brick chances are quite minimal, compared to when I rooted HTC Desire, that took me 2 days to do. need to unlock bootloader, and then root, and then manually implement Superuser with permissions, all via terminal and a simple program that was of that age when Desire was the pioneer of mobile phones!

if you want, i can upload an AIO tool, to single click root + su your S3, i did it easy, with 3 presses on keyboard, all done

i use this app to backup
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?....droiddev.ktool

I also wanna ask this question. From links below, there are a few ways to make efs backup
http://www.droidviews.com/how-to-backup-an...-did-you-do-it/

+ Does cwm backups include efs folders?

Oh! ArchiDroid very famous in XDA specially with boeffla... if samsung decided not to release kitkat for s3 this will be one of my choice..  

100% you wouldn't regret...

I think my s3 SIM card slot already damage this morning...did samsung service centre will fix it and do I need to bring any receipt/docs to claim wrty?

No more......

ArchiDroid V2.3.9 Experimental just installed (on V2.3.8) .......very good ,so far......

I experience this as well and what i did was flash latest CWM-SuperSu and update latest SuperSU, then solved.

Installed Boeffla Kernel beta 5.2 Beta6 and using Zzmoove battery extreame.. so far no sudden high frequency issue reported before..

Download zip copy then use install zip option to install

Flash CWM.zip file

Don't use zzmove, in my opinion very buggy. Always go up  max frequency, tested the new one same,  in terms of battery saving based  beta 5 and before, pegasusq (1000mhz) didn't lose out much when coupled with zen.

et me change to pequsudq to find out

I still using zzmove as the photo I post just now

I prefer to use titanium backup for both

Alternative can use app like Super Backup : SMS & Contacts to backup sms
Note: Backup Whatsapp folder (inside sd) to your pc as you might need them later. There is a setting to backup conversation inside the app itself