Biz, it's time to upgrade, if for no other reason than to make use of the UEFI boot scheme. Probably you already know about its existence, so I won't bore you with the details of transitioning unless someone asks. The reason that I think it is a great time to move over is to make use of coming changes, like greater capacity drives. For anyone not familiar with the difference it is a limitation of MBR that drives larger than 2.19 TB must be broken into smaller partitions. GPT partitions can make use of partitions up to 9.4 ZB (zettabytes), or one billion TB (for capacity comparisons you could put the entire world wide web on 4 ZB as of 2013). While we are not in any danger of seeing ZB size drives anytime soon, we will probably be seeing 20-100 TB drives sometime next year. Even if that does not come true there are already 4TB Enterprise drives, and 6TB NAS drives.
Another use for UEFI is cryptography, of course, so as you are checking motherboards for UEFI you might also consider checking for trusted platform module (TPM) support. I moved to ASUS boards from EVGA myself because I wanted to test out the TPM modules they sell (HP and Intel sell them also).
Skuzzy may have a few comments on this, as my research indicated that Microsoft insists that any system with the Windows 8 logo on it (Motherboards inclusive) will include TPM keys with the UEFI secure boot system. So, when you setup a UEFI system on a board that shipped with the Windows 8 logo you might want to audit the keys and remove their keys (unless you trust them).
Lastly, when I switched from MBR to GPT (and UEFI) I noticed an immediate speed increase in boot times. Even with an SSD this is not as immediate as the promise of instant-on, but it is very, very fast.
Valid points, I can't disagree. On the other hand, based on personal experience I'd still say they don't mean a thing for many regular users, not even people playing computer games. Let me explain by using myself as an example: My current hdd is a whopping 320 GB and it's only half full. Both of my daughters have an account to this rig, but since they can backup their personal data on a 1 GB memory stick, I'd say that for the most part I'm responsible of this fill rate. I can't see any benefit in a larger hdd, since I could easily clean half of the currently used space by simply removing programs and stuff I haven't used for several years.
As for cryptography, I don't believe anyone would be look at my files a second time. Not even my AH films folder, not to mention my e-mail which for the most part is filled with a certain newsletter.
Last but not least, I have articulated my point about faster boot times several times on this forum. If I boot my computer once or twice a day, saving a couple of minutes won't add anything to my productivity. It's funny how the boot time increase gets so much attention in media. A local IT magazine said, that for an individual it wouldn't make any big deal, but in large companies the savings would add. Come on! If it takes one person a quarter of an hour to type a one page business letter, fifteen people can't type the same document in one minute. Saving mere minutes a day only adds productivity in assembly lines and I doubt they'd use Windows PC's there.
But that's only me, my needs are modest. All I need my computer for is e-mail, Internet and AH, plus occasionally plugging a customer's hard disk in for data restoration and a few hundred photos. I know there's hardcore gamers among us whose single games take some 100 GB each. Or photographers with myriads of RAW images. Or movie enthusiasts with a huge library of titles. Not to mention those who are into 3D modelling. Our needs vary.
