SOYO
TechAID: $39.99
www.soyousa.com

Here's an easy one. You've seen several high-end motherboards come with built-in LED diagnostic readouts for displaying POST progress and diagnosing system problems. The TechAID is an add-on version of that functionality. You could sell this to enthusiasts who spend a lot of time tinkering inside their PCs, but it’s also a very handy tool for keeping in your tech room for working with boards that lack integrated diagnostics.

The TechAID is a simple PCI card sporting a two-digit LED readout, a series of green and blue LED lamps for testing power rails through the system, and a ribbon cable connector that feeds out to another (included) PCB-mounted two-digit readout. The purpose of the second readout is to alleviate the need for spinal contortions as you try to read the PCI card.

SOYO’s documentation is surprisingly good, and its troubleshooting advice, while limited, is as good as anyone could provide for such an application. When you stop to think about all the countless hours you spend swapping components in pursuit of trial-and-error troubleshooting, this product may be the best $40 one could spend.

ECS
915P-A: $99.99
www.ecsusa.com

For buyers wanting a stable, low-cost board aimed at upgraders, ECS has the answer. The 915P-A offers AGP and PCI Express slots as well as two slots each of DDR and DDR2. Additionally, the 915P-A features four SATA ports (non-RAID), two x1 PCIe slots, and two PCI slots. Eight-channel HD Audio is enabled by the C-Media CMI9880 codec chip. Realtek’s RTL8110S supplies PCI-based Gigabit Ethernet, and there are four USB 2.0 ports on the backplane. This is built to be a transition board for users who want to save as much of their present component investments as possible while still allowing for migration to the latest hardware. For upgrading mainstream buyers, this board offers great value.

Zalman
CNPS7700-Cu: $54.95
www.zalman.com

Performance heatsinks for the LGA775 platform have taken their sweet time in coming to market. However, the first crop of new coolers has finally come in, and the best of the air cooling breed looks to be Zalman’s 7700. This will come as no surprise to those who used used the previous model, the 7000-Cu, on Socket 478 and AMD platforms. The 7700 is based on the same visually stunning design as its predecessor. The revamped heatsink is essentially a large, low-noise fan nestled in a bowl of outward-radiating copper fins attached to a solid copper heatsink plate. However, the 7700 now uses a 120 mm ball bearing fan rather than the older 92 mm unit. This has expanded the 7700’s overall size to 5.35” in diameter, 2.64” in height, and a weight of just over two pounds. Needless to say, this goes way beyond the recommended heatsink specs from Intel and AMD.

The 7700’s weight is liable to crack a motherboard if the system is unduly jarred, and the heatsink may not fit in some cases. Additionally, some motherboards place the DIMM sockets close enough to the CPU that you can’t install the modules, particularly the taller, high-performance variety. Even if your modules do fit, take care to install them before the heatsink.

I ran the 7700-Cu on a 925XE-based board with a 1GHz FSB 3.46 GHz Extreme Edition chip overclocked to 300 MHz, then put the chip under a prolonged 95% load with Sisoft SANDRA. Intel’s reference heatsink had the chip running at a toasty 71 degrees Celsius. Zalman’s 7700-Cu did the same job at 59 degrees. In all fairness, Zalman still shows an advantage over the reference cooler when running under a regular load at default core speeds, but the difference is less pronounced.

Zalman’s advantage here, as always, is noise reduction. Even sitting on this fire pit of a CPU, the 7700’s fan spins in its fastest mode of 1,400 to 2,000 RPM, yielding a reasonable 32 dB. With a more moderate, lower power chip, the fan drops to 1,000 to 1,400 RPM and an all-but-silent 20 dB. The 7700-Cu is compatible with Socket 478 and LGA775 for Intel and Sockets 754, 939, 940 for AMD. For $10 less, buyers can opt for the copper/aluminum hybrid 7700-CuAl version.

Whether your client prefers all copper or the copper/aluminum mix, you won’t find a better heatsink to offer your enthusiast and/or noise-hating clients.