UEFI versus legacy systems – a comparison of modern boot technology and older architectures.
UEFI versus legacy systems – a comparison of modern boot technology and older architectures.
UEFI offers advanced features like a modern GUI and secure boot, while legacy BIOS is suited for MBR systems. There is evidence of performance variations when installing an OS from UEFI versus legacy BIOS. For your setup—Windows or Linux dual-boot—choose the one that best fits your needs based on these considerations.
When available, it's not substantial enough to focus on. Opt for UEFI/GPT boot whenever possible, especially to enable extra capabilities such as Secure Boot and resizable BAR, rather than chasing minor gains in boot speed or similar aspects.
Check the motherboard manual for specific steps. If no OS is installed, you may need to use a bootable USB or CD to access BIOS settings and select Legacy BIOS or UEFI.
UEFI dates back to 2005, so it isn’t considered cutting-edge. By 2024, you shouldn’t consider older BIOS setups unless they’re for niche applications.
The old machine you mentioned had a basic boot sector and no UEFI firmware, which caused some confusion.
UEFI became widely adopted around 2011-2012 for Intel 2nd and 3rd generation systems. Some boards using LGA1155 still lacked UEFI support, but that was more than ten years ago. Today it's usually recommended to turn off CSM unless your hardware or operating system requires it in UEFI mode. In the early days of Ryzen (2017-2018), Windows would typically install in legacy mode, though it seems now it should default to UEFI due to requirements for Windows 11.