ANTEC
True Power Quattro 850: $249
www.antec.com

ANTEC HAS A REPUTATION FOR BEING A VERY CHANNEL-FRIENDLY vendor. The company constantly refreshes its lineup of enclosures and power supplies to add features and change aesthetics, helping resellers keep up with the latest trends. Typically more conservative, Antec’s products don’t often push the limits of technology, instead favoring a balance between performance and value.

At least, that was the case before Antec unveiled its True Power Quattro power supply with 850W of output. The glossy black PSU with yellow racing stripes is a definite nod toward enthusiasts looking to drive multi-core systems. But the Quattro offers a lot more than just good looks. Four +12V rails deliver up to 18A of current each, easily driving the most power-hungry components. Four auxiliary PCI Express graphics connectors accommodate today’s fastest graphics cards in pairs. Official SLI certification is merely a formality at that point.

Customers looking for more than just raw output will appreciate 80 PLUS certification, which guarantees 80% or better efficiency. Antec actually claims the Quattro 850 is up to 85% efficient. Power that does get lost to heat is quickly dissipated by a single, low-noise 80mm fan.

DELUO
DataLogger GPS: $159
www.deluogps.com

THERE'S SOMETHING TO BE said for being able to trust the people who work around you. But when your customer has to remove all doubt about how company vehicles are being used, encourage him to turn to Deluo’s DataLogger GPS. The DataLogger can accurately and discretely collect data about where a car has been, how fast it has been traveling, and how many miles it has gone even from weak satellite signals. The information is stored on the DataLogger and can later be retrieved wirelessly through Bluetooth or via USB. Customers can then extract data and import it into a mapping application.

Reports available from the DataLogger include stop time, max speed, position reports, and routing. There’s enough internal memory to store up to 170,000 positions and a Li-ion battery good for six hours per charge.

MICROSOFT
Windows Home Server: $199
www.microsoft.com

HOW MANY PCS DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR HOUSE? LOTS OF HOME networks are starting to look like small-business setups. There’s a computer in the living room and maybe one in the kitchen. The kids have a computer for doing homework, and a media center PC stores all of the home video. Not surprisingly, home networks present you with all of the same challenges as SMB networks. Businesses can use Microsoft’s SBS 2003 to address backup, security, and remote access. But for all of its wizards and tools, SBS is still a complicated operating system.

Recognizing the growing parallels between small businesses and tech-savvy homes, Microsoft created Windows Home Server. Reading through the operating system’s features, you’ll see a lot of familiar functionality. Then dig through its UI and configuration panels. Everything has been reworked for simplicity. Is there still room to get lost? Sure. I wouldn’t give the installation disc to my mother and tell her to have at it. She could sure understand the OS’s’ appeal, though. Enter the VAR, ready to integrate Home Server into an existing home network using an inexpensive server, such as HP’s MediaSmart box.

One of the operating system’s most fundamental benefits is the ability to back up and restore any machine on the network. Each system is preserved daily, and only the files that are changed are copied over to the server, thereby minimizing network traffic. Should one box crater, you boot it from a CD, point it at the server, and restore the entire drive. Home Server is also good for organizing and sharing information. Add external drives to the box and take advantage of the extra space without worrying about drive letters. Finally, Home Server gives your customer remote access using a combination personal domain/dynamic DNS service. Think SBS’s’ remote access panel, only much easier to configure. Drop the OS into a small, dual-core box to enable the same flexibility in your home that was once limited to enterprises and SMBs.

ASUS
EN8600GT SILENT Graphics Card: $145
www.asus.com

WHO SAYS PERFORMANCE graphics cards have to be obnoxiously loud? ASUS’ EN8600GT SILENT takes advantage of an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GPU—the mid-range offering in a family of DirectX 10 processors. Normally, the chip would be attached to a single-slot board and covered with a small heatsink/fan combination. ASUS’ custom design employs two slots and a much larger, much heavier passive heatsink. And though it lacks a fan, ASUS claims its EN8600GT SILENT actually runs cooler than an NVIDIA reference design card with a fan.

Most gaming customers would naturally be concerned that ASUS sacrificed performance to get the GeForce chip running within an acceptable thermal envelope. No worries there. The EN8600GT SILENT boasts a 540 MHz core clock and 1.4 GHz memory speed. Like the reference design, it also features 256MB of memory on a 128-bit bus that can push 22.4 GB/s of information.

The home theater buff is most likely to want a decent performer that doesn’t make noise, so ASUS made sure it enabled plenty of connectivity options. Two dual-link DVI ports deliver resolutions up to 2048x1536, and a DVI to VGA adapter extends compatibility to older analog displays. NVIDIA makes HDCP compliance an optional feature for GeForce 8600 GT cards, but ASUS is sure to enable it here. Even customers with older TVs are covered by built-in component output and ASUS’s included cable.