UEFI on Gigabyte Motherboards?

[dogman-x]

And I hear they may implement EFI onto the P67 at a later date, the hardware is already capable.

Apple Mac computers have used EFI since 2006, when they first switched to Intel chips. That was back when Intel had just introduced the first "Core" processors, even before Core2.

If those old processors and chipsets were EFI capable, it's a good bet everything since then is EFI capable as well.

[Psycho101]

It has nothing to do with CPU's and chipsets and all to do with the BIOS EEPROM's used. Unless they have used a compatible EEPROM on a certain board, it won't support EFI. Considering the apropriate EEPROM costs maybe 5-8 times as much as a standard one, you can bet your botom dollar that a huge proportion of boards aren't capable of using EFI.

[Linda Woodrich]

That shows normal BIOS, what were you referring to?

Maybe I missed what you meant?

I believe, based on my understanding of UEFI support, that the screen shot means many GIGABYTE desktop mother boards already support
UEFI.

My GA-870A-UD3 Rev. 3.0 - bios FD - does support it based on my understanding.

From the website of the industry group which owns the UEFI standard:

Q:	Does UEFI completely replace a PC BIOS?
A:	No. While UEFI uses a different interface for "boot services" and "runtime services", some platform firmware must perform the functions BIOS uses for system configuration (a.k.a. "Power On Self Test" or "POST") and Setup. UEFI does not specify how POST & Setup are implemented.
Q:	How is UEFI implemented on a computer system?
A:	UEFI is an interface. It can be implemented on top of a traditional BIOS (in which case it supplants the traditional "INT" entry points into BIOS) or on top of non-BIOS implementations.

From: UEFI - About UEFI


As a more practical matter these desktop Gigabyte Boards allow you to use a 3 Trillion Byte drive from Western Digital as a boot device for Windows 7 using only the UEFI standard ( not WD's proprietary driver solution which never worked for boot drives - and is no longer supported on some newer large WD drives). OF course the UEFI standard also requires the disk be formatted as a GUID Partition Table (GPT) drive and the use of the 64bit version of Windows 7 with Service pack 1. But that is a requirement of the UEFI standard and has nothing to do with Gigabyte's implementation of it.

At least that is my understanding...

L

[skan]

Hi

I know this thread is old but I think this can help some people

Gygabyte has released a tool that enables UEFI on many (not too) motherboard.

GIGABYTE 3TB+ Unlock Utility


And I have a question:
Do I need UEFI if I'm using Windows 64bits?. Or this O.S can use and boot from +3TB disks without UEFI?

[Acebmxer]

You need a UEFI bios to boot from a GPT partition which is capable of sizes larger then 2tb+.

p67/z68 and older chip sets can only used 2tb+ drives as a secondary hdd. The OS would need to be on a smaller drive and formatted in MBR not GPT.

[skan]

OK, thanks.

I've seen that Gygabyte also offer BIOS upgrades in order to enable UEFI on most motherboards.

[Acebmxer]

OK, thanks.

I've seen that Gygabyte also offer BIOS upgrades in order to enable UEFI on most motherboards.

No not UEFI but a Hybrid EFI

[skan]

No not UEFI but a Hybrid EFI

Does "Hybrid EFI" have any dissadvantage over "UEFI"?

[Acebmxer]

Its still OLD school bios not the fully graphical bios. All it adds is support for 3tb+ hdd's but only as a secondary hdd.