NVIDIA responds to Intel's Ion dismissal, all eyes on recess for confrontation
By Donald Melanson 
posted Feb 26th 2009 12:23PM
posted Feb 26th 2009 12:23PM
It wasn't too hard to see this one coming, but NVIDIA has now shot back at Intel and responded point by point to each accusation Intel made recently about its Ion platform. For starters, while NVIDIA doesn't exactly dispute that Ion is just a repurposed MCP79M/MCP7A chipset, it does say that Ion is a "modern 2 chip solution," while Intel is relying on a "4-year-old 3 chip design." NVIDIA also points out that Ion is certified by Microsoft to deliver the "premium Windows experience," and not just Windows XP, and that, contrary to Intel's claim, Ion does in fact offer similar battery life to an Intel-based system while also delivering ten times the performance. In related news, Intel CEO Paul Otellini himself hit NVIDIA with a few jabs yesterday at a Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco, saying that NVIDIA is simply not in a strong competitive position, and that, "if you don't have a microprocessor, what else do you have to sell?" Meanwhile, AMD was said to be wandering around the cafeteria, looking for a seat at the lunch table.
Read - Tom's Hardware, "Nvidia Fires Back at Intel's Anti-Ion Sentiments"
Read - CNET, "Intel CEO comments on Nvidia, economy, flash"
Read - Tom's Hardware, "Nvidia Fires Back at Intel's Anti-Ion Sentiments"
Read - CNET, "Intel CEO comments on Nvidia, economy, flash"
one word: hehehe
Now children.
amd/nvidia fanboy for life! take that intel!
nVidia is full of shit (and a always been FOS in the marketing dep since the 3DFX days).
Intel can't be bothered designing a fast integrated graphics chip even if the life depended on it. But they can still tear nVidia a new ass economicalyif they wanted.
I wonder what AMD and VIA are waiting for - Ion is exactly the platform to go with and take their chunk of netbook/nettop market, and it could be a big one.
(yeah I know AMD has their own platform, but it's not an excuse for missing an opportunity)
A tiny little part of me wants to see VIA come into this market segment and blow it apart with nVidia. A dual core nano+ion could revolutionize the casual desktop pc market, not to mention the HTPC market.
"AMD was said to be wandering around the cafeteria, looking for a seat at the lunch table." Beautiful.
Nano needs to ship in a netbook some time soon. Ditto Ion. I'll assume what both sides are saying about battery life in particular is completely unreliable until I see published testing benchmarks. I have no idea at this point if Ion or Nano are going to be worth anything or not.
I've always been an ATi fan foremost, and an AMD fan secondly.
These days I find myself torn. AMD/ATi is in rough shape, I applaud NVidia for Ion, and Intel, though generally disgusting, does impress me with Atom.
If Larrabee is more than a pipedream, I'm hoping AMD/ATi merges with NVidia to create a CPUGPU conglomerate to compete directly with them.
(I don't really think Larrabee will be competitive. Intel, your integrated solutions are horrible. You are only trumped by SiS, who still manages to turn out not only terrible hardware, but even worse drivers.)
Nvidiatimd, anyone?
I think NVidia is more likely to merge with VIA/Cyrix than AMD/ATI. It would also be an easier merger to get through regulatory approval compared to merging with AMD/ATI.
Nvidia could just buy VIA and make cool SoCs for low end market and slowly crawl up as their CPU making skill increases.
The camp will soon be divided into 3 camps:
ATI/AMD with their combo solution
INTEL with Larrabee (cough)
Nvidia sleeping with VIA (ouch)
I bet it bothered Engadget that nVidia didn't find or care for Apple's opinion of their technology worth mentioning.
Yeah, like Apple wasn't the one trying to be friends with both..
Well, realistically the great majority of nVidia chips do end up in an Intel based system. Apple is not unique in this regard.
"10x performance at similar battery life"....while I have no doubt that the performance will be 10x that of Intel at similar battery life, does the ION platform require larger or more capacious batteries to achieve that battery life relative to the Intel platform?
It's actually "10x GRAPHICS performance..", care to read the actual source, eh?
Weedy: Duh, what kind of performance did you think I was talking about? How fast ION can run the quarter mile? My question is still valid. Does it require larger or more capacious batteries to achieve that performance? Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed by ION and I would absolutely consider buying an ION netbook. But I may not be as keen on having one that requires bigger batteries.
Duh you would think Nvidia was comparing two machines with equal or very similar batteries.
If you did a little math, you'd realize that 2:40 to 2:31 is the same as 9.5 to 9, so the base must be the same, no?
I'm guessing they don't mean when actually using the chipset full tilt. The biggest drawback with most dedicated GPUs in notebooks is the increased power draw on idle compared to an Intel chipset using integrated graphics.
Wow Weedy, you really don't know how marketing works. Or at least you believe everything you hear. Why wouldn't marketing make such a claim? Marketing is all about half-truths. Especially if there are no actual products available for consumers to verify that claim.
I'm with Jimbo on this one. nVidia's response doesn't contradict Intel's claim. Combining Intel's claim with nVidia's implies that you'll get 10x the performance for half the battery life. Whether that's good or bad depends on what you're doing with that performance and time.
"The biggest drawback with most dedicated GPUs in notebooks is the increased power draw on idle compared to an Intel chipset using integrated graphics."
The ION platform also uses an IGP, it just happens to be far superior to Intel's shitty GMA..
FIGHT
FIGHT
FIGHT
if only we could all get along and work together this whole process would go a lot smoother. But since it is all about money we get preoccupied trying to sue someone who claims to have done it first.
Looks like Intel is scared of Nvidia's ION platform, why else would they try to discredit it or undervalue it's potential.
Yeah, I wouldn't count that MSFT validation and endorsement that much. MSFT is software, so they only care about getting their wares to work with hardware vendors.
And we don't know which way the money flowed for the validation process; was it MSFT that paid NVIDIA or was it NVIDIA that paid MSFT to perform validation? I suspect it was NVIDIA that paid out.
now the real toys will be thrown out of the pram. nvidia has done something good. now maybe intel will get off their ass and stop relying on many years old chipsets for new machines.
heated competition is a good thing and entertaining. We (consumers) will ultimately benefit from better, cheaper products.
Where the hell is AMD/ATI? this should have been there fight.
I am betting on nVidia with this one. something tells me Intel think this could pose a challenge for them thats why they keep attacking the nVidia with this one.
I'm sticking to Lays.
Jays all the way
After school at the flagpole, Intel. Be there, wuss.
They seem to have pretty solid arguments !
So intel what' you say ?
I especially like how Intel's saying the ION has a limited lifetime. Sure, because Intel's actually forcing nVidia out of the equation with the next-gen Atom. This is not a benefit to Intel's customer base, and it's definitely not going to help their image.
The whole advantage of using Intel products in the first place was the semi-open platform that x86 provides. Anyone can make a video card or sound card or whatever for a standard x86 platform. So why is Intel shooting themselves in the feet by making the Atom systems proprietary? Tastes a bit like PowerPC, if you ask me.
I'm an Intel fanboy, but I'm also a gamer and I'm poor. So I want the best deal on a computer that can game and Hulu and Netflix and plug into my TV. The Ion sounds like a contender. Intel's standard platform definitely is NOT.
Intel, if you can't bring your graphics systems into the 21st century, at least give us the choice to use a third party device to get the functionality we need! It's just good business sense.
Jen-Hsun Huang: I. SAID GOOD DAY SIR!!!
I don't get this. Intel has to know their atom motherboards are shit don't they? The damn motherboard needs active cooling when the cpu doesn't. How can you talk shit about other people's equipment when your own is woefully lame?
Because you want to make sure that for the most part, people will stick with yours for the next generation.
That's how you react what you're worried that someone is encroaching your territory. Intel I feel, is a bit worried that it will lose a chunk of the market share of it's nettop and netbook vendors. If Ion is a. cheaper for consumers (and vendors) and b. performs much better - why would any vendor stick with Intel?
Right now, people are pretty stuck. If you want a cheapy laptop device....you're going to probably get the One or Eee like netbook which has the atom and the intel 945 or whatever crappy video Atoms sell with. And while that may be 'satisfactory', after all - what more do you "need" with a netbook? What if consumers knew that they could get something which could actually play games and HD videos smooth? Or that seemed MUCH quicker because the CPU is only utilized for processing power and not in any way for Graphics?
It would possibly mean that even though a 2 core Atom is more powerful than a 2 core Via, that the Via/Ion based netbook/nettop would be much, much faster/smoother and a plain better experience than that 2 core Atom/Intel GMA based netbook/nettop and that information would spread quickly.
So they have to do SOMETHING to convince Acer, Asus, Dell and other major Atom selling makers, as well as customers 'in the know' to stick it out with Intel.
Nowadays, it's seemingly like bad mouthing and lying about the competition's products correlates to advancing your own interests. Look how badly Apples ads have marred Vista in the eyes of people who don't even own it? Soon, very soon...customers will have to ignore all the marketing and just find ways to test products on their own through family or friends.
@Neoprimal
"Soon, very soon...customers will have to ignore all the marketing and just find ways to test products on their own through family or friends. "
Or perhaps read reviews from technology blogs and websites.. ;)
Somebody needs to ask Intel about their Poulsbo/GMA 500 chipset and why they can't get decent driver support. At least when I buy the ION I'm more than likely to get a decent Linux driver.