EFI Sandy Bridge Motherboards?

[Schadenfroh]

I was considering upgrading from my Q9450 to a Sandy Bridge i5 or i7. One of the things that intrigues me is the leap from BIOS to EFI / UEFI.

I have read many benefits of this transition and I am quite surprised that it has not happened yet. I was curious if there are any motherboards manufactured by Intel that support it. So far, the only boards I have seen advertising having it have been ASUS and Gigabyte. I do not see it mentioned on the product specifications for the latest Intel 6-series first-party motherboards, although some of their manuals make references to EFI and BIOS together.

Kinda want to stick with Intel boards this go around, seem to be supported longer and I hear that Intel now allows limited over-clocking capabilities with their boards (correct me if I am wrong).

 

[mv2devnull]

I thought that Gigabyte still lacks EFI? Their P67 can boot from 2.2+ volumes, but no true EFI. However, they might be able to flash from BIOS to EFI.

There are even LGA775 boards from Intel that supposedly support EFI. I did try one, with "UEFI" option in its would beBIOS and an USB stick that does boot with EFI. That one failed. But it must be an early version of EFI boot support in it.

I'm not sure whether I saw it right that in Asus P8P67 Pro there is AMI version 2.0 EFI. Even that is not the latest EFI specification. That does boot Windows 7 DVD with EFI and does boot my USB stick as well.

 

[Majic 7]

Intel boards have UEFI. Also have pretty much the same overclocking settings as any other board. Parameters are a little different and the boards are only 6 phase. I have seen reviews and forums posts anywhere from 4.4 to 5 Ghz. Depends on the chip but generally they overclock a little lower. I have an Asus Pro and if the Intel boots anything like it you will be amazed. Do have a SSD but it was around 30 seconds on my 775 board. Somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds between power button and log in. This is one of the benefits of UEFI, setting things in the UEFI is pretty much the same on my board. So far my board seems to use memory differently. Hard to tell since I am rebooting so often, changing settings mostly, one or two WTH shutoffs, but after it runs for a while I see the same memory usage with 76 processes that I did with 50 on the 775. Svchosts don't seem to use as much. A little buggy so far but the new chipset is kind of amazing. So far Gigabyte is the only manufacturer that isn't UEFI. Not sure about EVGA.

 

[Schadenfroh]

That boot time is pretty sweet!

I thought that Gigabyte still lacks EFI?

Yeh, looks like it is not enabled atm.

Intel boards have UEFI. Also have pretty much the same overclocking settings as any other board.

I am looking at this one:
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=50086
(detailed specifications):
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/19489/eng/DP67BA_TechProdSpec.pdf

Which appears to be a lower end version of this:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=647&Itemid=69&limit=1&limitstart=5

The interface looks the same as a traditional bios, which is fine, just did not see it in the documentation or in the reviews where they refer to it as UEFI (only heard it called BIOS). This might be because in the marketing material, they treat UEFI = BIOS, not sure.

 

[Majic 7]

I was torn between the higher end board and the Asus PRO I got. Price was the same but the Asus had more features, so I took a chance that I wouldn't run into all the problems that have turned up. So far so good, not ready for prime time but close enough. One thing about the chipset is that it is short on pci lanes. On my board if you use the PCI16/4 slot you can't use two PCI1 and two USB3 ports. Can't fill all the slots and ports, you have to investigate to determine what is available and compromise.

 

[bankster55]

I had a Dell 2005 desktop that was "EFI" capable because it had an Intel branded mobo (Foxconn). As I recall you had to use Linux.
MSI had special P45 mobo that allowed bios flashes in either EFI GPT or MSDOS MBR
Windows 7 X64 is fully EFI compliant
Win 7 X86 is not, if you are using GPT disks, may as well forget 32 bit, because you cant put an O/S on it.
There is "old" EFI and new UEFI
EFI was originally strictly Intel spec
The later vers folds in everyone, current is 2.3
http://www.uefi.org/home/

The gigabyte p67 when they added >2.19TB drives in a bios update means EFI capable. You can have >2.19TB drives without EFI with HBA (host bus adapters) or the new use of "Long LBA" which is an EFI workaround, but if its in bios support, that means EFI

EFI is a big nothing in bios, Win 7 X64 does all the work

In full EFI you can have thousands of primaries, up to 2.19TB partitions, and 7 zettabytes of HDD

Full EFI -

UEFI bios
Win 7 X64 SP1
AHCI
Intel 10.1.0.1008 Intel RST (or better yet - the upcoming 10.5 drivers)
GPT formatted disk, or selecting the GPT box during X64 install on blank drive

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/tech...0235119/$file/Deskstar_3TB_FAQ_finalwebv2.pdf

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/tech...002600FC/$file/FinalHiCap_2.2TB_TechBrief.pdf

 

[hclarkjr]

here are all the 1155 boards listed on newegg right now http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627%20600093976&IsNodeId=1&name=LGA%201155
if you look i see an MSI board that has it listed also MSI P67A-C43 also the MSI P67A-GD53

 

[hclarkjr]

i am switching from 9450 too, i am going with gigabyte board. either the UD4 or UD5

 

[Castiel]

I was considering upgrading from my Q9450 to a Sandy Bridge i5 or i7. One of the things that intrigues me is the leap from BIOS to EFI / UEFI.

I have read many benefits of this transition and I am quite surprised that it has not happened yet. I was curious if there are any motherboards manufactured by Intel that support it. So far, the only boards I have seen advertising having it have been ASUS and Gigabyte. I do not see it mentioned on the product specifications for the latest Intel 6-series first-party motherboards, although some of their manuals make references to EFI and BIOS together.

Kinda want to stick with Intel boards this go around, seem to be supported longer and I hear that Intel now allows limited over-clocking capabilities with their boards (correct me if I am wrong).

Only the 200 dollar intel extreme board allows overclocking

 

[HumblePie]

just ordered the Asrock fatality board myself.

 

[Majic 7]

Only the 200 dollar intel extreme board allows overclocking

How do you know that. Someone else on the boards had an ITX Intel board that overclocked. Did they skip their midrange board for some reason?

 

[Ross Ridge]

I thought that Gigabyte still lacks EFI? Their P67 can boot from 2.2+ volumes, but no true EFI.

You can't boot Windows from a disk bigger than 2.2T without EFI, so would mean the Gigabyte P67 boards support EFI. Every review of a Gigabyte P67 I've seen also says they're using UEFI firmware now. What they don't support is a fancy new GUI interface.

 

[hclarkjr]

I thought that Gigabyte still lacks EFI? Their P67 can boot from 2.2+ volumes, but no true EFI. However, they might be able to flash from BIOS to EFI.

There are even LGA775 boards from Intel that supposedly support EFI. I did try one, with "UEFI" option in its would beBIOS and an USB stick that does boot with EFI. That one failed. But it must be an early version of EFI boot support in it.

I'm not sure whether I saw it right that in Asus P8P67 Pro there is AMI version 2.0 EFI. Even that is not the latest EFI specification. That does boot Windows 7 DVD with EFI and does boot my USB stick as well.

this is quote from anand's review of the UD4 from gigabyte

Gigabyte’s dual BIOS system is on this board. Yes, that is right – BIOS. No UEFI here. Well, that's not strictly true, as one of the latest BIOS updates at the time of writing (F6) implements an EFI into the BIOS, reportedly allowing bootable access to hard drives over 2.2TB. This is due to, as Gigabyte explained, that their board is actually UEFI, but without a proper GUI interface like other boards. They've used the old BIOS-style interface for now, as after years of plugging away they believe it's quick, stable and recognisable for consumers to understand. So underneath, it's truly 64-bit, meaning 2.2TB+ partition support is possible, and could also suggest that a new GUI is coming in the future. I asked about time-scale for this, but Gigabyte were undoubtedly tight-lipped about dates and implementations.

 

[Majic 7]

I haven't read one Gigabyte review that didn't comment on the lack of UEFI.

 

[hclarkjr]

i doubt it has hurt business, they do make great motherboards. plus from what anand said in his review it is there just no GUI for it yet.

 

[Schadenfroh]

How do you know that. Someone else on the boards had an ITX Intel board that overclocked. Did they skip their midrange board for some reason?

Hmm, I would not be surprised if Intel boards lacked overclocking capabilities, but it is odd that they would do something like that. Sadly, not many reviews on lower-mid range motherboards.

 

[Majic 7]

Maybe pm can find out for you. I looked around but couldn't find anything. Seemed odd to me also. I think it may be internet common knowledge, i.e. FUD-BS, not many people on sites like this use Intel boards and just don't know. I have a Badaxe 1 with the original E6600 from 5? years ago still running at 3.0.

 

[Axon]

i doubt it has hurt business, they do make great motherboards. plus from what anand said in his review it is there just no GUI for it yet.

UEFI seems to just be a newer BIOS with mouse control, no? Still, ASUS is the best show in town for it.

Nonetheless, I know the UD4 "lost" in anandtech's review, but I have to say that there are some inaccuracies and assumptions in that review. I was very disappointed by it.

I'm not sure if ASUS can do this, but the UD4 BIOS allows you to maintain a stable overclock at all times, rather than just overclocking the turbo mode. I like that feature quite a bit, as I definitely noticed a lack of responsiveness as my PC jumped from 1.6 ghz to 4.6. It also has 8x/8x PCI-E lanes (16x in single), which is a distinct advantage for me as an SLI user.

Also, it was implied that the UD4 has inferior overclocking ability. I can boot this 2500k to 4.7 ghz by doing nothing more than changing load-line calibration to enabled and setting the multi to 47x (1.35v, less if i want). He hit a limit of 4.4 at "auto" (1.35) volts, which indicates to me he did little more than just change the multi. This was an issue I had when I first got the board, but then I realized a few, very limited tweaks to things other than the vcore and the multi would let me hit 5.0 (at 1.4ish volts, less than what he needed for 4.7).

I'm not saying the ASUS Pro is a bad board - it's tremendous, and if you have a Microcenter near you it's the way to go because of the bundle deal. I just saw some distinct issues in the UD4 review. Of course, the review is correct in one fashion: the ASROCK is the best deal of all three.

 

[Majic 7]

The reason I went for a UEFI board was reports of quicker boot up times. It did not disappoint, 5 to 10 seconds power button to login. Don't know if the Gigabyte does this, if so then there really is no difference. The other things mentoned 8 x 8 and stable overclock are the same. There really isn't that much to differentiate between the different manufacturers at similar price points for the basic stuff. As long as you don't get a bum board you can't really go wrong with any of them.

 

[Majic 7]

Found a thread on HardForums on overclocking the DP67BA and other lower end boards. One person was having trouble keeping his settings and another will try again tonight on the Intel board. The board has the settings but seems to throttle back to stock under a load. Not promising but maybe it is due to heat. Speedstep? http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1575890

 

[Axon]

The reason I went for a UEFI board was reports of quicker boot up times. It did not disappoint, 5 to 10 seconds power button to login. Don't know if the Gigabyte does this, if so then there really is no difference. The other things mentoned 8 x 8 and stable overclock are the same. There really isn't that much to differentiate between the different manufacturers at similar price points for the basic stuff. As long as you don't get a bum board you can't really go wrong with any of them.

Good to know. A faster boot time would really be welcome; I think my BIOS is the slowest part of the boot cycle. Still, it can't be more than 15 seconds.

 

[MrTransistorm]

Just saw this on the Gigabyte Tech Daily blog:

GIGABYTE has already introduced Hybrid EFI Technology that is fully compliant with EFI aware operating systems. This BIOS is shipping now with all GIGABYTE P67 and H67 chipset motherboards, and we have started introducing this BIOS on motherboards using other chipsets with the intention of making is available on all GIGABYTE motherboards.
...
<comments>
Jack said...

So in other words this means that we are not going to see modern GUI (like in Asus P8P67 series). Right?​

BRIX said...

@Jack: Currently no, but our Hybrid EFI technology is quite flexible which would allow us to do. We are still evaluating the best implementation, so that users get the best experience right out the gate, without them having to be our beta testers.
​

Apparently Gigabyte has eschewed the GUI interface in order to make their "Hybrid EFI" compatible with all of their current boards (not just S1155). If they ever do included a GUI, it doesn't look like it will be any time soon.

I admit that there are some nice things about having a GUI that I'll miss out on by using a Gigabyte board. Drag and drop boot order looks quite handy. However, once I have the settings tweaked to my liking, I won't be spending much time in BIOS setup anyway.

 

[CraigRT]

Just saw this on the Gigabyte Tech Daily blog:

Apparently Gigabyte has eschewed the GUI interface in order to make their "Hybrid EFI" compatible with all of their current boards (not just S1155). If they ever do included a GUI, it doesn't look like it will be any time soon.

I admit that there are some nice things about having a GUI that I'll miss out on by using a Gigabyte board. Drag and drop boot order looks quite handy. However, once I have the settings tweaked to my liking, I won't be spending much time in BIOS setup anyway.

That is my thought too.
I am more of a set it and for the most part forget it type user.
Once its done, I may not go into the BIOS for months if not longer. Hell, I may not even reboot my computer for months.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Found a thread on HardForums on overclocking the DP67BA and other lower end boards. One person was having trouble keeping his settings and another will try again tonight on the Intel board. The board has the settings but seems to throttle back to stock under a load. Not promising but maybe it is due to heat. Speedstep? http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1575890

Thanks, one of the posters made a very nice summary of Intel's offerings:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1574834

Who actually builds Intel's motherboards? Seems like most people say Foxconn, but I assume Intel specifies the components and design, right?

 

[Majic 7]

Funky Kit said that ASUS makes DP67BG. According to their Intel rep, anyway. The article said MSI and Gigabyte made Intel boards also. Don't know if Foxconn gets to anymore or not. Sockets, anyone?