UEFI – Just How Important It Really Is

Introduction

This article delves into the new UEFI architecture and why it is much more important to the computer world than you think.

Computer hardware has evolved a great deal in the past few decades. Graphics cards and sound cards are providing life-like graphics and theater quality sound, terabyte size spindle hard drives are being paired with blazing fast SSD drives for limitless storage for the common user, while huge quantities of RAM and CPUs are providing six- (soon eight-) cores for incredible multi-tasking capabilities. Rounding out all that hardware is the motherboard, the backbone of your system.

Motherboard hardware has reached new levels of quality, with higher grade components (even reaching special certifications) that provide longevity and stability. You also have all sorts of future-proof connectivity available too, such as USB 3.0, SATA-600, and now PCI Express 3.0.

However, there is one part of the motherboard that has been a long-term staple and only recently has started to see any updates. The BIOS – a three decade old architecture that acts as a starting point for your whole PC system. As you’ve seen in many motherboard reviews, some manufacturers have adopted a new “UEFI” BIOS (Universal Extensible Firmware Interface) to replace the existing one, but what seems to be overlooked by many is just how important of a feature it truly is and how it benefits the computing field as a whole.