Ion to Outperform Pineview, NVIDIA Claims

According to an NVIDIA representative, the company’s Ion platform, which combines a low-power Atom processor with a GeForce chipset, will be capable of outperforming Intel's next generation of Pineview Atom processors. The upcoming chips are expected to provide computer vendors with the necessary hardware to create thinner and lighter netbooks, featuring a more efficient two-chip platform. Despite the higher performances of Intel's upcoming integrated graphics, NVIDIA is still certain that its current Ion GPU will be a solid competitor for Intel's next wave of Atom processors.

 

In a recent interview with Computerworld, NVIDIA Product Manager Dave Ragones reportedly predicted that Intel's next-generation Pine Trail platform would be no match for the company's own Ion platform. According to him, pairing an Atom CPU with a discrete NVIDIA graphics processor will deliver 10 times the performance of an Intel processor-and-graphics platform. The comment follows recent details on Intel's next-generation chips, which recently surfaced the Internet.

 

Since it was first announced, earlier this year, NVIDIA's Ion platform has been widely appreciated for its capability of playing 1080p high-definition video, a feature that isn't to be expected from Intel's Pineview platform, Ragones believes. In addition, the Santa Clara, California-based graphics chip maker has been intensively promoting its partnership with Microsoft, which has resulted in the Windows 7 support for NVIDIA Ion platforms. Mr. Ragones further stated that Pineview “won't even be able to do Windows Vista Premium.”

 

Intel is expected to announce its next-generation low-power processors later this year, with the first models to become available in Q4 2009. According to recently leaked details, these new CPUs will be clocked at 1.66GHz and will be available in both single-core and dual-core packages, for upcoming netbook and nettop systems. A third single-core processor will be launched in Q1 next year.