Unfortunately, our experiences with these utilities have tended to be unsuccessful and we have invariably resorted to the tried and trusty Bios, which brings us back to that rotten interface. In 2005, Intel handed the EFI project over to an industry body called UEFI and now, a mere three years later, we have the first visible fruits of the project in the shape of the MSI P45D3 Platinum motherboard which is available with a choice of either a BIOS or UEFI.
Overclocking options built in
MSI gives full details on its microsite here, where you will see that UEFI is also available for the P45 Platinum and "coming soon" for the P45 Diamond.
Memory tweaking, no problem
MSI's main UEFI screen - decked in customary Asian fashion in garish colours and dubbed 'Click Bios' - shows five options floating like planets in the solar system. Or something like that.
The options are OC (Overclocking), ECO (power settings), Setting (Boot configuration, hardware monitor and stuff like that), Game and Utility (Live Update, Bios update and so on).
Memory Z
You can see in the screen grabs that OC, ECO and Setting cover options that are familiar from the traditional BIOS except they look far better with decent graphics. As you would expect it is both quicker and easier to navigate the menus with the mouse.
COMMENTS
@Leo Waldock
Wow... this is the first article on any Register site I've started but could not finish. By page 2 I had to quit reading and ask what you problem with command line interfaces are? Did a keyboard beat you up when you were younger? Did a tab key kill your dog?
The hatred that you showed for the traditional BIOS interface, keyboard input and not capitalizing BIOS (it is an initialism you know?) makes me wonder if you have enough years under your belt to speak on this kind of topic.
efiGL, efiIPv6, efiMobileIP, efiGPS
with support for pixel/vertex/whatever else shaders, with Clippy The EFI Assistant, with JavaEFI(TM) edition for 3rd party applets support, with EFI indexing service ("The one that is supposed to make finding [options in EFI BIOS] quicker, that is controlled by interaction with a cartoon dog that you thought you had turned off") and embedded audio/video player with DRM support for even richier, nicier, beefier luser sexperience...
Graphical system setup?
Hmm... OK, I'll admit that some of it was CLI (I.E. the *configure command), but not all of it. The system - the Acorn Archimedes.
Pulling the computer out of the 1980's indeed! Heh!
Killing independent mobo-manufacturers
"Bios and in comes UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) in its place."
Which just "happens" to be riddled with Intel & MS patents. How about killing competition in yet another sector?
It's totally irrelevant what's UEFI is at technical level, it's important who defines it (at will): Intel/MS. Easy way to kill indepedent mobo-manufacturers: You don't sell licence to them or ask a ridiculous price.
Yet another trick from dirty tricks department and most of the commenters buy it at face value. That's sad, tactics should be very easily seen with half brain.
It's all about money
"EFI’s major benefit is within its programming structure"
No, it's major benefit is money. For Intel, of course. I fail to see what are the benefits for MSI, unless Intel pays them to act as a sock puppet in this matter ... like some nice deep discount for bridge circuits, to a loyal customer, eh?
