Gigabyte's EFI is now more compact, and while it's maybe more of a bunch of menus than MSI's effort, the no-nonsense layout here is simple to use, and all CPU settings, bar the advanced PBO options, are accessible from a single page, instead of being spread around like we've seen previously with Gigabyte. In short, if you'll be spending a lot of time in here, it's no bad place, and all the usual overclocking options are easily accessible. We'd maybe argue that Gigabyte still has the best fan control EFI section, although MSI has raised its game with the option to now pick from a range of temperature input sources for case fans, while both now allow for control over the chipset fan. However, the Gigabyte EFI applies your fan settings live so you can see changes straight away, and the suite was just a little clearer than MSI's too.
Gigabyte easily has the best software cooling control out of Asus and MSI, and while System Information Viewer hasn't changed much, it still offers unparallelled control of your PC's cooling as well as a comprehensive alarm section than can report the failure of fans and pumps or temperatures breaching certain thresholds. You're even able to graph numerous data sources for an extended look at your PC's stats.
A decent array of overclocking settings are easily applied using EasyTune too; everyone apart from extreme overclockers should find most options they need here, which at the very least should limit the amount of times you need to reboot to get into the EFI while you nail down your long-term overclock settings.
October 14 2021 | 15:04
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