14 DAY TRIAL // At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, NVIDIA had a number of new announcements, mainly focusing on its next-generation Tegra processor, designed for small-sized computer systems that pack an impressive performance potential. However, the Santa Clara, California-based graphics chip maker is expected to roll out a number of new products, this year, including its new line of Fermi-based GeForce graphics cards, but also the next iteration of the highly-appreciated ION chipset. ION 2, as it will allegedly be called, is expected to enable support for the latest line of Atom processors, improving performance for Intel's new chips.
On that note, news of a new Zotac nettop, which apparently combines Intel's Pine Trail platform with the NM10 chipset and the GT218 GPU, has came about on the Internet. According to sources on the Internet, Zotac, one of NVIDIA's many board partners, has showcased an early model of its upcoming ION 2-based nettop. Unfortunately, as it's generally the case with unreleased products, the technical details regarding the nettop and the new NVIDIA platform are scarce, at this time.
NVIDIA ION 2 platform is expected to boost the performance delivered by the company's first-generation platform, adding support for Intel's new Atom processors, but also for other CPUs, thus enabling support for a wider range of devices and a bit more diversity in the market for low-power, low-cost computer systems. The showcased Zotac system featured a Pinetrail-compatible processor, coupled with a GT218 GPU. Reportedly dubbed MAG, the nettop could also boast Intel's Atom D410 or D510 processors, according to reports on the Internet.
The Zotac MAG series of nettops should be released later this year, but the pricing and launch details are not available at this time. The news also confirms NVIDIA's plans to roll out its next-generation ION platform later this year.