Nvidia brings Apple MacBook audio/video capabilities like digital display and HD support to Intel Atom netbooks
With Nvidia’s ION platform, Atom netbooks are closing the performance gap with Centrino 2 notebooks.
Intel now runs the risk that low cost and low marging Atom processors could now potentially cannibalize its sales of high margin Centrino 2 platforms.
So far, netbooks are infamous for their sluggish performance, equipped with an outdated Intel graphics chip and limited to 1GB memory imposed by Microsoft Windows XP.
Nvidia's Atom platform outperforms Intel's and can run Windows Vista or Windows 7
But that could change quickly, as Nvidia demonstrated in the video below, when it combined the low power and “capable” Intel Atom processor with the same high-performing graphics chips found in the latest Apple Macbooks.
These new generation netbooks end up being a very decent laptop, finally able to run properly Windows Vista – as the video shows – but for the price of a netbook; most often under $500 and sometimes under $300!
Nvidia could disrupt sales of Intel’s Centrino 2 and Core 2 Duo with its Atom-based ION platform
“If you take the GeForce graphics processor paired with Intel’s Atom chip, you will still get 5 times the graphics performance of an Intel Centrino 2 platform,” said David Ragones, product line manager at Nvidia. “We think it’s disruptive because you can now have a laptop based on Atom and GeForce and don’t have to pay the premium for Centrino 2.”
The Nvidia GeForce chip will add $50 to the overall price of a laptop. Which is significant for a low cost netbook but not for a notebook equipped with a large screen and capable of running Windows Vista or Windows 7, video games and playing HD movies.
The Santa Clara, Calif. company expects the first ION-based laptops to appear in the first half of next year. The Nvidia platform could also play a role inside TVs and consumer devices like media players.
[...] The Santa Clara, Calif. company argues that PC manufacturers are free to take its low cost Atom processor, pair it with Nvidia’s high-end graphics for example and build a powerful netbook that could rival the performance of an Intel Centrino 2 notebook. [...]
Those Atom CPU’s are pretty cool, how you can have a little server or desktop virtually anywhere.