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Hardware Intel Says it Won't Try to Kill Ion
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - December 26, 2008 11:02 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 36 comment(s) - last by mindless1.. on Dec 31 at 11:15 PM
Intel claims will will allow OEMs to chose an Atom with an Intel chipset or the Atom CPU alone

Few would say that Intel and NVIDIA are bosom buddies. The two firms are battling it out for one of the most lucrative markets in the computer industry -- the graphics market.

It wasn't so long ago that NVIDIA was able to leverage the improved performance of its new 9400M GPU to oust Intel as the graphics provider inside the new MacBook computers. NVIDIA boasted shortly thereafter that it would use the 9400 series GPU to grab 30% of the integrated graphic market, a market traditionally dominated by Intel.

NVIDIA recently unveiled one of the major components of its plan to grab market share in the form of its Ion platform. Ion is aimed directly at the burgeoning netbook market and integrates an Intel Atom CPU with an NVIDIA 9400 series GPU.

Since the Ion platform was unveiled, some rumors suggested that Intel would try to kill NVIDIA's netbook platform in an effort to prevent losing market share in the netbook realm to big green's 9400 GPU as it did in Apple's new MacBook line.

An unnamed Intel spokesman has come out and said that Intel will not try to kill the Ion platform. According to the spokesman, Intel has been offering the Atom CPU alone or with its 945 chipset. Engadget quotes the unnamed NVIDIA source saying, "There is nothing preventing vendors from using [NVIDIA's] Ion platform; [Intel] sells Atom as a standalone processor, or as a package with chipset."

However, there is nothing preventing Intel from offering significant discounts to OEMs who use the Atom CPU bundled with its 945 that make the Ion platform much less appealing.

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If this is the case
By Bateluer on 12/26/2008 11:09:31 AM , Rating: 2
I still want to know why every netbook sold boasts an Atom and a GMA 950. There's practically no Via Nano based netbooks, only a handful with nvidia IGPs, etc.




RE: If this is the case
By mforce on 12/26/2008 12:39:13 PM , Rating: 2
I'd like to know that too but unfortunately Via has always been pretty much a disaster of a company.
I remember when AMD relied on Via to make chipsets for their CPUs. Athlons were out but there were no chipsets because Via couldn't get their act together.
Then nvidia came out with the nForce2 and showed them how it's done and now Via is pretty much history.
I'm not happy about this , I wish Via could get their act together and actually release some quality products and on time but unfortunately they never really did that.


RE: If this is the case
By superunknown98 on 12/26/2008 1:35:40 PM , Rating: 5
While I will admit VIA doesn't have the best track record, The above statements just are not true. As you state, when the Athlon first came out with slot A, Nvidia wasn't even making chipsets. How do you not remember the KT133A? Hell VIA beat Intel to market with a pc133 memory controller. How about the KT266A or the KT400/A? While the Nforce 2 was the best for socket A Athlons, VIA still produced some pretty good chipsets too.


RE: If this is the case
By yuhong on 12/26/2008 3:42:59 PM , Rating: 5
BTW, when VIA exited the third-party processor chipset business, someone posted this:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=64206...


RE: If this is the case
By brightstar on 12/26/2008 6:08:28 PM , Rating: 2
This post also made me wonder? The Nforce/01 (not Nforce2/02) was not regarded as a very good chipset at that time and had it's hosts of problems. The Nforce 2 was a very good chipset..heck, I owned 2 of the Asus boards. I vaguely remember what the poster was trying to say, I think it had to do with Via not being able to get a dual channel memory chipset out for the Athlon's at that time, and the Nforce2 beat them to the punch. Via did have some decent( depends on perspective) chipsets at that time.


RE: If this is the case
By MonkeyPaw on 12/26/2008 10:17:51 PM , Rating: 1
Yeah, the problem with Via was not that it produced such nice chipsets as the KT266A or KT133A, it was the fact that underachieving chipsets like the KT133 and KT266 came before them. By the time Via got around to dual channel Socket A, Socket A was dead. By the time they figured out how to provide a locked PCI bus, the company had lost all presence in the enthusiast market. With Via, no one can really believe that the products they announce are good (or even real), because Via's execution is just so lousy. It's sad, because I'm all for another player in the market, but Via just fumbles too much.


RE: If this is the case
By mindless1 on 12/29/2008 3:30:46 PM , Rating: 2
You must be joking.

Via's chipsets had worse memory performance, abominable PCI, and oh let's not forget the data corruption from the southbridge either.

Via has never had a competitive chipset in any era except the 694X, which at the time supported over 512MB memory unlike Intel's 815, and lower cost high density PC133 memory unlike Intel's 820, and universal AGP plus ATA100 and high density memory plus 133 FSB speed unlike Intel 440BX, though I'll grant that BX was a predecessor, it would be more fit to compare BX to 693 which was inferior to BX.

Via was always in 2nd, usually 3rd place. Come to think of it, what have they ever done well except the Envy audio chips? Certainly not their USB2 or GbE chips, and their processors sole claim to fame is being cheaper because they're smaller, with low power just being inherant in that so that's what they marketed even though an underclocked P3, letalone mobile P3 could have been used equally well in almost all scenarios - if Intel or AMD wanted that market a few years back they could have taken it but did not for fears of undercutting their higher tiered products.


RE: If this is the case
By TA152H on 12/26/2008 10:58:17 PM , Rating: 2
You're misrepresenting Intel when you state that VIA beat them with a PC 133 memory controller. It's true, kind of, but, completely inaccurate in the context it's given. Intel did not want to support 133 MHz SDRAM, since they were supporting RDRAM, and consequently only created a true chipset (i815) for it when it became apparent to them they had no choice. More than that, the existing 440BX chipset could easily run at 133 MHz (the only real problem was it did not have a 1/2 multiplier for the AGP, so the video cards would run at 89 MHz instead of 66 MHz). So, the implication that VIA somehow beat Intel to the punch is erroneous, since Intel had an existing chipset that easily ran at that speed, albeit, unofficially, and Intel did not wish to support 133 MHz SDRAM.

Also, you guys seem to miss the point about VIA on a couple of areas. Yes, the parent company is VIA, but the processors are still made by Centaur, which was bought from IDT by VIA. It's not one big company, in fact Centaur is in America, not Taiwan. For this reason, it's not really the same as talking about the VIA chipset division, or even the graphics division. They aren't the same groups, and aren't even in the same countries.

Also, VIA did not leave the chipset business, which is very obvious, since they continue to make chipsets for their Centaur division processors.

The Nano has won some recent design wins at Dell and HP, and I heard was in something like 3% of their netbooks. It's not a lot, but it's a start, and companies are very concerned with new suppliers, so it does represent an important change, and a good first step.

However, the design of the Nano is what leaves people cold. It's not nearly as power efficient as the Atom, and it's not nearly as powerful per watt as the Core 2, so I'm not sure why anyone would want this once Intel gets their act together with a proper low power chipset for the Atom. At the high end of the Nano line, the Core 2 destroys it at the same power use, and the Nano can't even approach the power use of the Atom, and if you underclocked/undervolted it enough, you wouldn't get close to the performance, particularly in multi-threaded situations. In fact, only their superior (in terms of power use) chipset allows them to compete with Intel's miserable, inappropriate offering. The Atom deserves a much better chipset, and when it gets it, why would anyone want the Nano? The only reason I can think of is, if they improve it considerably, so it can at least show some advantage at some wattage over an Intel based offering. From a purely processor perspective, right now it does not. The Atom and Core 2 are really strong designs. It's not that AMD or VIA are so bad, it's just Intel has got such extraordinary processors right now, by comparison, it's not easy to look good (as does the Pentium 4 and Itanium, which are not that old). Only in the system design (poor chipset for Atom, and FSB for Core 2) is Intel vulnerable, and not for long. Nehalem is here, and a new chipset for the Atom is in the works. It certainly sucks to be competing with Intel.

S


RE: If this is the case
By lagitup on 12/29/2008 3:50:33 AM , Rating: 2
Remember those articles about Tegra? I played with one at nvision at that thing ran HOT...I wouldn't want it sitting on my lap. Perhaps once they get they get the heat, and likely power consumption, issues with that worked out team green will enter this market?


no
By sprockkets on 12/26/2008 1:07:16 PM , Rating: 5
We won't kill the nVidia chip. But, we will still of course not allow pci express slots on the boards, or DVI ports or anything else a modern computer is expected to have (at least on the mini-ITX factor).




RE: no
By JAB on 12/26/2008 1:51:56 PM , Rating: 5
Yes that may hurt sales of real computers. I dont think Intel really likes the whole netbook craze. It puts their entire business model at risk. Lean applications and efficient OS and programs do not push later upgrades.


wow
By MrPoletski on 12/27/2008 11:10:03 AM , Rating: 2
this is good and unexpected news from Intel. Might shake them up into getting a shrink of the chipset out sooner. Daft that a chipset would use more power than the processor.

Anyways, the next rev of atom will how powervr graphics on chip, so this ion would not have much of a future if nvidia want to keep putting a graphics core in there, which is sort of the main point of it. I suspect Nvidia will have great difficulty beating the powervr core on power/performance, it is wonderful tech.




RE: wow
By mindless1 on 12/29/2008 3:38:15 PM , Rating: 2
It's not enough to have graphics on-chip, that's a fairly pointless thing to do from a consumer perspecitive if it still needs a northbridge.

I'm waiting for nVidia to steal the show by integrating a minimalistic x86 processor onto their chipset, in some ways it is madness that nobody is pushing for this integration yet.


RE: wow
By MrPoletski on 12/31/2008 8:39:15 AM , Rating: 2
They *are* putting the vast majority of the northbridge on chip, so much that any external northbridge chip would be minimal in function, probably integrated into the southbridge.

Intel are trying to get a total system-on-chip design.


RE: wow
By mindless1 on 12/31/2008 11:15:08 PM , Rating: 2
You're not getting it, the important factor is not how much, it's either it needs another chip or it doesn't.

Southbridge? Again you don't get it, I'm talking about a solution that does not even have a southbridge because it was all northbridge or CPU, that these two chips would be integrated into one lone chip.


Nice, Please AMD.
By iwod on 12/26/2008 8:21:02 PM , Rating: 2
I have been on Intel side most of my life. But now i really hope AMD catches up.

Pentium 4 nearly make me gave up hope with them. I am now hoping Intel do something similar with their Chipset.




RE: Nice, Please AMD.
By formulav8 on 12/26/2008 9:41:48 PM , Rating: 2
AMD is supposed to have their new low-power cpu out somewhat soon from the last I heard.

While the AMD version won't be as low of power consumption as the atom, It should have no problems beating it in performance, especially with their much better igp chipsets.

Jason


RE: Nice, Please AMD.
By MrPoletski on 12/27/2008 11:14:09 AM , Rating: 2
well then it'd be much like the via nano then and would compete with that for the slightly larger device market while atom heads for the smaller.


legality of last comment
By Screwballl on 12/26/2008 12:02:06 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
However, there is nothing preventing Intel from offering significant discounts to OEMs who use the Atom CPU bundled with its 945 that make the Ion platform much less appealing.


Didn't Intel just get nailed with lawsuits and legal fees for doing this? Do they ever learn... probably not since it is mostly the same board of directors and leadership for the past decade or longer.




RE: legality of last comment
By Doormat on 12/26/2008 2:38:21 PM , Rating: 2
If the penalty they had to pay was worth it (in terms of $, market share, etc), then they can be expected to continue said behavior.


RE: legality of last comment
By BansheeX on 12/26/2008 6:44:42 PM , Rating: 2
Since the 945 now has a much better competitor, they will have to reduce the chip price to OEMs. But the prices OEMs sell the chips for is not fixed by a central office, competition for sales between OEMs guarantees that the savings will be passed on to the consumer. At that point, value per $ is up to the consumer. Nvidia may then have to lower their prices. This is perfectly normal market behavior, but the article is retardedly insinuating some sort of wrongdoing.


I'm not too familiar with antitrust laws...
By amanojaku on 12/26/2008 11:16:49 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Intel claims will will allow OEMs to chose an Atom with an Intel chipset or the Atom CPU alone

But I don't think Intel has the option to lock the Atom to its chipsets. The Atom is a CPU, not a platform, so the chipset is a separate entity. The only legitimate thing it can do is sell its chipsets at cheaper prices than the competition.




By Khato on 12/26/2008 12:14:27 PM , Rating: 2
Actually it wouldn't be too difficult to lock the Atom into using only the US15W chipset - just disable the GTL+ bus. This is already done on the lower power versions since the GTL+ FSB draws a fair deal more power than the CMOS design.


Power consumption?
By wolrah on 12/26/2008 3:34:31 PM , Rating: 2
How does the power consumption look on the 9400M? I remember many of the early Atom articles complained about the 945 being terrible on power compared to the Atom processor, is nVidia's option any better?

If it's similar or better on power it's an obvious win on everything but cost since the Intel graphics are terrible in comparison.




RE: Power consumption?
By Bateluer on 12/26/2008 4:53:07 PM , Rating: 2
I believe they said the power usage was identical to the 945 chipset, the difference was in the increased feature set and substantially better performance and capabilities.


Pick your battles.
By gochichi on 12/26/2008 11:37:26 AM , Rating: 3
I really don't think that Intel has the capability at this point to go head to head with AMD graphics wise, so there is an unspoken and tenuous partnership with Nvidia to make Intel chips appealing to users that care about graphics performance. This has been the case thus far, the 8400M, the 8600M, etc. etc. the Intel/Nvidia combo is where we go look for performance.

Whether deliberately or not, Intel continues to make pretty terrible integrated graphics. The newest version continues to be abysmal and it's video decoding capabilities are its only saving grace.

Now, as to the ION platform. It creates another market for the ATOM processor rather than strictly replacing Intel's 950. I mean, there are those for whom it will make no difference at all and will simply look for the cheapest netbook they can find, or at least look for other features such as screen size, storage capacity and things like that.

I think you kind of have to be on the geeky side of the spectrum to care about this 9400M business. I for one am a lot more likely to purchase an ATOM processor in 2009 if it is paired with ION. I think I could get the size, price, and performance I'm looking for while having the quietness that I crave for in a media center PC.

Rather than bothering with ION, a good product that can help them, Intel needs to go on and release a higher priced and higher performance ATOM processor to pair it with. Like a dual core ATOM processor. Because to me, dual core is just so much smoother that even if it is slow, the smoothness makes it more predictable, more enjoyable to use.

I think that by gravity alone, Intel will be more competitive in the graphics area in the years to come. But Intel is a business and I think it would be a tremendous waste of resources, marketing dollars, and so on to try beat NVIDIA this very minute. Looking in the horizon, Intel needs to stop crippling their GPUs so much, but for now Intel has a "partner" in NVIDIA.




It's a non issue...
By Jacerie on 12/26/2008 11:31:15 AM , Rating: 2
It's a no-brainer for Intel to sell the Atoms separately instead of just as a platform solution. Whomever buys the chips is still making Intel a profit.

The current Little Falls offering from Intel isn't cut out for general use in a desktop environment. There's just not enough bang to keep the average user happy. Where the Intel platform really shines though is in integrated systems such as POS terminals.

Personally I can't wait to get my hands on an Ion platform. Add a nice SSD and USB tuner card and you have the perfect HTPC with a smaller footprint than a typical DVD case.




RE: It's a non issue...
By foolsgambit11 on 12/28/08, Rating: 0
By 16nm on 12/26/2008 5:14:16 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Intel claims will(sp) will allow OEMs to chose an Atom with an Intel chipset or the Atom CPU alone


Those Intel guys are so nice. Intel will be putting the entire platform on a chip soon so it is not like manufacturers will have any choice in the future. Hey, Intel is in business to try to make money. Don't expect anything else out of it.




By mvrx on 12/28/2008 2:44:53 PM , Rating: 2
I've posted this thought once before..

I still think with NVIDIA and AMD (+SUN and several others) being so ripe for the pickings, it would be wise for IBM to create a merged subcompany (or flat out aquire) AMD and NVIDIA.. Merge the best of breed technologies from both --

Graphics: merge ATI/NVIDIA GPU technology into a unified super-scalable Cell B.E. platform. Develop extremely advanced OpenCL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL ) support into it. -- and guide us into the next generation of HPC class scaling with GPU's

CPU and Chipset: IBM has some nice POWER architecture technology.. I kind of think they've already given AMD a hand a few times with it.. Imagine what they could do with a wide open playing field breeding some of their tech with AMD's. As for chipsets, IBM has a great deal of talent in this department.

Please see my old comment in this news item.. http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39680/128/ . I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this.




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