Full screen picture and aspect ratio outside of Windows (BIOS, POST..)

[thewhat]

This is more of a curiosity than a problem...

With two older 4xxx and 5xxx series Radeons, I'd get the full screen 16:9 picture on my monitor before Windows boots up (in BIOS etc.).
With my new 7850 the picture is "squeezed" to 5:4 with black borders on the sides. Once the Windows video driver loads everything is normal.
I'm using DVI, if that matters. I haven't tried with other connectors.

Just wondering if this is normal and if you noticed the same with your video cards.
If anything, I'd expect newer cards to be calibrated for wide screen formats by default, so it's a bit weird.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Your older cards were stretching the 640 x 480 image, the new one is showing the true aspect ratio letterboxed.

 

[thewhat]

The new card is not showing the correct aspect ratio, it's definitely too narrow. So much that it makes the fonts distorted and a bit harder to read.
Maybe the older cards were stretching it too much (can't remember), but it looked better for sure.
As I said, though, this is only without the right Windows driver, so no big deal.