UEFI Features

ECS included the latest revision of their UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) EZ BIOS with the the Z97-Machine motherboard. The UEFI offers full keyboard and mouse support while using the BIOS pages with enhanced mouse navigation supported by right clicking the mouse – goes back to previous view if inside a settings pop-up or on a sub-menu page. ECS did not include any type of screen capture utility in the UEFI.

While much simpler when compared with other motherboard manufacturer's UEFI implementations, the ECS implementation is clean and masterfully designed. I found the mouse and keyboard responsiveness within the UEFI to be usable with no noticeable lag.

UEFI Notable Features

The ECS UEFI implementation contains no fancy interfaces or ground-breaking designs, but it functions well and has an intuitive layout. As long as you can find the settings you're looking for and the interface is responsive, any other additions are little more than glitz and window dressing. The UEFI has two operation modes – Basic and Advanced.

Basic Mode

The Basic mode page houses a graphical interface with high level board, temperature, voltage, and fan speed information shown.

 

Advanced Mode, M.I.B. X section

The Advanced Mode interface houses the more advanced board related setting with all overclocking and performance related settings centralized under the M.I.B. X tab. M.I.B. X stands for MB Intelligent BIOS X, designed with a series of sub-menus containing logically divided performance settings.

UEFI Walk through – Performance-related Settings, Advanced Mode

Main tab

M.I.B. X tab

M.I.B. X tab, CPU OverClocking Configuration page

M.I.B. X tab, Memory Configuration page

M.I.B. X tab, Memory Configuration page continued

M.I.B. X tab, North Bridge Configuration page

M.I.B. X tab, Over Voltage Configuration page

M.I.B. X tab, Over Voltage Configuration page continued

M.I.B. X tab, Profile Configuration page

M.I.B. X tab, Profile Configuration, Profile Select list popup

Advanced tab

Advanced tab, PC Health Status page

Advanced tab, PC Health Status page, Smart Fan Function page

Advanced tab, PC Health Status page, Smart Fan Function, Smart Fan Mode popup

Advanced tab, CPU Configuration page

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