote AWARD.

 

[Tonec]

The AMI bios on the K7M seemed to post significanty faster than any award bios I've seen.