Does the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 have UEFI bios?

[DarkDubzs]

Im pretty sure the revision 3 has uefi bios, but what about the revision 1.0, 1.1? I am worried about this b/c i am going to be getting the board at Microcenter tomorrow and i dont know which revision theyll give me. I really want UEFI bios, im pretty sure the rev 3.0 has uefi bios. So please help!

Update: If whichever revision doesnt have true uefi, not that ugly fake "hybrid efi", can i just flash the bios to a new version to get true uefi bios?

 

[yanis31]

i got a GA-970A-UD3P a few days ago - it has the uefi bios and it's really not a big deal,
the mouse works incredibly slow so i just ignore it and move around the same way as the oldschool blue bios...
to me - it might as well have that and it would make no difference... once you go through all the settings you realise there's nothing too interesting
about the UEFI ...

BUT and this might be a big BUT - i think windows 8 boots faster with a uefi bios... there's an option to select wether you have windows 8 or not,
but im not noticing a huge difference... it should be similarly fast with a older board as long as you have a ssd and sata3...

 

[DarkDubzs]

i got a GA-970A-UD3P a few days ago - it has the uefi bios and it's really not a big deal,
the mouse works incredibly slow so i just ignore it and move around the same way as the oldschool blue bios...
to me - it might as well have that and it would make no difference... once you go through all the settings you realise there's nothing too interesting
about the UEFI ...

BUT and this might be a big BUT - i think windows 8 boots faster with a uefi bios... there's an option to select wether you have windows 8 or not,
but im not noticing a huge difference... it should be similarly fast with a older board as long as you have a ssd and sata3...

I totally get you, i just like uefi because ive never used regular bios before. I hate the old blue screen bios b/c it takes me back to the panic mode i used to get in when the old BSOD would pop up and the bsod looks just like the old bios to me. UEFI bios is just more of my personal liking and honestly, it can be a deal breaker for me. I think Windows 8 will boot faster with it too, my board has the option, but havent enabled it.

 

[yanis31]

i think the asus uefi bios looks slightly nicer .. but it's all practically the same,
the board is nice with plenty of overclocking features... mine is probably not that different from the non "p" version apart from black (brown-ish) pcb

the one thing i am quite disappointed about is the lack of fan controls... i can only choose settings for Cpu fan and System fan 1 .. the other two plugs will just roll at 100% speed... i think asus is doing better on this end with their fan xpert ... but maybe i can still find some software that can do this, haven't looked around much... and if i had a decent new case i guess it would have some fan control built into it so might not be a big deal

 

[DarkDubzs]

I'm actually thinking of getting this board or the Asus m5a97 r2.0. Which do you think is better in terms of overclocking, bios interface and options, etc. like which would you get or do you think I should be getting? I wish I could just get the better Asrock 990fx Extreme4 I originally wanted really bad.

 

[yanis31]

The asus boards seem a bit more feature packed, however:

M5A97 R2.0
ASUS Power Design :
- 4 +2 Phase Power Design

M5A97 EVO R2.0 -
ASUS Digital Power Design :
- Digital 6 +2 Phase Power Design
- Digital 2 Phase Power Design

Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3
Split Power Plane, 8+2 phase VRM

so if you want asus i suggest to take the EVO,
the 8+2 power phases should be better for stable overclocking, which gigabyte is kinda known for,
and these AM3+ FX processors are power hungry bastards

but that asus digi+ thing might be very good as well

 

[DarkDubzs]

What does difference is the asus digital power phases or that digi+ thing you mentioned? I think I'll just stick with the gigabyte in the end. If I can really afford it, I'll go for an Asrock 999fx extreme4 mobo, doubt I will be able though.

 

[yanis31]

What does difference is the asus digital power phases or that digi+ thing you mentioned? I think I'll just stick with the gigabyte in the end. If I can really afford it, I'll go for an Asrock 999fx extreme4 mobo, doubt I will be able though.

it's just a better power design for the CPU ... those are the parts under the cooler on the left side next to cpu socket, so if you overclock it could matter for better stability, but as you can see the gigabyte already has a nice power design for slightly less cost - so if you are on a budget - you can see why many people recommend gigabyte,
about the 990fx boards - i don't see much of a reason to be honest,
the low end 990fx boards might also have a inferior power design and you might need to pony up the cash again for a 8+2,
the 970 chipset has all the overclocking features you need on it but it only supports crossfire,
nvidia SLI is supported only on the 990fx, but who needs multi gpu setups anyway, i dont recommend them
the only other difference i can see between them is Hypertransport link speed
4.8 on the 970 and 5.2 on the 990fx - but if that makes any real difference in a setup that is not full with gpu's
and expansion cards - i really don't know, and i wasn't able to find any info about it here as well....
someone mentioned the 990fx might have better memory performance but the amd mem controller is kinda limited anyway so i doubt thats important... stick to max 1866mhz and you will be fine...
games show a very little difference between higher speeds
...so i took a 970 board and im completely fine with it

 

[yanis31]

wow.. stumbled upon a old thread where i used to post... - i can announce that finally, almost a year later they have fixed the slow mouse issue with the latest F2E Beta bios
and also i had windows installed in legacy mode all this time, just went for a UEFI installation that managed to piss me off quite alot until i made it happen,
you see in UEFI mode the board simply won't recognize your DVD drive no matter what you do (maybe someone else has had better luck?)
so for me the only option was to buy a USB Stick since i didn't actually have one, and make a bootable usb installation,

NOTE: if you ever attempt this - you need to format the USB in FAT32 - UEFI doesn't read NTFS file system and won't recognize the USB,
(classic bios, or shall i say "bios" emulation in legacy mode DOES)
some tools that will make a bootable usb for you will reformat the usb in NTFS again and mess up the whole deal,
since my DVD had the necessary uefi files/directories on it i just copy/pasted the entire contents to usb after formatting myself in FAT32 and Voila!
was able to install windows in UEFI mode ... now i have the secure boot available and possibly a little faster boot however im not noticing too much difference,
i know some other boards and brands have those superfast boots where you press the power button and in a few seconds you're at the Metro screen
(or desktop for people like me who use startisback)
Cheers!