facebook rss twitter

QOTW: What makes a great motherboard BIOS?

by Parm Mann on 9 May 2014, 16:30

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357), Gigabyte (TPE:2376), MSI, AsRock, EVGA, Biostar, ECS, Sapphire

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacd7z

Add to My Vault: x

HEXUS has been knee-deep in Z97 motherboards over the course of the past week, and we've come to realise that hardware alone isn't enough to differentiate the very best boards on offer today.

Manufacturers are having to revamp their own software in order to stand out from the crowd, and in this ultra-competitive market, a well-rounded BIOS can often make or break a particular board.

But each vendor's idea of the perfect BIOS tends to be unique, and each has their own slant on what works well. However, there's no better way of gauging what end users really want, than to ask you directly. So, for this week's question, we want to know: what makes a great motherboard BIOS?

Are you enjoying the UEFI upgrades? Do you revert back to 'classic' mode at the nearest opportunity? Have you seen a perfect fan-speed configuration? Are there overclocker-specific functions you can't do without? Or can you think of any useful features that haven't been seen before? Let the manufacturers know by using the comments facility below.



HEXUS Forums :: 18 Comments

Login with Forum Account

Don't have an account? Register today!
Loved my old x48 foxconn black ops, being able to change the stepping per core helped me clock it to the max.

As for in general just having all the useful overclocking settings and simple fan control, I never touch any auto overclocks and such. For layout etc I am not that fussed, after a heavy clocking and stability testing I never visit again unless something goes wrong.
Well something which would be a nice improvement for a lot of BIOS's I've seen would be a clear explanation for what settings actually do and/or why you might want to change them, especially for more obscure ones. It might be OK for seasoned tinkerers but they can be very intimidating for new and even moderately experienced users, even for settings which have a simple explanation.

For example, I've seen a lot of boards with a memory hole remapping setting, where the explanation is something along the lines of ‘remaps memory hole’. Yeah, no s…

GUI may look more welcoming to newcomers, but it in no way resolves the above problems.

Some BIOS's use or alternative names for common settings. Well, anyone who's had experience with a few motherboards likely knows the sort of thing I'm on about.

Reasonable default settings would be nice too, so newcomers needn't panic about getting simple settings correct.
As with many electronics - they should allow for as much freedom of choice as possible. Or at least, that's my opinion.
The first thing I do is click the advanced mode, as the GUI imo is just a vanity feature, it just looks pretty and lacks full set of options your MB is capable of. If you are tinkering with the BIOS in the first place you are of the Overclocker / Enthusiast type of user and not the novice newbie type of user anyways as almost all modern MB's work straight out of the box with nothing to be altered in the bios.
44degrees ,where do you keep your pc,in a stove ?