14 DAY TRIAL // With the introduction of the LGA 1155 motherboard line, most major manufacturers have made the switch from the antiquated BIOS to the new UEFI firmware, Gigabyte just letting us know that their boards also support the new EFI standard, the Taiwanese company dubbing this technology Hybrid EFI.
According to a post on the Gigabyte's blog, all P67 and H67 motherboards ship with Hybrid EFI, and the company has already started porting this new BIOS to other chipset platforms with the intention to make it available on every currently shipping Gigabyte motherboard.
What this means is that a wide range of motherboards, ranging from high-end X58 chipset models down to the entry level new G41 chipset models, will get 3TB+ HDD boot support as well as all the other features associated with an EFI BIOS.
What users don't get, however, is a graphical user interface, or BIOS mouse support, as Gigabyte has chosen not to incorporate these two features inside Hybrid EFI.
This was possible since the EFI BIOS is based on a modular design, manufacturers having the option to add or remove modules depending on their particular needs or wishes.
As Gigabyte states, this approach is what allowed them to port the BIOS to such a wide number of chipsets.
“One of the features of the EFI BIOS is that it is modular, so mouse support and a graphical interface are additional modules that some vendors have added to their EFI BIOS.
“This also explains how Gigabytes has been able to add an EFI module to our stable and reliable BIOS,” reads the company's blog.
Users that want to upgrade their motherboard to the new Hybrid EFI BIOS can do so by going to the Gigabyte's website and downloading the @BIOS utility.
Once installed, @BIOS will flash the motherboard with the latest available BIOS version.