The entry-level motherboard Gigabyte G31M ES2L is aimed at the niche of the least productive systems. With its help, you can assemble an excellent office system unit that can solve the most simple tasks. It can also fit into the composition of a home computer in the case where there is no need for a high level of performance.
Motherboard niche
The Gigabyte G31M ES2L motherboard is aimed at assembling ultra-budget computing systems. She has very modest technical specifications and for something more, her capabilities will certainly not be enough. It is perfect for an entry-level home computer or office computer, the list of tasks of which includes word processors or browsers. An additional argument in this positioning of this product is that it is equipped with an integrated graphics subsystem. Due to this, you can save a lot when assembling a budget PC for the reason that there is no need to buy a separate discrete graphics card, but you can use the built-in solution.
Equipment
Like any other similar solution, a very modest configuration in the Gigabyte G31M ES2L. It includes only the most necessary. This leading manufacturer has included the following in this list:
- Motherboard.
- Special plug for the rear wall of the system unit.
- A set of cords for connecting drives.
- Advanced installation and use guide.
- A disk with a full set of drivers. Also on it you can find various specialized software and documentation in electronic form.
- Warranty card.
- Sticker with the logo of the manufacturer.
Socket and Chipset
The processor socket that underlies the Gigabyte GA G31M ES2L is the LGA775. Today, this computer platform is outdated, but for office tasks its capabilities will be more than enough. As it is easy to determine by the abbreviation of the motherboard, it is based on a set of system logic G31 from Intel. Among this set of chipsets, this is the youngest model with the smallest functional set. It consists of the north bridge 80G31 and the south - ICH7 or NH82801GN. The first of them provides the interaction of a computing system with RAM and peripheral devices connected to the ports of the motherboard. And the second is an intermediate link between the internal controllers installed in the expansion slot and the motherboard.
Processor devices supported by this motherboard
This motherboard boasts an impeccable list of supported processors within the LGA775 platform. You can install the following CPU models in it:
- Single core Celeron and dual core Celeron-D. These chips are most suitable for creating office PCs with minimal speed. On such a system unit, Word, Excel, and various browsers worked perfectly. It was also possible to play various multimedia files on such hardware.
- Higher in the hierarchy were the single-core Pentium 4 and dual-core Pentium-D. Such chips looked quite worthy in gaming applications, and on their basis it was possible to implement a mid-level computing system.
- The maximum performance within the LGA775 could boast of CPUs of the Core 2 series with Duo consoles (2 cores with improved architecture and advanced speed) and Quad (4 similar computing modules).
Most often, in conjunction with the motherboard in question, one could come across Celeron or Pentium series processors. Moreover, both in dual-core and single-core versions. But the use of more productive processor solutions was impractical for the reason that the functionality of such a motherboard to reveal the capabilities of the Core 2 series CPUs was not enough.
Random access memory His controller
The Gigabyte G31M ES2L motherboard is equipped with a dual-channel random access memory controller, which, as noted earlier, was part of the north bridge of the G31 chipset. In the list of supported types of RAM there is only DDR2. The frequency values at which the operating memory chips could be equal to 667 or 800 MHz. It was also possible to set a faster bar with an operating frequency of 1066 MHz, but this did not give much performance gain. The maximum amount of RAM could be equal to 4 GB. That is, on this motherboard it was possible to install only 2 strips of 2 GB.
Options for installing additional controllers
The Gigabyte GA G31M ES2L was equipped with only three types of expansion slots. One of them is PCI. It installed obsolete modifications of internal controllers. It was possible to use new versions of such controllers in such a board. In this case, it was already necessary to use the PCI-E 1X slot. For discrete graphics, it was already necessary to use PCI-E 16X. In the latter case, on the basis of such a motherboard it was even possible to assemble an entry-level gaming PC with a good margin of performance.
Integrated Graphics
The structure of this motherboard includes an integrated graphics accelerator. His model is GMA 3100 from Intel. It can only output images using the VGA connector. The speed of this accelerator is minimal, and it is only enough to solve the most simple tasks. As a video buffer, he uses part of the system RAM.
Comparison with analogues
The GA-G41M ES2L motherboard is the direct descendant of the Gigabyte G31M ES2L. The characteristics of these boards were very, very similar. Only architectural solutions implemented in a more recent version allowed him to show better results in tests. But the difference was not so big. If we compare this motherboard with modern similar products, for example, a motherboard based on the H61 chipset for LGA1155, then the difference will already be quite large.
Results and reviews
At the time of the release of the Gigabyte G31M ES2L, it was possible to create inexpensive computer systems with a low level of performance, which was only enough to solve the most simple tasks. Similar computing systems are still in active use to this day. And their capabilities will be enough for a long time to process the most simple program code. This is exactly what the owners of such computing systems indicate in their reviews.