Hi there folks, I know it has been a while since I have graced the pages of Geek Gold, and I come bearing both bad and good news. First, the good news! As I was writing for Geek Gold early this year I found that my interests were mostly in the motherboard/CPU/chipset space rather than technology and science as a whole. As such, in late March, MotherboardNews.com was launched!

While 90% of the posts are Motherboard News will be directly related to motherboards, CPUs and chipsets, we will also be covering other major hardware news, reviews, previews and rumours. Since our launch, we have had over 16,000 visitors and over 28,000 page views in under two months! We encourage you to subscribe to our new RSS feed, follow us on Twitter and, most of all, check out our website!

Now to the bad news. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and the growing popularity of Motherboard News, Geek Gold will likely not see any more posts. We are grateful to those that have supported Geek Gold since the fall, but we are extremely excited about where Motherboard News will be taking us.

Thank you kindly!

Even though we just saw the Radeon HD 6000-series launched in late 2010, it is rumoured by Bit-Tech that we may be seeing the 7000-series sooner than later! Bit-Tech has stated that the Radeon HD 7000-series may see production start in May of this year with the cards landing on shelves in June or July.

While the 6000-series used a 40nm fabrication process, it is expected that the Southern Islands-based 7000-series will take advantage of a 28nm process allowing for much more power to be packed into a single GPU. This increased transistor density may allow AMD to pack in a whopping “3,000 stream processors” – nearly double the number those found on the current flagship Radeon HD 6970.

Wouldn’t the Radeon HD 7000-series be the ideal launch buddy for AMD’s upcoming Bulldozer CPUs? Here is to hoping!

It’s hard to believe that the ever-growing alternative operating system, Linux, has been around since 1991. To help celebrate its 20th birthday and co-ordinate activities, The Linux Foundation has launched an official celebratory website.

As a long-time Linux user myself, I find it astounding that just 20 years ago Linus Torvalds started what has become a cultural and technological phenomenon. Since its first year, developers from across the world have worked together to provide an extremely powerful operating system, with many different flavours, to so many individuals and businesses. It should really be consider a software engineering marvel! If you want to learn more about what has made Linux what it is today, check out the video below and here’s to another great 20 years!

Commodore USA has just announced that they will be selling five new systems where modern innards are packed into their classic Commodore 64 keyboard chassis!  All models will be shipped with an Ubuntu 10.04 disc, ready to be installed on your nostalgia-induced C64X.

The systems range in price from $250 (C64x Barebones) all the way up to the $895 C64x Ultimate, which features an Intel Atom D525 1.8 GHz dual-core processor, NVIDIA ION2 graphics, 4GB of RAM, wifi, Bluetooth, a BluRay drive, and a 1TB hard drive! While the prices might be a little more expensive compared to similarly-powered competitors, wouldn’t it be great to have one of these sitting beside your 60″ 3D LCD acting as your HTPC?

For all of the details and to place your order, head over to the Commodore USA website!

While perusing the ASUS website today, I came across a very interesting product – the EAH6950 DirectCU II. The most interesting aspect with this flavour of 6950 is that it occupies three PCI slots! There are two reasons for this card to occupy three slots: 1) this card has 6 display outputs (4x DisplayPort and 2X DVI) and 2)this card has the ASUS’ new DirectCU II cooler, which allows heat to dissipate out the rear of the card.

Featuring 2GB of GDDR5 memory and with an engine clock of 810 MHz, this 6950 is a performer! With 6 display outputs, the EAH6950 DCII is capable of driving up to 6 monitors – something rarely seen on non-flagship card such as the 6950. As a bonus, two of these cards can be combined in CrossFire, thus allowing outputs to up twelve displays! Keep in mind, though, that each card eats up 3 slots, so future expansion will be difficult at best with two of these cards in your system.

The ASUS EAH6950 DirectCU II is available now with a retail price of $324.99 USD/CAD. Read more about this graphics card over at the ASUS website.

Just watch the video – haha!

The third installment of the Battlefield 3 gameplay episodes has been released by DICE and EA. In this episode we follow Sgt. Black as he traces an IED feed wire to what seems to be a quiet basement. This video really shows off some of the details that DICE has been putting into the game, from realistic lighting to destructible environments. When Sgt. Black finally emerges from the depths, we see just what kind of chaos that we will experience in Battlefield 3. Check out the video below!

It was just one month ago that my Dell 2005FPW monitor died on me and since then I have been struggling to work on my 13″ laptop screen. Well, since then, I have performed extensive research on a handful of monitors and found that the Dell U2311H monitor was the perfect match! Before we get to the unboxing photos, let’s take a look at the specifications on this 23″ monitor.

Size: 23″
Resolution: 1920×1080 @ 60Hz (1080P)
Ratio: 16:9
Display type: IPS with anti-glare
Response time: 8ms
Inputs: 1x DVI-D, 1x DisplayPort, 1xVGA
USB: 4x USB 2.0
Stand: Height adjustable with pivot, tilt, swivel and cable management
Price: $339 MSRP, but purchased on sale for $229

What really sold me on the Dell U2311H, over the other monitors I was considering, were the IPS panel, USB hub, and quality stand. After looking at the other offerings in a retail store, it was shocking to see such poor quality stands. While many will complain that the display is not 16:10 with a 1920×1200 resolution, I am moving up from a 1680×1050 resolution, so I am gaining 300 000 pixels – mostly on the side, which is where I need them.

Okay, let’s get to the unboxing! Please forgive the varying amounts of glare. This was my first unboxing on a sunny day and I was a little too excited to get the monitor set up and in use. 

Dell U2311 box

Top view of inner packaging

Panel hiding amongst some quite average styrofoam

Accessories! Stand, DVI cable (VGA cable pre-attached to panel), USB upstream cable, power cable, documentation and useless driver CD

Front of panel with pre-attached VGA cable flopping around

Back of panel

Inputs from left-to-right: Power, DC connector for optional sound bar, Display Port, DVI-D port, VGA port, USB 2.0 upstream port, 2x USB 2.0 ports

Side inputs: 2x USB 2.0 ports

Fully assembled!

Linus Sebastian, of Linus Tech Tips fame, has posted a video regarding overclocking the just-released NVIDIA GTX 590 dual-GPU graphics card. By maxing-out the core voltage in MSI’s Afterburner, Linus was able to significantly increase the clock speeds of the GTX 590 to even greater values than a stock GTX 580 – quite impressive! The numbers achieved are shown below:

Core/graphics clock: 809 MHz (33.3% increase over stock clock of 607 MHz)
Shader/processor clock: 1618 MHz (33.2% increase over stock clock of 1215 MHz)
Memory clock: 2120 MHz (24.2% increase over stock clock of 1707 MHz)

In 3DMark11, the overclocked GTX 590 scored X3277, while the stock version came in at X3061 – not a huge gain, but a gain nonetheless. In a practical real-world test, Linus saw about a 15% increase in performance in Metro 2033, which is quite impressive. As more of these cards make their way around the enthusiast community, we will surely see more overclocking results.

Keep in mind that overclocking produces more heat, which results in more required cooling, which results in louder performance – not to mention greatly increased power draw. Linus notes, multiple times in the video, that you should be very cautious if you are overclocking your GTX 590 – this is a $700 graphics card we are talking about and over-volting most likely voids your warranty. Do so at your own risk!

UPDATE: NVIDIA has just posted an official “Note on GeForce GTX 590 Overcurrent Protection and Overclocking”

Okay, this time around it’s a little more humourous, but the truth of the matter is that Gearbox Software has delayed the release of Duke Nukem Forever. Instead of releasing on May 3rd of this year, we will see it just over a month later, on June 14th. Don’t worry folks, the game is still coming out and Gearbox President, Randy Pitchford, has posted a video showing his response to the delay. Check it out below!