Some questions about UEFI Compatiblity , GPU and other things.

[R3-Flex]

I currently have a BIOS motherboard and would like to switch to UEFI , how can i find out if my motherboard can actually support UEFI ? 

 

how to find out that a GPU can run on BIOS or UEFI ?

 

Motherboard = Intel DG43GT

[Mira Yurizaki]

The only way to find out is to go to your manufacturer's website and see if they have UEFI firmware you can load on the motherboard. But since it's an LGA775 board, I don't think you'll find any.

 

I don't think GPUs care if the system is on BIOS or UEFI.

[R3-Flex]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The only way to find out is to go to your manufacturer's website and see if they have UEFI firmware you can load on the motherboard. But since it's an LGA775 board, I don't you'll find any.

 

Also I don't think GPUs care if the system is on BIOS or UEFI.

http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=9C9F764B-490D-45EB-B6B6-A40A2AF43984&lang=eng

 

can you check the specifications tab and tell if tis BIOS or UEFI ?

 

and does GPUs really dont care about UEFI or BIOS ? if not then what is the advantage of going UEFI ?

[Mark77]

While I really can't decipher if that board has a full EFI/UEFI implementation or not from the Intel datasheets, seriously, what are you trying to do?  UEFI is somewhat backwards compatible with BIOS option ROMs through compatability modes, but provides for a robust set of API's for applications programming.  Supports GPT.   And of course, dispenses with the archaic bootloader scheme used in traditional "BIOS" systems.

 

What 'problem' are you trying to solve with your computer?  That's pretty old hardware and for the most part, unless you're trying to engineer something odd, as an end user, it really shouldn't matter what kind of firmware you use to get the computer running, whether its (legacy) "BIOS" or EFI. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

The GPU doesn't care about the system being on BIOS or UEFI. I had a problem where a board was using UEFI but it wouldn't take a GeForce GTX 750 Ti, which was new at the time. I had to switch back to BIOS to get it working. But does that mean the GTX 750 Ti wants BIOS and not UEFI? No, because that wouldn't make sense since I had a GTX 670 while the system was using UEFI and it ran just fine.

 

There are a bunch of reasons for getting away from BIOS, but they're all low level and they don't really matter to the end user. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean it doesn't do anything.

[Mark77]

2 minutes ago, R3-Flex said:

and does GPUs really dont care about UEFI or BIOS ? if not then what is the advantage of going UEFI ?

I sort of touched upon that earlier, but basically UEFI makes applications development and boot ROM development easier because things can be coded in C instead of x86 assembly!.  UEFI has other potential optimizations such as the ability to run things like multi-threaded memory scrubbers.  SecureBoot is UEFI based and allows for operating system certificate signing.  UEFI can be used to develop network applications in the firmware itself -- ie: your future PC could, out of the box, download Microsoft Windows and install it, instead of being shipped with a Windows recovery CD -- by talking to the network hardware.  Adding modules is very simple with UEFI, compared to the sometimes convoluted process of adding them to firmware with BIOS.  There's huge numbers of architectural advantages of UEFI which make hardware/firmware development easier compared to the archaic "BIOS" system.  But if you're not an engineer, for the most part, you don't need to worry about the differences.

[R3-Flex]

6 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

While I really can't decipher if that board has a full EFI/UEFI implementation or not from the Intel datasheets, seriously, what are you trying to do?  UEFI is somewhat backwards compatible with BIOS option ROMs through compatability modes, but provides for a robust set of API's for applications programming.  Supports GPT.   And of course, dispenses with the archaic bootloader scheme used in traditional "BIOS" systems.

 

What 'problem' are you trying to solve with your computer?  That's pretty old hardware and for the most part, unless you're trying to engineer something odd, as an end user, it really shouldn't matter what kind of firmware you use to get the computer running, whether its (legacy) "BIOS" or EFI. 

Well my new GPU says "UEFI" on its name , so i thought it would not work. just doing some research. Radeon RX 460 2GB

 

Frankly speaking , My system is soo old that i have to almost always assume that whateve cool new technology is required , my Mobo wont have it. eg- DDR3-4 RAM , Multiple GPU slots , Better CPU Sockets etc.

[R3-Flex]

Just now, R3-Flex said:

Well my new GPU says "UEFI" on its name , so i thought it would not work. just doing some research. 

 

Frankly speaking , My system is soo old that i have to almost always assume that whateve cool new technology is required , my Mobo wont have it. eg- DDR3-4 RAM , Multiple GPU slots , Better CPU Sockets etc.

 

Just now, R3-Flex said:

Well my new GPU says "UEFI" on its name , so i thought it would not work. just doing some research. (Radeon RX 460 2GB)

 

Frankly speaking , My system is soo old that i have to almost always assume that whateve cool new technology is required , my Mobo wont have it. eg- DDR3-4 RAM , Multiple GPU slots , Better CPU Sockets etc.

 

[Mark77]

2 minutes ago, R3-Flex said:

Well my new GPU says "UEFI" on its name , so i thought it would not work. just doing some research. 

 

Frankly speaking , My system is soo old that i have to almost always assume that whateve cool new technology is required , my Mobo wont have it. eg- DDR3-4 RAM , Multiple GPU slots , Better CPU Sockets etc.

 

Yeah unlike those improvements, UEFI is mainly just to help make it easier for engineers to design and deliver computer hardware systems.  And deliver those nice user interfaces and firmware-level features that people want.  As well as reducing compatibility issues. 

 

There's a lot of 'legacy' stuff provided by BIOS that is obsoleted in UEFI.  Every BIOS computer had to be basically tested for compatability with software and systems 30-40 years old which meant that there was a lot of legacy code required to make that happen, such as interrupt handlers.