The recently unveiled NVIDIA Ion platform for Intel's Atom processor is said to be unable to gain too much attention from the giant chip manufacturer. It seems that Intel does not plan to offer support for other chipsets than its 945GSE and 945GC, the power efficient CPU comes bundled with. Moreover, the world's largest chip maker is reported to have stated that it did not plan to validate NVIDIA's chipset on either netbook or nettop platforms.

As many of you already know, NVIDIA's Ion combines the GeForce 9400 mGPU with the Intel Atom CPU. The green company is said to have started working on gaining some PC makers on its side so as to see its MCP7A and MCP79 chipsets inside low power personal computers. According to NVIDIA, its chipsets are able to bring more graphics power to netbooks and small form factor computers, which would facilitate their adoptions.

The graphics chip maker pushes its chipset to the front based on the fact that netbooks are expected to move to larger screen sizes. This would mean that they might also become appealing to multimedia enthusiasts who would rather enjoy machines that feature HD capabilities. On the other hand, Intel plans to keep netbooks into their already defined space so as to prevent them from taking over the segment currently led by its Core 2 chips or other similar processor series.

NVIDIA might gain some market share in the area as long as Intel would also sell the Atom CPU alone, not only bundled with its 945 chipset. According to the latest news, however, this is unlikely to happen, as Intel is reported to have distributed to partners an internal statement in which the company makes it clear that the “Atom CPUs for netbooks and nettops are only available bundled with its 945GSE and 945GC chipsets.”

Moreover, it seems that Intel is also set to refuse any form of partnership with NVIDIA to support nettop or netbook platforms based on the Intel Atom CPU. On the other hand, NVIDIA is confident that Ion could resist on the market. A source within graphics chip makers is reported to have said that vendors were free to use its platform since Atom is offered both bundled and alone. Even so, Intel might start offering discounts to PC makers that choose its chipsets, which would give it a great advantage.