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UEFI is a publicly available (and a bit controversial) specification that replaces the legacy BIOS which has been in x86 computers since the original IBM PC (12 August 1981)

At first, I know that this standard is quite fresh and definitely has a shorter history than BIOS, however, it has been 18 years since the first implementation called Tiano was released.

So, my question: what was the first motherboard featuring the UEFI?

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    Not sure if this is truly Retrocomputing since UEFI is still current and the history doesn't go all that far back, relatively speaking. Jun 22, 2022 at 22:05

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The first x86 implementation of UEFI was Insyde Software’s InsydeH2O, and the first system to use that was Gateway’s 610 Media PC, which shipped in late 2003. So technically, the first PC motherboard to use UEFI was the motherboard in that system. (It did however boot Windows in BIOS mode.)

OpenVMS added support for UEFI in 2003 so there might have been Itanium systems using UEFI earlier than the Gateway system. (Itanium systems initially used EFI, UEFI’s predecessor.)

As far as I can determine, the first widely-available UEFI motherboards were Intel’s 945 motherboards, e.g. the D945PAW (May 2005) or the D945GBO; their POST codes show EFI boot phases. These still relied on BIOS boots; full UEFI boards came later, and some are listed in a 2009 UEFI whitepaper.

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  • Apple moved to EFI in January 2006, the same date as the page you link to as the 945. I believe some 945's shipped in the summer of 2005 though, but I'm not sure they had EFI. Jun 28, 2022 at 12:32
  • @Maury I’m under the impression that all 945s shipped with EFI, and I also think some shipped in 2005, but I haven’t found conclusive evidence (I was waiting to see whether the question would be deemed acceptable for Retro.SE before digging further). Jun 28, 2022 at 12:38
  • @Maury ah, see the D945PAW — available in May 2005 with EFI-specific POST codes. Jun 28, 2022 at 13:57

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