14 DAY TRIAL // According to recent details that have surfaced on the Internet, the Santa Clara, California-based graphics chip maker has released a second version of its much-hyped ION chipset, coming to provide OEM vendors with a choice for a cheaper nettop/netbook platform. The new version, dubbed NVIDIA ION LE, has been designed for the entry-level market and is reportedly the same as the company's initial ION GPU, but without the support for DirectX 10 graphics. The move will enable netbook and nettop manufacturers to roll out new, cheaper versions of ION-based products.
In a recent news-article on Fudzilla, NVIDIA's Igor Stanek, product PR manager for the EMEA region, said that the “ION LE is SKU of the ION GPU that is identical to ION, except it only supports DX9. This product is designed specifically for Windows XP on Netbooks and Nettops and we are going to offer LE SKU just for OEM market.”
The world's leading desktop GPU vendor is yet to announce the financial differences between the standard ION GPU and the new ION LE version. However, according to the aforementioned website, the reason behind the launch of the new SKU is to allow manufacturers to build less expensive ION-based netbooks and nettops. These systems will only provide users with support for DirectX 9 and will run only on the Windows XP operating system.
While the company is yet to detail the pricing differences between the two ION versions, adding an NVIDIA ION GPU to a low-power nettop or netbook is believed to increase that system's pricing by about US$50. If that's true, the new solution unveiled by NVIDIA could lower prices at the cost of limited functionality.
Unfortunately we have no details regarding the availability of any NVIDIA ION LE-based system, but we could see a couple of these products launched before the end of this year.