Nvidia pressures Intel with Ion

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 11th January 2009
Comments (8) Stumble
Nvidia pressures Intel with Ion

Drew Henry, Nvidia's General Manager of MCP products, has said that Intel will allow partners to build netbooks based on Nvidia's Ion platform.

CES 2009: Drew Henry, Nvidia's General Manager of MCP products, has said that Intel will allow partners to build netbooks based on Nvidia's Ion platform.

He said that there are still some details to work out, mainly relating to how much Intel will sell the Atom processor on its own for, but it looks like the platform has been given the green light.

Ion is Nvidia's take on the netbook market and combines a full-featured GeForce 9400M GPU core with Intel's Atom processor. It enables netbooks to play back high-definition video at bit rates up to 40Mbit/sec and harness the power of the increasing number of CUDA applications coming to market.

Henry expects Intel to work out a deal with partners, whereby they will pay the same for the Atom processor on its own as it would for the full Menlow kit and just not ship the chipset with the CPU so that they can use the GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipset instead.

When asked how much Henry expects Ion-based netbooks to cost, he said they would be around US$50 to US$100 more than the current models on the market. At first, that may seem like a lot, but when you factor in the additional functionality afforded by the 9400M graphics core, it looks like it could be a good deal.

Nvidia expects its partners to start delivering Ion-based netbooks in the second half of the year, while small form factor desktop machines will arrive in Q2. We'll have some more on the platform tomorrow.

Looking forward to seeing what the various manufacturers can do with Ion? Let us know in the forums.
Quote yakyb 11th January 2009, 20:28
heres hoping to ion being availible on its own (for system builders)
Quote bowman 11th January 2009, 21:12
Oh yeah, 16 execution pipes in the 9400M.. That's gonna 'harness' a lot of CUDA applications alright!

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15940

Tech Report found in their testing that the Atom bottlenecks even a 9300M dedicated card. This is pointless!

The Poulsbo chipset is great for HD media, and that's what the Atom needs. Not this.
Quote Goty 11th January 2009, 22:41
Shouldn't the tag-line be "wants to ionize the atom"? =P
Quote s3v3n 12th January 2009, 01:28
Quote:
they will pay the same for the Atom processor on its own as it would for the full Menlow kit and just not ship the chipset with the CPU
So what's keeping them from doing it now? Just throw away the chipset, or are they afraid of not being green?
Quote steveo_mcg 12th January 2009, 09:46
Quote:
Originally Posted by s3v3n
So what's keeping them from doing it now? Just throw away the chipset, or are they afraid of not being green?

Cost. They're worried they would be uncompetitive with intel and they are correct given they have paid the same as any one else for their atom platform then they need to add more bits to it. The product wouldn't just command a premium it would be expensive. Now while you and I might see the advantages and spend the money for the better unit, you and I are not were the money is, they need to sell these competitively to oem/system builders.
Quote Saivert 12th January 2009, 22:59
I still wonder what Intel is doing with so many outdated chipsets in stock. Haven't they used them up already back when they were used in laptops? (rhetorical question) Is Intel always overmanufacturing chipset parts?

I know Intel doesn't want to lose profit on pairing up Atom with NVIDIA but this deal is just silly. Please give the customers what they want. Anything else would be horrendously stupid.
Quote bigsharn 12th January 2009, 23:11
It'd still be a LOT better a computer if Intel let them use dual core Atom chips... that, in the EeeBox would be brilliant
Quote bigsharn 12th January 2009, 23:28
Sorry, firefox crashed, restarted, re-posted, delete appreciated? :)
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