All GIGABYTE P67 and H67 chipset motherboards produced today ship with GIGABYTE’s Hybrid EFI Technology, and we have started porting this new BIOS to other chipset platforms with the intention to make it available on every currently shipping GIGABYTE motherboard. You’ll see the statement below start to appear on various online forums around the web as we start to promote this unique new GIGABYTE feature.
DualBIOS™ 3TB+ HDD Support (Hybrid EFI Technology)
3TB+ HDD support is an essential new feature for 2011 and has been one of the most talked about technologies accompanying the launch of the new Socket 1155 6 series motherboards. GIGABYTE not only supports booting from 3TB+ HDDs on all new P67 and H67 chipset motherboards, we offer the ability to boot from 3TB+ HDDs on all currently shipping GIGABYTE motherboard models (from high-end X58 chipset models down to the entry level new G41 chipset models) through GIGABYTE’s unique Hybrid EFI Technology. Hybrid EFI Technology combines the benefits of GIGABYTE’s mature BIOS platform including stability and compatibility with 3rd party products with 3TB+ HDD support from EFI technology, allowing GIGABYTE to offer the best of both worlds through a quick and easy BIOS update using GIGABYTE’s @BIOS utility that is freely available from the GIGABYTE website.
Tech companies love a good Q&A because we tell ourselves that people are interested in our new tech and are asking these pertinent questions of it. So here is our GIGABYTE Hybrid EFI Technology Q&A:
Question 1: When will GIGABYTE introduce an EFI compatible BIOS for their motherboards?
Answer 1: GIGABYTE has already introduced Hybrid EFI Technology that is fully compliant with EFI aware operating systems. This BIOS is shipping now with all GIGABYTE P67 and H67 chipset motherboards, and we have started introducing this BIOS on motherboards using other chipsets with the intention of making is available on all GIGABYTE motherboards.
Question 2: Why did GIGABYTE choose to use a hybrid EFI instead of a standard EFI technology?
Answer 2: GIGABYTE Hybrid EFI Technology allows us to quickly offer EFI functionality to a whole range of motherboards, not just the latest 6 series products, because it is based on GIGABYTE’s tried and tested BIOS.
Question 3: Why does GIGABYTE’s Hybrid EFI Technology not support using a mouse or have a mouse-friendly graphical interface?
Answer 3: Mouse support and the accompanying graphical interface are not part of the EFI spec. That’s why some motherboard makers have chosen to have mouse support with their EFI BIOS while others don’t. 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 GIGABYTE has been able to add an EFI module to our stable and reliable BIOS. GIGABYTE’s Hybrid EFI technology keeps the same familiar interface that millions of users are used to. It is quick, easy to use and overclockers can enter the BIOS and change settings as quickly (or even quicker) than if they were using a mouse.
Question 4: What are the advantages of GIGABYTE’s Hybrid EFI Technology?
Answer 4:
1. It supports booting from 2.2TB+ HDDs. GIGABYTE mentions 3TB+ because the next size up from a 2TB HDD is actually 3TB, not 2.2TB. GIGABYTE Hybrid EFI Technology provides headroom for a maximum disk and partition size of 9.4ZB (9.4 x 1021 bytes; kB, MB, GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB, YB, etc...)
2. It uses a reliable, tried and tested GIGABYTE Award BIOS that has been updated and improved over many years. Our BIOS is compatible with thousands of ICs, components and 3rd party products – a new BIOS needs a lot of compatibility testing before it is as mature as our Award BIOS. So basically we have the Best of Both Worlds with our Hybrid EFI Technology: stability of a mature BIOS and the 2.2TB+ support of an EFI BIOS.
3. Because of its design, it is easier to be backwards compatible with older motherboard models –X58 chipset down to new G41 chipset models will be able to enjoy Hybrid EFI Technology. So we are protecting our customers buying decision and helping to future proof their purchase. No other EFI solution can offer this!
4. GIGABYTE Hybrid EFI Technology is fully compliant with both EFI aware and non EFI aware operating systems.
Feel free to post additional questions in the comments section below and we’ll update this blog entry with the answers.
So in other words this means that we are not going to see modern GUI (like in Asus P8P67 series). Right?
ReplyDeleteWhen will you release Hybrid EFI bios for other chipset? I have a GA-X58A-UD7, and I want to use 3TB HDD.
ReplyDelete@Jack: Currently no, but our Hybrid EFI technology is quite flexible which would allow us to do. We are still evaluating the best implementation, so that users get the best experience right out the gate, without them having to be our beta testers.
ReplyDelete@Eung: Yes, Hybrid EFI will make it onto your board. It will just take a bit of time to update all the previous BIOSes. I suggest you go to the GA-X58A-UD7 product page in the on the GIGABYTE website in the next couple of weeks and look for a BIOS update.
What about GA-X58-UD5?
ReplyDeleteWill I able to use Hybrid EFI on this board?
And how about 890GPA-UD3H? I saw no mention of this being an Intel-only update, even if it only mentions Intel chips... so is the AMD platform expecting this update as well? I noticed it on the E350 Zucate board, so I assume it's a very likely possibility... :D
ReplyDeleteYes we will have all those boards going with EFI. We do plan to support AMD boards too mate, the timeframe is not confirmed yet but rest assured you will also get it too :)
ReplyDeletethis is interesting. I've some additionnal interrogations.
ReplyDelete1- Is hybrid EFI an actual UEFI firmware core with traditionnal gui look (which I prefer over useless fancy interfaces) or an ordinary bios with some EFI compatibility ?
2 - How fast is boot post compared to old bios init ?
3 - Are we able to boot USB2 disk or flashdisk at high speed with hybrid EFI ?
4 - Can I install and boot WinXP 32bit with hybrid EFI core ?
5 - Is the gigabyte EP45-UD3 hybrid EFI compatible ?
Thanks for your response.
and GA-EX58-UD5?
ReplyDeleteI have one Ga-x58a-UD7...
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to have an answer of claude questions (all 5 points) and also my question:
1 - Will it be extensible normally (e.g. to integrate bootloaders for different OSes)?
2 - Maybe all modern Gig MoBos LGA 1156 and 1366 have 16 Mbit (or 2048 kbyte) BIOS chips. And only half of space used
by BIOS to write. But 1155 MoBos have 32 Mbit (4096 kbyte) chips, and space used completely. Does EFI BIOS will 2048
kbyte or else?
3 - Would it be compaitible to intagrate some drivers or utilites (mouse, Keyboard, video or else)?
4 - Please answer a question about prospective dates or at least quarter of year for release EFI!!!
I have one Ga-x58a-UD7 rev. 1.0
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to have an answer of claude questions (all 5 points) and also my question:
1 - Will it be extensible normally (e.g. to integrate bootloaders for different OSes)?
2 - Maybe all modern Gig MoBos LGA 1156 and 1366 have 16 Mbit (or 2048 kbyte) BIOS chips. And only half of space used by BIOS to write. But 1155 MoBos have 32 Mbit (4096 kbyte) chips, and space used completely. Does EFI BIOS will 2048 kbyte or else?
3 - Would it be compaitible to intagrate some drivers or utilites (mouse, Keyboard, video or else)?
4 - Please answer a question about prospective dates or at least quarter of year for release EFI!!!
Me too expenting all pending answers to previous questions:D
ReplyDeleteGigabyte please add to our efi bios ,mouse support and graphical friendly user interface and support more languages .
ReplyDeleteHmmm it worries me that Gigabyte officials avoid answering those detailed and important questions...
ReplyDeleteGive us a really fancy bios and make sure its better than Asus so we can poke fun at them :)
ReplyDeleteBuying the Gigabyte P67A-UD7 Intel P67 Chipset (Socket 1155) in a weeks time
Would like to see the answers to claude's 4 questions.
ReplyDeleteAlways interested in new tech, when will Gigabyte have a full UEFI available?
I really like Gigabyte motherboards but, my next motherboard will have UEFI, hope it can be a Gigabyte board.
After searching for an answer, I've came to this conclusion :
ReplyDeleteHybrid EFI is a fake, I mean it has nothing to do with UEFI Firmware. It's just a hack of a traditionnal bios. A real UEFI firmware would allow you to boot Windows 7 x64 from a GPT disk. This is not possible with a bios !
Thus, gigabyte's boards are NOT UEFI compliant for now.
I've just ordered an Asus board (P8P67). Too bad
I guess gigabyte is using something similar to AMIBIOS8 :
From AMI Documentation :
- Does AMIBIOS8 Support Drives Larger Than 2.2TB?
Yes, AMIBIOS8 will detect and initialize drives larger than
2.2TB. However, AMIBIOS8 does not support UEF or boot to
GPT partitions. Boot to GPT is supported by a UEFI compliant
OS and BIOS. AMI Aptio uses UEFI and will boot to GPT.
"A real UEFI firmware would allow you to boot Windows 7"
DeleteYes, the purpose of EFI being able to boot newer bootloader implementations of Microsoft's OS.
Other OSs just get bonus benefits.
What happens to this gigabyte board in the following 2 tests:
ReplyDeleteTest 1: Does the installation of windows 7 x64 creates an EFI partition?
Test 2: Does the BCDEDIT command display winload.EFI and bootmgfw.EFI as its loader and boot manager respectively?
If one of the above tests fails, I do not think the baord is UEFI compliant.
Well....
ReplyDeleteBasically....
You have to have the BIOS that has memory of 2 x 16 Mbit flash.
Cause I asked Gigabyte support and found out that my board is not compatible to have even hybrid efi.
Cause mine is like 2 x 8 Mbit flash..
yeah this terminology is just bullshit for a HACK, Gigabyte makes good boards, this we know, but so does Foxconn. IF customers want a GUI and UEFI Make it happen, ONe would think gigabyte wants to keep their customer base strong! better yet just use the same UEFI as Apple does then we can just boot right from APPLE DVD's to install OSX Lion or Snow :)
ReplyDeleteMy motherboard is Gigabyte G41(rev 1.0).would i be able to use 2TB+ HDD with it?
ReplyDeleteWhen will you release a "real" UEFI for P67 motherboards? Since you have given Z68 users UEFI Bios, you shouldn't forget P67 users who bought your products before Z68 MB released.
ReplyDeleteI believe people would glad to buy your products again if you can give them better service.
ASUS and MSI already had UEFI last year, but we still bought your MBs.
Don't let us disappointed! :)
PS. Hope my P67A-UD3R-B3 can have an UEFI Bios Update.
Concerning the DualBIOS choke up. Wait until you get a "critical BIOS update" notification form you motherboard manufacturer that does nothing more than TOTALLY erase your BIOS. Had this happen with a Toshiba. Turned it into a $1000 paperweight. Since the warranty expired two weeks prior to the "update" Toshiba's solution was to either pay them close to $500 to repair it or buy a new computer. True it only ended up costing $250 for a new board but I'd rather have had a slightly slower boot time than spend the money. Waiting an extra 10 seconds to boot isn't going to kill me and it's more cost effective.
ReplyDeleteI know this is late in the day but I only just got a boot drive bigger than 2.2TB. I have a GA-X58A-UDR rev1.0 with F8 BIOS. The UEIF setting in the BIOS mostly controls how the board will boot from a combined MBR/EFI OS setup disk. If you set it to EFI then the Windows 10 x64 installer will create a GPT disc with an EFI system partition. The partition contains /Microsoft/Boot/Bootmgfw.efi and the firmware is set to look for that.
ReplyDeleteHi, i bought a PC with mother Gigabyte GA-H110M-H DDR4 socket 1151, with micro Intel i3-7100 3M. I´m trying to install Centos 6.8 and can´t do. ¿Any leads? Thanks a lot!!! Adriana.
ReplyDelete