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Nvidia responds to Intel’s anti-Ion propaganda
Author: Ben HardwidgePublished: 25th February 2009
Nvidia claims that its Ion platform offers 10x the gaming performance of Intel's own Atom platform while taking up 55 percent of the space.
Like the Intel document, Nvidia’s presentation also takes a swipe at the ageing technology used by its competitor. One slide compares Intel’s "four-year-old three chip design" with Nvidia’s "modern two chip solution." This two-chip system, says Nvidia, provides 10x the performance while taking up 55 percent less space. The performance claim refers specifically to the Ion’s gaming abilities from its GPU with 16 stream processors.
Nvidia also points out that Ion is fully WHQL-certified by Microsoft for Windows Vista Home Premium, and that an Ion-based PC can perform real-time video transcoding tasks using CUDA, as well as having the ability to output 1080p HD video with 7.1 audio. However, the former has already been dismissed by Intel, which said that "neither gaming nor video transcoding are relevant to netbook and nettop users."
Interestingly, Nvidia claims that Intel’s next-generation Atom (codenamed Pineview) will ‘force’ customers to use Intel integrated graphics with what Nvidia describes as "minor improvements." This would explain why Nvidia is opening up its second-generation Ion platform to support VIA’s Nano CPU.
Nvidia also dismissed Intel’s claims about power consumption and battery life, saying that "peak power is a very poor measurement" that doesn’t represent real-world use of a netbook. To make its point, Nvidia published results from MobileMark 2007, which tests battery life using standard apps and video playback. The results showed that an Intel 945GSE-based system lasted for two hours, 40 minutes, while an Nvidia Ion system lasted for two hours, 31 minutes.
As with Intel’s document, Nvidia took the opportunity to publish a few quotes from the press, including one from DailyTech that says that Ion "Completely obliterates anything Intel can currently offer," and one from PC Perspective, which says that "any company not at least seriously considering adopting an ION platform design has no desire to be on the forefront of PC technology."
Was Nvidia right to respond to Intel’s claims? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Nvidia: "no, your mama's fat"
*pulls up a seat and grabs some popcorn*
this could be fun to watch.
+1
lol, so right. this would be a perfect time for AMD to come out with a Fusion-based mobile platform. I imagine Intel and nVidia would probably be stunned into silence too
to borrow from Arkanrais...
Intel: "your mama's fat"
Nvidia: "no, your mama's fat"
AMD: "well, i f**ked both your mamas. at the same time. aaaall niiiiight loooong":D
It would be great to see two types of netbooks out there one which is more of the same we have: Long battery life, low power and functional. The other a slightly heavier(possibly due to larger battery) slightly higher power, handles HD video for watching some movie on a larger external screen, some games ability. It would also be cool if CUDA could be used to boost performance in processor hungry applications.
Hmmm, well I wouldn't mind it could do both. Using the Netbook as a near silent media device accessing my NAS...great!
Skuze me, but if nVidia wanted to make its point, surely the battery life would be greater than Intel's, not smaller?? Or am I being stupid today.
Intel was saying that Ion's power consumption was twice that of the Diamondville platform... meaning half the battery life. Nvidia is basically saying that the power consumption isn't much higher than the current Diamondville platform, but it has a much better feature set.
Is there a chance Intel's claim to power consumption is based off, for example, having an IM client, email client that checks for messages every 10 minutes and a script that retrieves a set of webpages over and over (with a delay between each) all over wifi until the battery ran dead? To me, that seems more indicative of "normal power consumption" for a netbook, rather than the MobileMark benchmarking tool nVidia has used in its claims.
I think this bickering between the two companies needs less spin and more independently supplied facts
nVidia = winner (at least, assuming they can find anyone to make netbooks with their ION boards)
I want a mini ITX system that'll do 1080P video without frying itself and/or stuttering.
The Intel Atom 330 looks to be the chip, the GMA 950 definitely isn't the chipset. Only VGA output? Excuse me? DVI at the least and HDMI is preferable. The only chipset that offers that at the mo on a mini ITX is Fly Creek and that uses a Core 2 Duo to run it. Ion seems to be aimed at the HTPC/netbook market and I wish them the best of luck (mostly because I want one!)
I'm trying to build an HTPC at the moment but I want it to have at least a little bit of "oomph". The X4500HD on the Fly Creek looks to be able to deliver that but I want a low power CPU, not a full Core 2 Duo.
To sum it up - "Yay nVidia! Keep going!"