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Wednesday, May 21st, 2014
- Crusader Kings Complete (73%, 09/2004): a strategy game using the Europa Universalis engine focusing on the medieval ages (1066-1453 AD).
- Crusader Kings II (82%, 02/2012): Considered one of the best "grand strategy" games from Paradox, attempt to conquer Europe and the Holy Land; requires $8 or higher donation
- Crusader Kings II DLC (N/A): 21 DLC packs for the second game in the series should keep you occupied for some time; $20 or higher donation
- Besides the games, you also get an eBook, A Fall of Kings, set in the Crusader Kings II world.
- Race the Sun (79%, 08/2013): pilot your solar powered craft through a maze-like minimalist landscape and try not to crash or get caught in the shadows, competing against others on the daily leader boards; donate $1 or more
- Guns of Icarus Online (64%, 11/2012): a Kickstarter project involving online PvP gameplay with steampunk airships; pay more than the current average ($3.41) to unlock
- Strike Vector (73%, 01/2014): a multiplayer third-person aerial shooter, sort of like Unreal Tournament in the skies; $10 or higher donation required to unlock
| Time | Event |
| 12:47a | Humble 8 of 14: Crusading Kings
It's been a busy week for the Humble Bundle and their followers, with some good deals and others that didn't really pique my interest. Unfortunately, there has been more of the latter than the former, and with limited time I decided not to bite on many of the offerings. Today's bundle is in that category as well, as it's a bundle offering both Crusader Kings games along with all 21 DLC packs, but don't let that deter you, as the games have received some decent reviews -- particulary the second title in the series. Here's the customary links (and sorry for getting this up late, but the past couple of days have been a bit busy for me): The bundle has about 12 hours remaining, so if you've thought about buying the Crusader Kings games in the past but haven't gotten around to it, now's the time to act. The second game has a regular price of $40, so $20 for the entire bundle with all the DLC is still a good value, and the packs add the ability to play as numerous other countries/rulers.
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| 3:57a | GIGABYTE Server Launches New C2750 Mini-ITX and 2P ATX LGA2011
Despite the C2750 coming to market officially in Q3 2013, we have not seen many products that exploit the possibilities that the new 8-core Silvermont SoC provides. We reviewed the C2750D4I earlier this year, but now GIGABYTE wants to step up to the place with a version of its own, called the GA-9SISL. The focus of this motherboard, aside from the mini-ITX form factor, will be the 32GB ECC UDIMM DDR3 support and four Intel I354 Gigabit NICs alongside AST2400 management. The networking is the focus here rather than storage, although GIGABYTE does use the six on-board SATA ports and suggests that a RAID card is used in the full length PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. The system also features active cooling with a small heatsink and a TPM header, although no USB 3.0 controllers.
Next up is the GA-7PXSL1, dual processor motherboard for Ivy Bridge-E Xeons in a standard ATX form factor. Because of the large size of the LGA2011 socket area, along with the associated DRAM slots, the sockets are aligned one above the other and at 90º compared to what the consumer range is typically used to. This is so airflow can travel over the VRMs, then the CPU heatsink and finally out of the rear of the case. It also makes for some interesting PCIe placement, with a PCIe 3.0 x4 and two PCIe 2.0 x1 ports near the bottom of the board and a PCIe 3.0 x16 (wired at x8) right at the bottom. Despite the fact that each of these CPUs should be able to handle 40 PCIe lanes, most of them are unused in this motherboard as the focus is purely on density in an ATX chassis. Some of the PCIe lanes from the chipset are diverted into four Intel 82574L Gigabit NICs, as well as an AST2300 for server management. Due to size limitations there is only one DRAM slot per channel, making eight total, but they will support ECC and non-ECC UDIMM and RDIMM modules, with 1.5V modules supported up to 1866 MHz on E5-2600 V2 processors.
GIGABYTE Server is also releasing the GA-6PXSVL, a 1P LGA2011 ATX motherboard with a total of fourteen SATA ports (8x SATA 6Gbps from Marvell 88SE9230, others from chipset) and support for x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8 PCIe 3.0 lane allocation.
I have reached out to GIGABYTE for release dates and pricing. With Computex around the corner, we should see a couple of these in action then. |
| 9:00a | Averting Disaster - A Guide To Computer Backups (2014) We all store more and more of our lives in digital form; spreadsheets, résumés, wedding speeches, novels, tax information, schedules, and of course digital photographs and video. All of this data is easy to store, transmit, copy, and share, but how easy is it to get back? |
| 8:00p | Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 Performance Preview Last year Qualcomm announced a new tier in its high end SoC roadmap with the Snapdragon 805. Priced somewhat above the current Snapdragon 800/801, the 805 would be the last 32-bit high-end SoC from Qualcomm. It would be the grande finale in Krait's lineage, which started back in 2012 with Krait 200 and MSM8960 and saw iterative improvements over the years. The Snapdragon 805 was not only designed to drive CPU performance higher but also be the launch vehicle for Qualcomm's brand new Adreno 4xx GPU architecture. Read on for our preview of Snapdragon 805's performance! |
| 11:58p | Humble Daily #9: Aerial Maneuvers
Rolling on to day number nine in the two weeks of daily bundles, today there are three more games available for your donation, all with a focus on aerial combat. If you’re looking for a great value on a bunch of games, this is another bundle that’s going to disappoint, but purchased separately right now off of Steam the total cost for all three games would be around $26, so you’re still able to get three games at less than half price. You can also give everything to charity, which is always a nice draw. As with other recent offerings, there’s one core game for the bundle, a second unlocks if you beat the average, while the third requires at least a $10 donation. Here’s the short list of the three games: Graphically, the games aren’t state-of-the-art, but they’re all 3D and the two unlockable games will push your hardware at least a little bit. That may or may not be a good thing – one of the aspects I like most with a lot of indie games is that most run great even with laptop iGPUs, so if you’re on the road and didn’t pack along a gaming notebook, you can still do more than play Facebook games and the like. If you're looking for lighter gaming options, Indie Royale has also posted their latest Mixer #4 Bundle that has eight games currently (with a ninth to be named later), for a current minimum price of $4.70.
Gallery: Humble Daily #9: Aerial Maneuvers
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