MB selection and UEFI questions

[Scrodes]

I am upgrading my PC soon, and have been gifted a i5-2500k to start with, but but I've been out of the PC hardware scene for a couple years.

I have a Samsung Series 9 laptop and it cold boots in just under 10 seconds. I was thinking, is this possible on a desktop PC? I remember reading about UEFI MB + SSD combos that were supposed to achieve this with Windows 8. Is this true in practice and is windows 8 necessary? I have Windows 7 Pro and I'd like to stick with it, a new windows licence is money out of the hardware budget.

 

[dma0991]

A desktop motherboard usually has more features(SATA ports, PCI slots, etc) than a laptop which only comes with a fixed amount of features. The more you have, the longer it might take to POST. Unless you're running a stopwatch at every boot, the difference shouldn't be too noticeable.

W8 definitely boots faster than W7 but it also comes down to whether you're able to adapt to the Modern UI. Is it worth the sacrifice and money? You decide. I do run W8 but I didn't like it very much either which is why I only run it as a virtual machine.

UEFI is of no concern as most modern motherboards these days do come as a standard feature. Even low end motherboards like my ASRock H61M/U3S3 comes with it.

 

[A5]

Windows 7 boots plenty fast from an SSD. If you already have the Win7 license, there isn't a reason to get Win8, especially if it would bust your budget.

 

[Scrodes]

So operating system aside, boot times like this are possible with a modern MB and a SSD? Or is this some kind of S3 power state voodoo?

 

[Red Squirrel]

From my experience UEFI slows down the POST process by a lot, because it essentially has to load a full blown OS before it even starts to look at which drive to boot from to load your real OS. Mine takes about 5 secs to get to the mobo splash screen, then maybe another 5-10 secs before it starts to boot the OS. I have a SSD and use Linux so the boot for the OS is under 10 secs. I have an older PC with a standard bios and that PC is ready in about 10 secs, while my new core I7 did not even start to load the OS by then.

Though it greatly depends on the mobo so it's a gamble, as some are known to be faster.

 

[dma0991]

So operating system aside, boot times like this are possible with a modern MB and a SSD? Or is this some kind of S3 power state voodoo?

ASRock Z77 Extreme4 is probably one of the quickest to POST and boot.

Haven't actually tried W8 on my SSD without VM but as a VM sitting in my Samsung F3 1TB, it boots decently fast.

The ASRock and Asus boards doesn't show the splash screen attributed to fast boot but I find it more troublesome. Have used it on my motherboard but I find it a PITA as you can't go into BIOS without disabling it in desktop.

Boot and shut down times should be pretty fast IF you're running only a SSD or multiple SSDs. I've noticed slightly slower boot and longer shut down times when you have one or more HDDs plugged in.

 

[A5]

So operating system aside, boot times like this are possible with a modern MB and a SSD? Or is this some kind of S3 power state voodoo?

Yeah it's possible. I don't turn on my system from a cold boot often enough to worry about it, though.

A quick glance on the internet says it should work with Win7 as well, but Win8 is a bit faster.

 

[Scrodes]

Well, thanks everyone. I think this answers my question, an SSD, W7, and the aforementioned ASRock MB should get me what I want. Now off to the Video Card subforum to sort out that dilemma...