Nvidia has put an end to all the rumours surrounding the next generation of their Nvidia Ion graphics solution by officially introducing it at CeBIT 2010.  As a quick refresher, NVIDIA ION couples the low power Intel Atom-processor with NVIDIA graphics to deliver improved HD video playback, and 3D graphics acceleration for games.

The new version of Ion is quite different from the old in a number of ways, notably:

• The new Ion platform comes on a PCI Express card
• ION netbooks will have 512MB of dedicated memory and HDMI output
• 10″ and 12″ screens are supported by two different versions of Nvidia Ion
• The 10 inch model has 8 CPU cores, while the 12 inch version has 16 CPU cores
• Next-gen ION supports Optimus technology for automatic graphics switching, which means better battery life
• We’ll see new Nvidia Ion products from launch partners Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and Zotac.

Since Intel’s new Pinetrail processors/platform combine the central processor and graphics processor in one chip, the new Nvidia Ion was forced to evolve into a completely separate video card, similar to a discrete graphics solution, on a PCI Express card.

NVIDIA will offer two different versions of the new ION platform, one for 10 inch netbooks that has 8 GPU cores, and another for 12 inch modes with 16 GPU cores.  The 12″ model has more GPU cores in order to power higher resolution screens, and because these larger netbooks have more surface area for heat dissipation.  NVIDIA says the 16 core version of ION scores about twice as high as first generation ION on benchmarks such as 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage.

via Liliputing

Nvidia Ion vs. Broadcom HD Accelerator

LaptopMag has an interesting comparison between Nvidia’s Ion and Broadcom’s HD Accelerator.  Both of these are solutions to the same problem – getting HD playback on your netbook.  Because while netbooks continue to evolve, and the next generation netbook platform has arrived (Pinetrail) HD video playback is still inexplicably absent on most standard netbooks.

The two solutions are quite different – Nvidia Ion is built into the motherboard of netbooks, and therefore you need to choose Ion before you even buy a netbook.  On the other hand, Broadcom’s HD Accelerator is an add-on card that can be added to many netbooks after purchase, provided they have a free PCIe slot.  Up until now, there really hadn’t been much comparison between the two, but as you can see, Ion beats the Broadcom card while playing 720 and 1080p video.  The difference isn’t huge however, and for many of you, Broadcom’s solution may be the only choice.

Source: LaptopMag

We wrote a few weeks ago about a post at Semiaccurate questioning the merits of Nvidia’s upcoming Ion 2 chip and today new details emerge via some sleuthing by French Blogeee.net.  It was also odd that we heard absolutely nothing from Nvidia regarding Ion 2 at CES 2010.

The new today reveals a product sheet for a new ASUS Eee Top 2010PNT which lists the ION 2 as a GeForce G310.  This seems to go along with our previous article, where SemiAccurate stated that Ion 2 was basically the  Geforce GT218 card.  The GT218 and the  G310 are the basically the same thing minus port configurations.

The rest of the specs on the Asus Eee Top 2010PNT are VGA, DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI 1.3a video outputs, a max resolution of 2560 x 1600, DirectX 10.1 compatibility, H.264 / WMV / DivX / MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 video decompression.

Source: Blogeee.net

Nvidia Ion on a PCIe card?

The current generation of netbooks is mostly based on Intel’s Atom N270 or N280 processors.  For graphics, they are split into two groups, those utilizing Intel’s GMA 950 integrated graphics, and those that replace the Intel graphics chip with the more capable Nvidia Ion platform.  However, Intel’s next generation Pine Trail chips will have the processor and graphics capabilities bundled into one chip.  That would seem to make it much more difficult for netbook manufacturers to include Nvidia Ion with the new Intel PineTrail chips.

Blogeee.net reports that Nvidia’s solution may be to offer the next generation Ion 2 chips in the form of a PCI express card upgrade.  That would mean that one could upgrade the graphics in a netbook simply by slotting a card into an open slot.  It also opens up the possibility for switchable grahics – ie. using the built-in Intel Graphics for day to day use, then switching to the Nvidia Ion 2 chip for gaming or video use.

Wrapping up the rumour mill, there are also reports that Nvidia in planning to make the Ion 2 chip compatible with non-Intel chips – opening up the way for Ion powered ARM processored netbooks.

If you want a netbook with better grahics performance than the standard GMA ‘built-in’ graphics from Intel, then Nvidia’s Ion platform is the way to go.  It integrates Nvidias 9400M graphics chip with the Atom platform to give your netbook graphics performance an extra kick, which is useful for watching high resolution video.  Recently, Nvidia quietly launched a varirant of the Ion platform, called Ion LE.  As far as we could tell, the only difference in ION LE (besides the lower price) was that it only supported DirectX 9 vs. the DirectX 10 capapble Nvidia Ion platform.  That was no problem for Windows XP users, since XP only supports DirectX 9, but Windows 7 users want DirectX 10 support.

Well, now a MyHPMini forum member called runawayprisoner has found a way to enable DirectX 10 support in the Nvidia Ion LE chips.  He did it by fooling the HP supplied driver into recognizing his ION LE chip as a regular Ion chip.  At the end of the day, after a few software modifications, he has his ION LE chip running DirectX 10 and his Windows Experience Index score for gaming graphics jumped from 3.9 to 5.4.

Check out the forum thread for all the details.

via Liliputing

Nvidia Ion 2, Smaller and twice as powerful

Nvidia has confirmed that the company is on track to start shipping a new Ion 2 chipset in 2009.  There aren’t many details yet, as Nvidia is keen to still sell the current Nvidia Ion chipset.  Industry sources have revealed, however that Ion 2 will be half the size of the current Ion chip, should have much faster graphics and with twice the number of shaders (32 vs. 16) than the current Ion Geforce 9400m based chip.

Source: Fudzilla, Netbooked

Fudzilla says no Ion netbooks from Asus or MSI

According to Fudzilla, there will be no ION products from netbook pioneers Asus or MSI.

Fudzilla speculates that Asus and MSI would rather stay on Intel’s good side than release ION powered machines. Intel officials have made no secret of the fact that they’d rather see Intel Atom based computer ship with Intel’s integrated graphics solution than an NVIDIA chip. There’s two reasons for this. First, Intel makes a bit more money by selling the whole chipset. And second, Intel kind of wants Atom-based computers to balk at heavy duty tasks like playing video games and HD video so that consumers feel the need to purchase higher end laptops with more expensive processors better suited to those tasks.