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Intel denies Nvidia's request to pair Atom and Ion
Even though Nvidia would very much like to get into the netbook action, Intel is not making things easy for them. The recent introduction of its Ion platform, coupled with 9000 series mobile GPUs, has been pitched by Nvidia as a great way to expand the capabilities of Atom and make it more appealing to people who want a taste of performance along with better graphics support.
Intel will have none of that, however, with a recent internal statement revealing that the company will only be shipping the atom with their own chipsets, in particular their 945GSE and 945GC chipsets. They also have said through other channels that they have no intentions of testing or “validating” the MCP79 chipset for use with the Atom.
What are Intel's intentions with this move? There are clear advantages to joining with Nvidia in this endeavor. There's no question that Nvidia has a superior integrated GPU, and their chipsets are popular among enthusiasts. They have a proven track record of working with Intel CPUs as well, and a partnership might help keep Nvidia from making similar deals with AMD.
Perhaps Intel simply wants no other option than a pure-Intel offering, or does not want to erode the amount of money they are bringing in form the Atom. Nvidia is still working with other hardware manufacturers, trying to get them to support the Ion platform as well, hoping they will put pressure on Intel.
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User Comments (2)
Post a comment| poundsmack on December 24, 2008 1:14 PM | this is really going ot hurt Nvidia. woul dhave been nice to have them partner with VIA like they had planned but I understand why that fell through as VIA wanted to keep there stuff in house with their trinity program ( http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/vias-trinity-platform-brings-much-needed-religious-imagery-to-s/ ).
But not Nvidia is the only GPU maker without a CPU at it's core. AMD has its ATI devision, Intel with it's own bit, VIA with S3. so unless Nvidia wants to buy out the tech behind Transmetta's CPU design (a good choice due to its incredible power efficiency) or go with the upcomming Loongson 3 (Godson-3) proc, they don't have many options. on the other hand, they could partner with FreeScale and use the incredibly low power PPC cpu's like the ones with the 600, 700 or 800 seriese and run linux (or in my dream world QNX). these are what I see as the most likely courses of action, aside from "do nothing" but nvidia doesn't ever like to take that approach.
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| yukka on December 24, 2008 1:46 PM | id like an atom running with an nvidia gpu. those intel graphics chips suck so badly its embarassing.
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