NVIDIA Ion platform gets demonstrated at CES
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 12th 2009 9:03PM
posted Jan 12th 2009 9:03PM
Read - HotHardware
Read - PC Perspective
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Let's see how this stacks up to games.
Games......?
This would be great for a CarPC..
Im gunna be keeping my eye on this...
Google up "Pico-ITX" and you'll find a less-powered but cheaper and small motherboard.
@Phour ZwanZig:
Read the article... they played COD4 Story Chapter at 27 FPS.
It fared sort of well on Spore and COD4...But what about Left4Dead/TF2? Netbooks would be the perfect place for "lightweight" games like those on the Source engine.
I would think it should do fine at the low resolution the screens have.
I had an laptop with a ATI 200M chipset in it that played those games just about at a higher res, and it was a lot slower than this!
Good for COD4 = great for TF2
Can't say about L4D but should be the same, both games are made on Source engine.
Yes you can play simple 3D games on it.
The half liter box PC is awesome but now I want to see how well it does when it comes to pricing.
so I first looked at it and thought "damn, that looks like a huge processor". then I realized that the ports were gigantic.
Parallel ports are coming back
@KarlW
Yuh, it had purplish plastic replaced with white,
wide, trapezoidal interface hammered down to just a narrow rectangle,
and oh, it had its name changed to DVI.
Go to town, pal, go to town.
I feel like nVidia might be onto something here. As low cost is becoming more and more the name of the game it's nice to see that they are not skimping out on the power.
The real problem is that there is no info on how using this over the intel chipset will effect battery life.
I would hope that it shouldn't take to much more than the awful GMA950, but you never know.
*affect
Ion is for SFF PCs. Tegra is for portable devices. Either way, the chipsets should give a huge boost in performance over Intel chipsets at marginal power consumption cost (no point in, say, a 12hr battery if it can't play HD movies, etc).
Well, the only problem with Tegra is that its ARM based, and Linux is a deal breaker for some people.
And I would have to agree, losing some battery for FAR better visual performance is worth it, as long as there's a good balance.
Would love that for a CarPC too...
You won't be able to push any video that uses Silverlight (like Netflix). Silverlight does not use any graphics acceleration pushing all the processing onto the CPU. Flash video playback uses some video acceleration but my AMD 2.13Ghz was just barely playing Hulu back at the lowest quality setting.
Then your 2.13 AMD sucks.
The current 1.6ghz Atom can handle Hulu with no problems.
To be honest, something like instant Netflix should be built as an OS application rather than web-based. It works really well on a Xbox 360, I would shudder to think if Microsoft just used a Silverlight interpreter and called it a day.
AMD 1.8 here, no problems.
AMD 2.2 playing em just fine.
sounds like you need a reformat after you move in with your autie and uncle in bel-air....
AMD 2.17 plays Netflix just fine for me.
AMD 1.0Ghz and it runs Hulu just fine. (really old)
Dual Core Atom (330) too, very nice. I'd love to see a laptop (10-12") with discrete graphics and a dual core atom. Hopefully for
under $300... :)
free.
Yea, put a dual core in in and I'll buy a few.
Atoms and Ions...I see what they did there...
@Angus Hedger
The guy in the video said this reference design is for PCs that use laptop technology. Power efficiency is important either way, but this doesn't seem to be a portable device.
Well, that's a bit of a bugger then, I do hate intel graphics, on anything and everything!
Lets hope that they get out a model for netbooks and the like.
Only thing I don't like is that it says "netTOP". I think most of us here have regular PC's (or Macs) for desk work. This platforms real potential success is in netbooks. The config shown here would have enough power to replace my main laptop
Awesome, now as long as it doesn't drive up the price to much, I think I'll be getting a netbook soon.
Wait, your saying that my Wind could potentially run Crysis (Ok, maybe not because of CPU constraints). Still, thats pretty badass.
I forget what the clock is on the 9400M, but its got to be todays average if it can handle 1080p video.
We've been putting Mac Mini's behind LCD TV's in conference rooms, this seems to be a great solution for that. While I love the Apple, clients always want Windows.
Would be good if it had integrated Wireless, but I feel like one of "those" guys who always wants one more feature. HDMI out is great.
There is a typo above its not the Atom 330 which is dual core its probably the 300 which is a single core CPU like the one pictured above, the dual core atoms have two dies side by side.
Sorry I meant to say its probably a 230 not a 330.
is this coming to any main stream netbooks? or is it restricted to nettops? this would be great for gaming. and running photoshop or dreamweaver.
VDPAU!
Do a google search for it, it's Nvidia's beta Unix driver that offloads the HD decoding to the GPU. The MythTV users list has been on fire about it for the past two months - Users are reporting very stable runs of 1080p H.264-encoded video on very low powered CPUs with Nvidia GPUs attached - Newegg has a little dual core Atom motherboard and adding a $40 Nvidia (fanless!) PCI card enables it to play full HD with almost no CPU usage.
Now that Nvidia has delivered on their promise of an on-board GPU to couple to the Atom CPU, it's a game changer in the HTPC world. If this mobo & CPU comes out at a good price (say, sub $100) you're looking at a fully HD capable MythTV (and Boxee and XBMC if they port to it) device!
Amen!
I love how the gpu dwarfs the CPU there. The atom is like, huddling over on the side of the mainboard cowering in shame.
...so do they put a heat sink over those components or do they just sit there?
Ethana2, check out the hothardware link, the Heat sink covers the whole board.
http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/item1261/big_sff-reference-design-3.jpg
Asus n10... Atom + Nvidia 9300M! I love mine!!!!!
Very nice... Will it Run Windows Home Server?
It really seems to be setup nice for an HTPC though, but if the price is right, I could use a few of these for different purposes.
So, I was about to buy an lenovo s10, should I wait or is it gonna be a while?
i wuz thinkin the same thing 2 about gettin the s10... i think i'll wait for a dual core atom with same power consumption along with the 9400m. however the tablet asus t101h may be worth getting...
Why 7 dot 1? I always say 7 point 1... :P
I want to slap him....
Good lord, and here was me about to buy a netbook for when I'm going back and forth between home and university. I will sure as hell be holding off for a good while now after seeing that.
This is exactly what I've been waiting for. A tiny laptop with a reasonable amount of grunt. Can't touch the desktop but for general apps on the road, this is gonna be killer. :D
Can't wait to see what nVidia do with this.
I'd love to see what the cooler looks like: Is it passive, large, small? What's the power use? Is this suitable for a netbook or ultraportable?
I can't wait for the Ion platform to hit the netbooks!! Finally, some decent video acceleration.
Why do all the pictured reference boards have a single-core Atom while it's mentioned that the board uses the dual-core 330 model?
Ion will be my first netbook (hopefully) platform.
I think Atom is a terrific processor from a price/performance/energy usage viewpoint, but coupling it with i945 is just abysmal. Ion brings a faster architecture, with the capability to support more than 1 Gb. of RAM, a decent video accelerator, and a greater system bus.
Atom + Ion + 10" Netbook + Windows 7 = Sold.
Make that "dual-core Atom" and add "tablet" and "decent battery life," then I'm sold. And preferably sub-$400 and made by Acer (yes, my love for my aspire one has turned me into an unapologetic fanboy. I'm sorry, I can't help it).
I think I'd be more impressed if the nvidia processor was at least the same size as an intel's atom.
Uhh... the little oblong one is the atom. You have it round the wrong way.
I'm aware of this Sam. I was saying that I would be impressed if the nvidia chip was at least as small as the atom. You know because the nvidia chip is larger; therefor it would be impressive if it was "at least the same size". Just to clarify I mean the nvidia chip would be impressive if it was smaller than it is. Uhh.... ya know.
I have one thing to say
That's HOT.
The whole point of netbooks is that they are tiny cheap and relatively powerful. By jacking all this power into them you're gonna have super tiny, super powerful super expensive netbooks and does anyone really *need* a super tiny super powerful super expensive netbook? No. But people will get them so they can believe they look much more svelte now that they are playing World of Warcraft on a 8" netbook instead of that 17" monstrosity they normally have to drag around. If this jacks up the price of netbooks it's utterly pointless.
The point of the Ion platform is to provide more power that Atom+gma945 at the same price point, And I'm pretty sure that manufacturer will go for ddr2 instead of ddr3 to keep the cost down.
One for a carputer
One for a HTPC
One for a NAS
One for a laptop
:)
:)
Proper NAS requires RAID and more hard drives - good luck trying to push the Atom to do the necessary RAID calculations even if you did throw an Ion into a case that had more drives in it. Same for the HTPC idea, I'd rather see an integrated OTA antenna at least which might require a slightly larger case.
@wickedpheonix, really, you don't think the atom could handle running a RAID? really?
the question that should be asked is:
why do you need a GeForce 9400M for a NAS?... maybe make it your transcoding bitch?
is Nvidia going they to sell stand-alone motherboards or are they going to bundle it with a cpu? I've already got the intel motherboard bundled with 330, I'd love to swap it out and put it into this badboy. Does DDR3 make a difference in terms of energy consumption? Would it be negligible?
Where are the heat sinks and fans? This thing is gonna meltdown...
this reminds me of the VIA's ARTIGO Pico-ITX ultra-compact (http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/10/vias-artigo-pico-itx-ultra-compact-barebones/) but on fire!
based on the price of the Pico-ITCX I feel this will be 300$ to 400$ if not more.
I am thinking this will be sold without the add-in card for 200$. if only the standard audio was on the card without the add in card it would be great for all my nieces and nephews who call from all over the world for me to help then with there PC.
I would have expected AMD and ATI to come out with something like this but they seem to be dead in the waters for some reason.
come on AMD I am one of those strange ppl who still believe in you.
I would be very, very interested in picking one of these up, just what I saw there - reference box and that's it. That is some seriously amazing tech. Of course given it's mobility you'd see me throw in a SSD at the very least, but still - throwing this in a car or otherwise just keeping this in my laptop bag with a small LCD monitor and running Synergy whenever I have a little extra desk space or something like that.
If this thing can decode 1080P h.264 consistently, streaming over gigabit ethernet, I think I may finally have to build a home theatre PC.
How much of a tool is that guy "seven DOT one audio"
whoa... it's not nice calling other people names and are you sure you're not 1 also? 7.1PCM audio is in the hdmi specification.
http://www.audioholics.com/education/display-formats-technology/audioholics-hdmi-1-3-q-a
he was referring to the use of the word "DOT" instead of "point". it's just wierd to say 'seven dot one' instead of 'seven point one'.
Shame Intel isn't selling the Atom without the 945GC :(
So manufacturers will have to buy the Atom, 945GC and Ion, then throw away the 945GC...
So this isn't going to be as cheap as Intel's platform.
Or is that really the case?
I hope it will run crysis :P
What is this, a computer for ANTS?!
It needs to be at least...... THREE TIMES THIS SIZE!!!
That made me laugh for a straight minute straight through the minute!
Ugh, according to this video they want to sell the whole thing as a package for $499:
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/business/Biggest_Friend_at_CES__Smaller_Net_Books_Bay_Area.html
That's just too expensive. Did Intel push them around and say, "We'll only sell you our Atoms if you bundle it as a whole system" so it wouldn't take away from Intel's chipset sales for netbooks?
I understand that it can do full 1080p and all that, but I could buy the Atom mobo & CPU at Newegg, add a $40 Nvidia card, memory and HDD and have everything but 7 DOT 1 audio (you guys are nuts; who says POINT anyways??) for under $350.
I'd buy one at $349 but no higher. Let's hope and Pray that Nvidia makes the individual parts available for purchase or ION will be worthless.
@sbyte1,
oh crap, I thought it would be fanless - perfect platform for htpc.
More powerfull Mac Mini's is coming!
can you say mac nano?
MythTV .22, when will you be released so that we can take advantage of VDPAU (out of trunk)?
This would be an awesome front-end w/ VDPAU on.
We'll if you guys havn't realized. GPU processors Exceed CPU processors by miles far.
Theres a reason why a 300 dollar graphics card so much, but buying just a quad core 2.0 chip sets only costs like 250.
ATI is also starting to use Graphics card to boost system processes [basically making ur GPU into a CPU] and for them has worked out great.
I beleive Nvidia is doing the same thing here the CPU and GPU work dynamically to solve problems.
Now all we need is to rig a GTX295 GPU and this would become godlike.
How many watts does it take. where is the power supply?