Gigabyte GA-586 SGM

The GA-586 SGM is one of four Socket 7 AGP motherboards in this Labs. It's the smallest board we tested, measuring 170 x 305mm. Nevertheless, Gigabyte has done very well in arranging the board components in the little space available.

The ATX power and IDE connectors are sensibly placed by the edges of the board. Gigabyte's only oversight is that all three DIMM socket retaining levers are obstructed by the AGP card. This means removal of the graphics card before DIMMs can be added.

The GA-586 SGM is based around the SiS 5591 chipset. AMD, Cyrix and Intel CPUs are supported up to clock speeds of 233MHz. However, for each CPU speed, six jumper banks must be set correctly. The manual explains the various permutations clearly, but we think an improvement could be made in this area. The three DIMM sockets can accept 3.3V EDO or SDRAM up to a maximum of 768Mb. An equal balance has been struck for card expansion with three-a-piece ISA and PCI slots; hardly inspiring expansion ability. The Gigabyte has a Yamaha 715E-S sound chip integrated onto the board. This is a bonus feature, but expect a restricted level of audio quality since there's no wavetable.

At £75, the GA-586 SGM has the undeniable value of Socket 7, but it also shows why this old technology is losing out to Slot 1. It was the slowest motherboard tested.