5 Products System Builders Are Talking About Now

Custom builders have a great niche -- they get to be innovative while being paid for it. They are in segments as diverse as automotive and gaming, and they are exposed to new products that get their tongues wagging. Often, what they see first becomes commonplace months later.

Currently, much of that talk is centered on environmentally friendly products, ones that use a fraction of the power or run cooler than their predecessors. Other products offer a peek into the future -- for example, creating an automobile that is a fully loaded entertainment vehicle.

Here is just a sample of what the custom crowd is chatting up.

By adjusting rotational speed, using bigger data buffers, parking the drive's head and optimizing how the drive seeks and caches data, power consumption has been reduced roughly 38 percent. According to WD, external USB, FireWire and Ethernet drives with these drives on board can save up to $14 annually in electricity costs, depending on the power-on-hours and power supply efficiency. Oh, and it stores the equivalent of up to 285,000 digital photos.

The P5K and P5K Deluxe (pictured) are one of several motherboards Asus plans to bring to market using Intel's P35 chipset. They are DDR2-based and differ mainly in their feature sets. The Deluxe will have a WiFi NIC, elaborate copper cooling and an extensive accessory bundle. A newly designed 8-phase power array will reportedly operate at much lower temperatures than previous designs and offer longer component lifespan and more stable power for overclocking. Asus claims its Super Memspeed Technology enhances memory speed up to 90.6 percent. Zoom.

Builders in the automotive space are checking out what Microsoft's up to. The software giant has gone "off roading" and is working with carmakers and suppliers to put its Connected Car technology into production. It recently added several new car models to its growing customer base, using Windows Automotive technology. In collaboration with Ford, Microsoft is offering called "Sync," which uses PC technology to connect infotainment devices within an automobile. The technology was slated for rollout with the 2008 Ford Focus vehicles, with the software company and the carmaker targeting the consumer segment of "Generation Y" buyers, to act as early adopters.

Here's a solution for building large-scale WLAN infrastructure for converged voice (VoWLAN), data and video, with the dependability and simplicity of a wired network. The EXWO-404 Wireless Office system from Extricom offers an enterprise class, 802.11-compliant WLAN solution in a convenient all-in-one package comprising a WLAN switch and four access points. The system is easy to deploy and creates a multi-layer WLAN that transmits video, data and voice in a secured environment.

VARs are talking about this product because it's cool -- literally. Part of Enano's core mission when it was "born" some 18 months ago was to develop power-efficient PCs, laptops and servers. The company concentrated on desktops first, with the goal of providing a product that doesn't generate much heat, fits conveniently on a desktop, and is very quiet. In all, the company set out to make a good deskmate. The result was the Enano. The product has the DNA of a full-size computer, but offers very low power consumption in a very small footprint (6 in. x 8 in. x 2 in.). What's next? Try notebooks powered by solar cells.