Zalman
VNF100 Graphics Cooler: $45
www.zalmanusa.com

ZALMAN IS FAMOUS FOR A handful of reasons. The company’s biggest following comes from customers who admire its liberal use of copper, fins, and heat pipes to minimize fan noise. Zalman’s CPU coolers and graphics card heatsinks all leverage lots of surface area, so you’ll seldom find the small, high-RPM fans other vendors use to dissipate heat. At the same time, they often take up quite a bit of space and have trouble fitting into smaller form factor cases. Upsell Zalman coolers into the right environments, though, and you’ll help demonstrate the benefits of quality cooling to customers who might not have known better.

The company’s newest cooler continues a tradition of custom-fit hardware compatible with a long list of popular graphics cards. Zalman’s VNF100 can be configured in five different ways to support a total of 31 different product families, from the most mainstream Radeon X1050 to the fastest GeForce 7950 boards. Everything you need for the installation is included: the heatsink itself, a pair of different mounting sockets, washers, nuts, bolts, and even thermal grease.

Expecting a completely passive solution to keep even a mid-range graphics card stable under stress seems far-fetched. Yet Zalman’s only recommendation is to install an exhaust fan somewhere near the VNF100. Fair enough. Get a 120mm blower pulling air across those anodized aluminum fins and bask in the sound of silence.

Pinnacle Systems
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11: $129
www.pinnaclesys.com

LOOKING FOR A SOFTWARE SOLUTION ABLE TO SHOWCASE the high-end hardware you’re selling? Introduce customers to Pinnacle Systems’ Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11, the latest video editing suite written to take advantage of multi-core processors and DirectX 9 graphics cards. The software’s bare minimum system requirements call for for at least a 2.4 GHz Pentium. If you’re running under Windows Vista, a dual-core chip is needed. Pinnacle Studio also demands plenty of memory. If your customer is working with high-def content, 1GB of memory is the floor and 2GB or more are recommended. Don’t forget graphics—a decent gamer card with at least 128MB of memory should do the trick. Pinnacle Systems recommends at least a GeForce 6-series or Radeon 9600-class board with 256MB if there’s HD content up for editing.

Based on its hardware requirements and loftier recommendations, Pinnacle Studio is clearly industrial-strength. So what can the software do? First off, it’ll capture digital video from DV, HDV, and Digital8 cameras. Analog is captured through any number of 8mm and VHS formats. When it comes time to output, Pinnacle Studio can send to the same types of digital devices, analog videotapes, Apple iPods, or Sony PSPs. The list of import and export formats similarly goes on and on.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11 includes tools to help clean up audio and create Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. Another set of tools addresses high-end video effects, while a third handles pans and zooms. Many of Pinnacle Studio’s capabilities center on high-definition content, from support for native HD footage to authoring HD DVD discs. Vista compatibility and an integrated green screen function are both icing on the cake, especially given the software’s $129 asking price.

Sapphire
Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB: $149
www.sapphiretech.com

EVERYONE WANTS HIGH-END GRAPHICS. WHEN YOUR customer buys a shiny new LCD with a native 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 resolution, he wants to run everything at that size since it offers the best possible image quality. An inexpensive card might do a fair job with the Windows XP desktop, but pushing budget graphics is no way to treat Vista or any other application that benefits from fluid 3D. What you need is a solid go-to solution that delivers the goods when it comes to performance yet is still priced attractively.

Sapphire’s Radeon HD 2600 XT does just that by leveraging ATI’s highly scalable DirectX 10 architecture. The card’s graphics processor wields 390 million transistors manufactured on a 65nm process, which translates into plenty of horsepower in a tiny package that doesn’t generate much heat. As a result, the board runs cool rather quietly. At the same time, it emphasizes image quality and connectivity. The Radeon HD 2600’s graphics processor supports new anti-aliasing techniques programmed to intelligently enable smoother lines. Full HDR is also featured, as is acceleration of six different video codecs, including H.264.

Display support is another of Sapphire’s strengths. The card boasts two dual-link DVI ports with native 10-bit output. If your customers plan to use the card in a home theater environment, they’ll be pleased with its HDTV output at 720p and 1080i resolutions. A bundled adapter turns one of the DVI ports into an HDMI output, fully HDCP-ready for Blu-ray and HD DVD playback.

With prices on the Radeon HD 2600 XT topping out around $150, even a high-end card sporting 256MB of DDR memory is well within the reach of mainstream buyers.

Targus
Flare Backpack: $59
www.targus.com

WHEN GETTING OFF OF AN airplane, there’s nothing worse than watching your carefully packed laptop bag get thrown around or buried under a stack of other peoples’ stuff. You feel better when you see the laptop isn’t physically marred; that is, until you learn it won’t power on. Been there, done that, won’t let a stewardess talk me into checking my carry-on ever again.

As rough as a cross-country flight might be on delicate electronics, the daily grind of high school or college can be even worse. I “lost” two laptops as an undergrad and used a third until it broke. Despite all these dangers, you have what customers need to keep their laptops in working order.

Targus’ new Flare Backpack is all about looking good while keeping notebooks safe. Heavily padded, constructed of nylon, and equipped with a water-resistant case bottom, the Flare Backpack provides the right balance between safety and comfort. Additional compartments inside the backpack keep keys, pens, and cell phones all within easy reach. And a locking zipper keeps sticky fingers out of the notebook compartment. The backpack isn’t all function and no form, though. Sharp looks make it something students will want to tote.