Antec
NeoHE 500 Power Supply: $90
www.antec.com

Check the news. Energy prices are on their way through the roof and this winter is going to be cold. While it’s true that an inefficient power supply runs hot, you don’t want to heat your office with wasted power. Antec’s NeoHE series runs at up to 85% efficiency—up to 20% more efficient than previous designs. The result is less heat output, a smaller fan, and quieter operation. If ever there was a time when your customer could appreciate the cost savings of an energy-conscious power supply, now is it.

Of course, Antec gives you even more value by enabling the NeoHE with modular capabilities, allowing customers to use only the cables needed for installation. The convenience factor is furthered through a set of SATA connectors and EPS12V connector support (you get backwards compatibility with ATX12V systems, too). Feel free to plug-in anywhere around the world since Antec’s universal input automatically accepts between 100V and 240V of AC power.

Antec is known for its reseller-friendly pricing and features. However, enthusiast-class quality is a prominent selling point of the NeoHE 500, as well. To begin, three—count ‘em—three +12V rails help keep the most taxing processors and graphics cards well supplied with clean power. Tighter regulation purportedly improves overall system stability. Consequently, Antec can claim SLI compliance since the 500W model sports a pair of 6-pin PCI Express power connectors. The NeoHE 500 walks away with an MTBF of 80,000 hours.

ASUS
N6600GT Silencer Graphics Card: $249
www.asus.com

The market for niche products is, understandably, pretty small. There’s a good reason why most high-end graphics cards come with beefy heatsinks and super-fast fans. The alternative looks something like ASUS’ N6600GT Silencer—a passively cooled 3D accelerator with altogether bulky aesthetics. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a receptive audience for such specialty products, though.

For $249, you get a fully featured GeForce 6600 GT card with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Most equivalent products cost just under $200. The extra cost is caused by a massive array of copper fins used to draw heat away from the graphics core. This one’s perfect for home-theater gamers.

OCZ
EL DDR PC-4800 Platinum
Elite Edition: $261
www.ocztechnology.com

AMD recently updated the memory controller on its Athlon 64 lineup to officially work at 500 MHz. Corresponding motherboard support is a little slow to materialize, but enthusiasts are certain to take that feature and run with it now that companies like ASUS are talking about gaming-oriented motherboards designed to extract additional performance from platform components. Now it’s time to look for memory vendors with the resources to step up and offer high-performance modules. As you likely already know, two principal specifications affect the performance of memory modules you sell. The first is frequency and the second is timing. (Call motherboard robustness a tertiary attribute if you will, but that’s a different product category altogether.) Optimizing for both generally yields the best overall user experience.

OCZ strives to do just that with its EL DDR PC-4800 Platinum Elite Edition modules, available in 512MB and 1GB (2x512MB) kits. Under the hood, each stick sports Samsung’s highly rated TCCD chips that have gone through extensive speed grading, resulting in CAS 2 timings at traditional DDR400 speeds and an amazing CAS 2.5 setting at up to 600 MHz. An ultra low electrical noise PCB helps improve stability on each module.

Enthusiasts are free to tweak away as OCZ rates the Platinum Elite Edition kit for up to 3V with a lifetime warranty. The copper heat-spreader with platinum mirror is an enthusiast play, but surprisingly the $261 retail price is more conservative than competing products.

Plextor
PX-740UF External DVD Burner: $179
www.plextor.com

The allure of external hardware is twofold. First, you have the road warriors who want desktop power wherever they go. Then there are the folks reluctant to perform an upgrade and would prefer a simplified installation. Plextor’s PX-740UF, an external, dual-layer DVD writer, works for both groups. It’s also the value proposition in the company’s lineup.

Your customers certainly won’t know that given the drive’s stunning specifications, though. It’ll interface with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 connectors, both of which easily perform well enough to accommodate the PX-740UF’s 33 MBps maximum transfer rate. Dual-layer DVDs write at speeds of up to 8x, while single-layer discs are processed at 16x. CDs fly through at a numbing 48x. And, of course, Plextor’s PX-740UF also handles the re-writable variants of every format.

Size isn’t the drive’s best selling point—it barely fits in my own laptop bag without the laptop. Fortunately, it is a powerhouse, and it does sell for significantly less than Plextor’s other external optical drive, the PX-716UF. For your customers who’d rather not crack their cases, price and prowess should be enough to make this one a compelling value.