Back in March 2006 we reported about how Intel wanted to move on from the stone-age BIOS. Intel thought it was due time to move on to EFI, Extensible Firmware Interface, the successor to BIOS, which has actually been around for longer than you might think. United EFI Forum handles the EFI specification and the plan is to offer a better interface and mouse support inside the “BIOS”. The advantages of EFI are many and one of the first to make a serious jump at EFI is MSI, which has revealed that it will use EFI with its next generation of motherboards.
New Type of Graphics BIOS Settings
MSI has started to phase-in EFI into its next generation mainboard platform. The ability to use a GUI and mouse encourage users to unlock the full potential of MSI mainboards. EFI also supports LAN, pre-OS applications such as live update, games, instant messenger, media player and a browser. Microsoft will add EFI support to the x64 versions of Windows Vista with Service Pack 1.
The press release spills some information on the EFI specification and explains more specifically what’s been improved since the days of BIOS. Below is condensed list of the pros with EFI BIOS, according to MSI;
• Supports graphical menus and features
• Supports mouse-controlled interface
• Supports pre-OS applications, file oriented
(ex: System recovery, games, media player, Internet browser, etc.)
• Supports LAN activating environment
• Supports multi-language
• UEFI support for x64 versions of Windows Vista are included in a Service Pack 1
MSI has sent along two pictures of the current version of EFI, which looks to be more appealing for the common user, but we’re eager to hear what the true enthusiasts think about this.
