BIOS Walkthrough

Biostar's UEFI BIOS is both straight-forward and simple, while at the same time, a bit more advanced in the language used than what some other OEMs provide. Upon bopting into the BIOS I found nothing other than a very standard set of informational listings and date, time, and language options, that is much more like older-style BIOSes in the "pre-UEFI" era. Navigation to other areas is done using the arrow keys, each flipping through the tabs shown down at the bottom of each BIOS page. The second tab deals with nearly every board-level device option, including drive controller settings, on-board device settings, and even the monitoring and fan control options are found here. The third section, labeled "chipset" deals more with chip-level functions, showing some thought went into how Biostar has laid everything out here.


The fourth tab contains boot options, and not much else, but rightly so considering the tab is labeled "BOOT" as well. The following tab labeled "Security" has just standard BIOS security options, a page that I personally think should have been rolled into the opening page along with the date and time options.


The second last tab, labeled "O.N.E." is where all of the overclocking options are contained, all squeezed into this one page in a big long list. The list is so long, in fact, that all three images you see above are from the "O.N.E." tab, containing CPU clock settings, memory options, voltage settings, a few other things that you might need when overclocking, or setting up your memory for the first time.


Of course, all of those options could not be contained in just three screens, so the first two images above are also of the "O.N.E." page. I made a point of including every single listing that is contained here, as there is far more options here than Biostar has ever offered before, both for voltage and memory timings. In fact, the list goes to such an extent that basically everything you need and then some is offered here, something I never personally expected.

I have to give Biostar credit here, as they've really stepped up their game when it comes to overclocking options in the BIOS. Memory compatibility is greatly improved too, such that all the kits I have on hand here worked without any problems as all, including the 2400 MHz G.SKill set I've been using for all of my Intel Z77 Express reviews. I've also seen this board hit some pretty impressive clocks under LN2 cooling, posted on various other PC enthusiast forums out there, a great testament to how far Biostar has progressed in meeting the needs of the majority of enthusiasts out there.