General UEFI question.

[enewmen]

Hi all.

I've been reading lots on UEFI, how we may not need a OS again, problems with Gigabyte, change the world, fast boot times, get hard drive makers to start making bigger drives, etc.

So my question is,
By middle of next year, do you expect UEFI will be mainstream, mature, and on nearly all motherboards and notebooks?
Can we see 64-bit UEFI that will allow the CPU to directly address 64bit memory which includes RAM, video memory (if the card supports it), even directly access every byte on the 3TB hard drive - no such thing as "offline" unless you want to power down a device.
OR about when do you think this will happen?

I'm not ready now, but I will want to upgrade when all these updates are ironed out so at least I won't need to worry about getting another motherboard for a long time.

 

[jaquith]

As I understand it the UEFI currently is either 32-bit (x86-32, ARM) or 64-bit (x86-64 and Itanium), but relies on the 16-bit "real mode" interface supported by x86 processors (20-bit address bus).

The UEFI is intrusive enough and already has access to 32/64-bit addressing to the RAM, and to your HDD, etc. So yeah it 'is' happening now.

My take on UEFI - I appreciate the GUI but now that many UEFI's also have 'Games' seem a little CrAzY 'to me.' It makes no difference to me to use a keyboard or mouse to access the BIOS/EFI. The security risks IMO are potentially greater with UEFI, but there are BIOS viruses out there now and I have no doubts UEFI will have it's share.

I can foresee a day when the 'BIOS' and 'OS' merge into some form of 'Firmware' -- Greed will dictate that outcome.

You won't have a 'choice' pretty much every MOBO Mfg is migrating towards UEFI - the gotta have it because it's new and shinny.

 

[enewmen]

I was referring only to the 64bit version - with access to a FULL 64bits.
Hope there is real progress and things will mature in a year, not just a new GUI and a bleak future of greed.

Anyway, from reading your post, it seems then a hybird UEFI/BIOS like what Gigabyte has isn't so bad.

 

[jaquith]

Here's a couple links to bore you to death but are helpful.

WIKI UEFI -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface
UEFI main -> http://www.uefi.org/home/ ; there are a couple PDF files for nonmembers that have more info.

 

[enewmen]

The UEFI main was helpful (already read the the whole wiki page).
From looking at the big picture, UEFI, USB 3.0, thunderbolt, PCI 3.0, etc will all come together at about the same time for the masses.

 

[jaquith]

There are all sorts of wanna be standards - price and 'practicality' are the determinants. Most of which you listed are not 'mainstream' now but are available. Some things like SATA are lagging and others like Thunderbolt or PCIe 3.0 are ahead of 'need' and 'technology'.

Standards - We really need a 'SATA4' if not 'SATA5' NOW {or a SATA replacement} the SATA3 is fully saturated and many SSD's are forced to the PCIe.

 

[enewmen]

Best answer selected by enewmen.