We heard about Ion first time few years ago as NVIDIA product. We knew that was a new chispet with dedicated VGA and Intel Atom processor and it was a strong hardware which was capable running games or playing 1080p Full HD movies.
Although Ion was not bad, today we should say expectations was steep. That is a fact we can run games and 1080p ploded on it but picure sometimes teared, sound slipped so if anyone asked me, I answered good for 720p but in upper segment is sticky. The western european news was full with Ion success, however it was not spreading in our littlre county. Me and Gábor hoped in it and after we tested Ion based gismos and finally the desire was fading slowly.
Nowadays Ion is the past, we talk about Ion 2. A stronger system with easier realisation at least from NVIDIA’s sight. Ion chipset changed to only an orphan GPU. GT218 codenamed chip made by 40 nm technology and connects PCI Express interface to Intel Pine Trail system. Pine Trail is the new platform of Atom processors, consequently there is no difference between Ion and Ion 2 processors, of course aside from evolution of main units.
Ion 2 diverges at the chipset from “usual” Intel Atom system. We can use DDR2 or DDR3 memories for GT218 and its size can 512 MB and of course they are onboard moduls. Chipset is supporting DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs so video output –and audio too with HDMI- gets clear.
Also important fact the Optimus Technology. We should not think that our Nokia cell phones become a killer in one second. Now Optimus name refers optimalization which is clever using of service graphic performance and we can save energy. Main point of this method is that the system switch on big VGA if we really need it. Other times it uses Intel GMA. We need matching operating system but luckily Windows 7 has Microsoft WDDM 1.1 surface, so switching GPUs works fine.
Optimus available with portable computers only, why substance of technoligy is energy saving and optimalization of use. As desktop PCs (like Shuttle’s) has no battery we do not exist this solution now. So we can not live with it, for all that the structure may know it, but Atom’s Intel graphic controller is disabled.
What does Ion 2 offer? Practically the same like its antecedent. Small size, low energy using, fine performance for older games and playing Full HD videos. So we can know soon what can NVIDIA observe from its promises and also what could build about the platform by Shuttle.
