Looking for well supported motherboard with UEFI

[blueridgedog]

I am looking for a well supported motherboard that will boot in EFI mode so that I can install operating systems using GUID partitioning exclusively.

I was planning on getting a GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard for a new system build (I currently have an Asus P5E WS with a Q9550 CPU). But note that it uses a hybrid EFI/BIOS. I am not certain that I will be able to use all GUID partitioning with this board to install OSX/Linux/Windows.

On my Macbook Pro, I currently use a hybrid MBR for windows and it is a bit of a pain to setup and I would really like to get away from it when I build a new desktop, especially now that I may run OSX as a primary OS for a while (I have run Linux exclusively for years, keeping Windows on the drive for my Daughter's gaming fix).

So, I am looking for great UEFI support, Z68 chipset and a DSDT in the database that will make OSX happy.

 

[Jamesbond007]

I am looking for a well supported motherboard that will boot in EFI mode so that I can install operating systems using GUID partitioning exclusively.

I was planning on getting a GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard for a new system build (I currently have an Asus P5E WS with a Q9550 CPU). But note that it uses a hybrid EFI/BIOS. I am not certain that I will be able to use all GUID partitioning with this board to install OSX/Linux/Windows.

On my Macbook Pro, I currently use a hybrid MBR for windows and it is a bit of a pain to setup and I would really like to get away from it when I build a new desktop, especially now that I may run OSX as a primary OS for a while (I have run Linux exclusively for years, keeping Windows on the drive for my Daughter's gaming fix).

So, I am looking for great UEFI support, Z68 chipset and a DSDT in the database that will make OSX happy.

There is no absolute need for a motherboard that has UEFI in order to run Mac OSX with GPT partitions if you plan to use the installation methods here. Older socket 775 motherboards like the EP45-UD3L I am using can run Snow Leopard and Lion beautifully.

Regarding your question, you can use the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard. It supports UEFI. As for the multi-boot, are you going to use separate hard drives (the recommended way here) or put all the operating systems on one drive? If you use separate hard drives you can use GPT for Mac OSX and MBR for Windows and Linux.

 

[blueridgedog]

are you going to use separate hard drives (the recommended way here) or put all the operating systems on one drive? If you use separate hard drives you can use GPT for Mac OSX and MBR for Windows and Linux.

I could use separate drives easily enough, I am more or less doing that now with my desktop (the one drive solution was required for the MacBook Pro.) My current approach is to use one drive with each OS with a boot loader that can either load each OS or chain load some other loader. I have OSX on a spare drive in a hot swap bay now and find that it has the shell tools I need and a user interface that is polished, so I wanted to move it to one of my internal faster drives. I guess I will go with the Gigabyte board and still let windows play in an MBR environment, but then I run into issues with shared data drives, which at this point will have to be HFS non-journaled. I really want/wanted to move to a single partitioning schema.

I may end up keeping the current board if the wireless adapter I ordered works with OSX. None of my "on hand" ones work.

 

[samisnake]

Regarding your question, you can use the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard. It supports UEFI.

no it doesnt.

gigabyte is the (only, iirc) maker which doesnt use uefi on its 1155 boards.

gigabyte use uefi on their x79 2011 boards, but not 1155


@blueridge, why do you uefi for what you want to do?
from what i can see, you just want to dual boot with shared drives?
let chimera/chameleon handle the drives, and the have your shared drives as fat32 or use paragon (or similar) on osx to be able to read/write to ntfs

unless im missing something?

 

[blueridgedog]

@blueridge, why do you uefi for what you want to do?
from what i can see, you just want to dual boot with shared drives?
let chimera/chameleon handle the drives, and the have your shared drives as fat32 or use paragon (or similar) on osx to be able to read/write to ntfs unless im missing something?

I have several drives and a great deal of data, I was looking for one partitioning schema that would work across all OSs. The future appears to be UEFI and GUID, so I would like to go ahead and adopt it with my next build out. My primary OS is Linux and my current primary partition type is ext4 (data drives and backup drives). I would like to use OSX for a year or so to really learn it and was hoping to go ahead and change over all my drives to GUID.

So, what I am really looking for is a motherboard that will be very OSX friendly and support UEFI.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Regarding your question, you can use the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard. It supports UEFI.

no it doesnt.

gigabyte is the (only, iirc) maker which doesnt use uefi on its 1155 boards.

gigabyte use uefi on their x79 2011 boards, but not 1155

Gigabyte may not be using a UEFI style BIOS, but the motherboards do support other features of UEFI such as support for larger than 2 TiB drives. That's what I mean when I say "it supports UEFI". May be I should make it clear.

For me, I prefer the older style BIOS over the newer style BIOS. Personally I don't have a problem for non-UEFI style BIOSes as long as the motherboards support other UEFI features.

If the OP actually does require a motherboard with a UEFI style BIOS, then Gigabyte motherboards will not be suitable for him/her.