ATI
Radeon X1800 GTO: $279
www.ati.com

Everyone wants high-end performance, but nobody cares for the accompanying prices. ATI’s Radeon X1800 GTO gives resellers a way to sell the fastest graphics hardware at half the price of a Radeon X1900 XTX or equivalent flagship from NVIDIA.

The Radeon X1800 GTO centers on the same architecture as ATI’s boards, leveraging 12 pixel shading pipelines, 256MB of GDDR-3 memory, and complete Shader Model 3.0 support. Simply, it’ll let your customer run any of today’s most demanding games at reasonable settings with solid performance.

Even beyond 3D functionality, the X1800 GTO offers lots of extra value. For example, the entire Avivo pipeline carries over to this lower-priced card. That includes a pair of dual-link DVI outputs for super-high resolution LCD displays and H.264 decode acceleration. Instead of eating two expansion slots, as many of the higher-end boards do, the Radeon X1800 GTO only populates one, making it an ideal candidate for smaller form factors.

Priced around $279, the Radeon X1800 GTO is a great buy for enthusiastic gamers used to seeing price tags in the $400 to $500 range. Best of all, resellers who plan their platforms properly can also extend the option to upgrade down the road with a second Radeon X1800 GTO board in a CrossFire multi-GPU configuration. Compatible with existing Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition cards, we’ve heard that ATI is working on a driver that will allow two Radeon X1800 GTO boards to operate cooperatively—without the usual external dongle—as well.

Seagate
Mirra Sync and Share Personal Server (500GB): $599.99
www.seagate.com

Whereas the old Mirra NAS boxes looked like cheap PCs running Linux, the Seagate makeover now has Mirra looking like what it is—a sleek, high value-add appliance suitable for anywhere from SOHO to medium business workgroups. The difference between a cheap storage box on the LAN and a value-add appliance increasingly comes down to software. Yes, I’m now a big fan of Seagate drive dependability and performance, but when you get past the glossy cosmetics and the simple NAS box innards, Seagate’s strongest point here is the simplicity and depth of its Mirra application set.

The Mirra Sync and Share sets up in minutes, and all of the automated backup functionality you’d expect in a basic NAS device is here. The tabbed Mirra interface divides into Status, Backup & Restore, Web Access, Sharing, Address Book, and Activity Log tabs, all of which present information in easy, at-a-glance layouts. Different users get different access rights into the drive, and if users just want to share one thing with an outsider, they simply send an invitation, which grants limited access to that material. It’s all a snap to walk through and vastly better than the usual muddle of FTP accounts and passwords.

Hold up, there’s more. Some USB hard drives let you sync data between local PCs; the Mirra lets you do this over the network, which includes remote systems over the Internet. Password security could be enhanced with encryption in the future, but basic security is fine for Mirra’s market, and it’s good that Seagate regulates remote access through Seagate.com, which is a plus when it comes to thwarting hack attempts. Backups are optionally continuous, and the Mirra supports up to eight historical file versions.

The 500GB and 320GB Mirra units are slated to ship in the third quarter. The 400GB and 250GB models are available now. The one and perhaps only flaw in this product is its use of a 10/100 port rather than Gigabit, but Gigabit routers are still rare enough that most buyers won’t give it a second thought, especially when awed by all of the product’s other attributes. I’ve tried a lot of SOHO-class NAS devices. This one is the most impressive yet.

OCZ
DDR2 PC2-6400 Gold GX XTC Dual Channel (2 x 1GB): $249.99
www.ocztechnology.com

With the latest Core architectures, we’re seeing a rise in bus speeds, and Broadwater lifts the DDR2 memory bus to 800 MHz. Naturally, you’ll find plenty of mainstream modules out there designed to run at spec, but let’s face it. Lots of people want to take those mighty Core CPUs and get more bang for their buck. Personally, I’ve stably overclocked the Core Duo 40% above rated speed, but I couldn’t have done it without some very fast, very dependable memory at my back, and the sticks I chose were OCZ’s PC2-6400 Gold GX XTC modules.

OCZ memory is famous for its voltage tolerances, and mine ran at 2.1V (the max my board would allow) with no problem. The default 5-5-5 timings proved perfect for the job, and even running at full bore during benchmarking, the modules were lukewarm to the touch. We could debate whether the honeycomb styling OCZ uses with its XTC series heatsinks is any better than traditional solid heatsinks, but it’s obviously no worse, and I like saving ounces whenever possible. OCZ is an increasingly strong channel brand with a track record of quality products on which I regularly stake my own systems and productivity. As we move into the next generation of performance memory, you’ll likely find OCZ the best overall value on the market.