Gigabyte G31M ES2L: specifications, photos and reviews. Comparison with competitors

The entry-level motherboard Gigabyte G31M ES2L is aimed at the niche of the least productive systems. With its help it is possible to assemble an excellent office system unit capable of solving the simplest tasks. Also, it can fit into the home computer in the case when there is no need for a high level of performance.

The niche of the motherboard

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 an office computer, whose task list includes word processors or browsers. An additional argument in this positioning of this product is that it has a built-in graphics subsystem. Due to this, you can save a lot of money when assembling a budget PC for the reason that you do not need to buy a discrete graphics card separately, or you can use the built-in solution.

Equipment

Like any other similar solution, a very modest bundle in the Gigabyte G31M ES2L. Only the most necessary is included in it. In this list, this leading manufacturer included the following:

• Motherboard.
• A special plug for the rear wall of the chassis of the system unit.
• A set of cords for connecting drives.
• Advanced installation and use instructions.
• 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 company logo.

Socket and chipset

The processor socket that underlies the Gigabyte GA G31M ES2L is LGA775. To date, this computer platform has become obsolete, but for office tasks its capabilities will be more than enough. As it is easy to determine by abbreviation of the motherboard, it is based on the set of system logic G31 from the company "Intel". Among this set of chipsets is a younger model with the least functional set. It consists of the north bridge 80G31 and the southern bridge - ICH7 or NH82801GN. The first of them ensures the interaction of the computer system with operating memory 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

A flawless list of supported processors within the LGA775 platform can boast of this motherboard. It can install such models of CPU:

• The single-core Celeron and dual-core Celeron-D. These chips are the most suitable for creating office PCs with a minimum speed. On such a system block, the "Ward", "Excel" and various browsers functioned perfectly. Also, it was possible to play various multimedia files on such hardware.
• Higher in the hierarchy were 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.
• Maximum speed within the LGA775 could boast a CPU series Core 2 with Duo attachments (2 cores with improved architecture and advanced speed) and Quad (4 similar computational modules).

Most often, in conjunction with the motherboard in question, it was possible to meet the processors of the Celeron or Pentium series. And, as in the dual-core performance, and in the single-core. But the use of more efficient processor solutions was inexpedient for the reason that the functionality of such a motherboard for revealing the capabilities of the CPU series of Core 2 was not enough.

Random Access Memory. Its controller

The Gigabyte G31M ES2L motherboard is equipped with a dual-channel RAM controller, which, as noted earlier, was part of the northern bridge of the G31 chipset. In the list of supported types of RAM there is only DDR2. The frequency values on which the memory chips worked could be equal to 667 or 800 MHz. It was also possible to install a more high-speed bar with an operating frequency of 1066 MHz, but it did not give a special performance gain. The maximum amount of RAM could be 4 GB. That is, on this motherboard you could install only 2 brackets of 2 GB.

Options for installing additional controllers

The Gigabyte GA G31M ES2L card was equipped with only three kinds of expansion slots. One of them is PCI. It installed outdated modifications of internal controllers. You could use new versions of such controllers in such a board. In this case, you already had to use the PCI-E 1X slot. For the discrete graphics, it was necessary to use the PCI-E 16X already. In the latter case, on the basis of such a motherboard it was even possible to assemble an entry-level PC with a good performance margin.

Integrated graphics subsystem

This board includes an integrated graphics accelerator. His model is GMA 3100 from Intel. It can output the image only with the help of the VGA connector. The speed of this accelerator is minimal, and its only enough to solve the most simple problems. As a video buffer, it uses part of the system memory.

Comparison with analogues

The GA-G41M ES2L motherboard is the direct successor of the Gigabyte G31M ES2L. Characteristics of these boards were very, very similar. Only the architectural solutions implemented in a more recent version allowed him to show higher results in the tests. But the difference was not so big. If we compare this motherboard with modern analogous products, for example, a motherboard based on the N61 chipset for LGA1155, then the difference will be already quite large.

Results and feedback

At the time of the release of Gigabyte G31M ES2L allowed to create inexpensive computer systems with a low level of performance, which was just enough to solve the most simple problems. Such computer systems are still in operation today. And their capabilities will be long enough to handle the most simple program code. This is precisely what the owners of such computer systems indicate in their responses.