Friday, January 16, 2009

Nvidia has Ion netbooks

Nvidia Ion platform

That tiny circuit board is a Pico-ITX motherboard with an Intel Atom processor and an Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU. It's a reference design featuring Nvidia's new Ion platform created for netbooks and small-form-factor (SFF) PCs. The problem with current netbooks is that almost all of them ship with Intel integrated graphics which makes them not so great for gaming. The GeForce 9400M isn't a powerhouse compared to discrete desktop graphics cards, but it's better than Intel's integrated stuff and good enough for games like World of Warcraft and Spore.

Ion platform PC

We saw several SFF Ion boxes on display at CES demonstrating the platform's high-definition video playback performance. Nvidia estimates that Ion-enabled netbook and SFF systems will retail for around $400 but no major system manufacturers have announced Ion-based systems yet. Perhaps Intel has something to do with that.

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