Reference Platform Design and Benchmarks
On the show floor NVIDIA was also showing off a reference design system using the Ion platform. It’s really just a small black box with a computer in it; and of course a big NVIDIA logo.
You
can see in this version of the hardware the connections have expanded
dramatically to include 8-channel audio support (in both analog and
digital connections), more USB ports, eSATA and even a VGA output.
This particular design is not creative in any aspect of the word but it
does show potential OEMs just how small a powerful PC can be.
Some NVIDIA Provided Benchmarks
Also at the show NVIDIA released some benchmarks of the platform for the very first time an attempt to get some attention from readers and OEMs and rustle up some excitement.
The
test configuration is listed above – though we should note that I have
had no personal hands-on time with the hardware and that NVIDIA didn’t
seem to find it necessary to COMPARE its results with a non-Ion
platform system at all. More of the system’s impressive features stand
out here as well including RAID support, Gigabit Ethernet speeds and
support for 2560×1600 resolution monitors.
Here are the various benchmarks that NVIDIA tested with and included in the documentation.
There
a lot of numbers here, most of which come from multiple runs of
3DMark06, but there is still some great data to look at. For example,
this tiny PC with the Atom processor and NVIDIA’s GeForce 9400M chipset
was able to play both Spore and Call of Duty 4 at 1024×768 with
reasonable image quality settings and frame rates.
We can compare the 3DMark06 score (1280×1024) of 1263 with that of some sub-$70 GPUs from a recent article including the Radeon HD 4350 that scored 2800 or so when paired with a Core 2 Extreme CPU. While the comparison is in no way relevant in terms of system specs and target audiences, it is a good indication of what level of performance the Ion platform can provide is such a small form factor.
We can compare the 3DMark06 score (1280×1024) of 1263 with that of some sub-$70 GPUs from a recent article including the Radeon HD 4350 that scored 2800 or so when paired with a Core 2 Extreme CPU. While the comparison is in no way relevant in terms of system specs and target audiences, it is a good indication of what level of performance the Ion platform can provide is such a small form factor.
Initial Thoughts
NVIDIA is still in the promotion phase with the Ion platform – not a single company has announced a product using the GF 9400M mobility GPU in its designs for a netbook using the Atom processor and NVIDIA hasn’t hinted that one waiting in the wings either. The platform shows potential, though I have a few linger questions; will Intel permit it (through back channel negotiations with OEMs) and how does this affect battery life? I was hoping that NVIDIA would at least try to show battery performances results between their Ion platform and another similar system without the GF 9400M GPU in it. The fact that they did not worries me a bit; if there is one thing that netbook and notebooks need more of it is battery life.
If we take mobility out of the question, the combination of the Atom CPU and NVIDIA GPU makes for a very good budget PC platform and NVIDA is hoping to see OEMs take advantage of that with some design wins on nettops and all-in-one PCs.
But in reality, all we have here are NVIDIA-provided benchmarks and information and it will likely be some time before the company is comfortable enough sending out testing hardware to places like PC Perspective to do a full evaluation on them. Until then, the NVIDIA Ion platform will remain only as a potential candidate in this new market segment.
