BIOS Walkthrough

ASRock really surprised me with their BIOS, which opens up to a traditional format, but with a twist. Included is a "System Browser": a graphical interface that lets you explore the board and what's installed, providing informational items useful for BIOS setup. Also included is OMG, or Online Management Guard, a tool that let's you manage internet access by time and date. So for example if you've got a child that you want to limit to certain internet hours, you can do so right in the BIOS. Using the "OMG" acronym had me chuckling for a while, but you know, since this is such a novell idea for motherboard BIOSes, I actually almost said "OMG" to myself when I realized what it was, as I have been looking for a reliable method to manage my son's internet access. I could also see it potentially causing an issue if it's enabled, and a user was unaware, as they might look for other causes for the lack of connectivity.


Moving onto the OC Tweaker tab, we find all the needed options for system clock and voltage customization, as well as a spot to save BIOS profiles.


The "Advanced" tab contains all the options for board-level functions, and each area of functionality is separated into submenus that helps make finding the options you need pretty simple. The first page that lists all the submenus also contains a BIOS updating tool, that allows updates both via a pre-saved file, or via the Internet, although I did have issues with the online option myself.


The one weird placement I found was the options for the cooler LEDs, which was with the onboard peripheral section, at the bottom. SATA ports are all grouped together, including options for both Intel and the external controllers.


The way ASRock has structured everything really appeals to me on a personal level, and I think there might even be more options here than other OEMs offer, yet each was something that I wanted to have access to.


It took ten screenshots for me to show all the menus here, which may seem like a lot, but really, it's minimized the number of tabs available, allowing for a far easier interface to get to exactly what you want. I did not find everything I wanted in the monitoring section, however, which only contained a couple of temperatures, fan settings and speed listing, and then just CPU voltage and PSU voltage rail monitors. I would really like to see some of the basics like vDIMM and PCH voltages here as well, as the four voltage monitoring options given don't provide really usable information other than the vCPU one, and make booting into the OS nessecary.


I found a whole tab dedicated to BIOS password options, which in my opinion should be found on the entry screen instead, and the exit page is very basic as well, but at the same time it's not like the layout is overly crowded so it's quite easy to just not notice unless being critical.


I found one major functionality issue: when I opened and then closed the "system Browser", the BIOS pages would remain blank. If the BIOS has just frozen or something, it wouldn't be a that big of deal, however I discovered that you could still change options, which could prove dangerous if the wrong settings are changed. Hopefully this will be remedied in the next BIOS update.

Overall, I really like ASRock's UEFI BIOS. Yes, there are a few things I have an issue with, but overall, it's really easy to use, has every option needed for system setup and overclocking, and comes with pretty transparent option labels, so you know exactly what you are changing. I'd like to see far more monitoring functionality, as mentioned, especially considering this board's cost, but thankfully the ever trusty AIDA64 provided me with all the needed monitoring options I require, as it does with most boards.