It looks like Gigabyte is going to be one of the first PC makers to jump on the 10-inch netbook with NVIDIA ION bandwagon. The company is making an ION version of the M1000 netbook we told you about the other day.

Netbook News.de reports that the ION version will be called the Gigabyte M1000N and it will feature a version of NVIDIA’s next-generation ION platform as well as a 1.83GHz Intel Atom N470 CPU and a 1366 x 768 pixel HD display.

While NVIDIA offers ION graphics for 10 inch netbooks as well as larger notebooks, the 10 inch version is a little less powerful. It has half the CUDA cores of the ION chip found in nettops and notebooks with 11.6 inch or larger displays. That means netbooks like the Gigabyte M1000N and Acer Aspire One 532G won’t offer the same level of graphics performance as machines like the Asus Eee PC 1201PN. But the ION chip should be more than powerful enough to handle 1080p HD video playback, Flash video acceleration, and some 3D graphics.

Giada has a pretty strong showing at CeBIT this week. In addition to the slim nettop models I spotted earlier this year at CES, the company is showing off a new model with a dual core Intel Atom D510 Pine Trail processor and next-generation ION graphics. What’s really remarkable about the new Giada Cube-N7DT though is that it has a built in TV tuner and DVD drive, making it a a promising little media center PC.

The ION graphics processor should give the computer enough power to decode Blu-Ray discs as well, but it looks like Giada is only showing a model with a DVD burner for now — so you’ll need a USB Blu-Ray drive if you want to go that route.

The nettop supports up to 2GB of DDRE3 memory, and takes a 2.5″ hard drive. It has HDMI, DVI, and SPDIF outputs, as well as support for 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth.

No word on whether we’ll see this Giada nettop in the states anytime soon.

via Netbook News.de

Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and Zotac are among the first companies to announce products sporting the just-announced next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics platform. We already knew about the Acer Aspire One 532G 10 inch netbook which was announced at Mobile World Congress last month. But here are a few more products that will come with next-generation ION graphics.

Asus is introducing an updated version of the Eee PC 1201N, called the Eee PC 1201PN, which is shown above. It will also be available in silver. You can see another photo in the gallery below.

The company also has a new all-in-one PC and a new nettop in the works.

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NVIDIA has officially lifted the thin veil of secrecy that hadn’t really been covering the details about the company’s next-generation ION platform. NVIDIA ION pairs a low power Intel Atom-powered notebook with NVIDIA graphics to deliver higher performance HD video playback, 3D graphics acceleration for games, and CUDA technology for GPU-accelerated video encoding, recording, and some other tasks.

There are a few things that make the next-generation ION platform different from the chipset found in older computers such as the HP Mini 311 and Asus Eee PC 1201N.

Here’s the bullet point version, but you can find more details below

• The platform comes on a PCI Express card
• ION systems will typically have 512MB of dedicated memory and HDMI output
• Supports netbooks with 10 and 12 inch screens
• The 10 inch model has 8 CPU cores, while the 12 inch version has 16
• The reason the 10 inch chip is less powerful is because there’s a tighter space with less thermal cooling in smaller netbooks
• Next-gen ION chips will support Optimus technology for automatic graphics switching, which means better battery life
• Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and Zotac are among the launch partners with netbooks, all-in-one desktops, and nettops built around next-generation ION
• Next-generation ION systems should be priced about the same as first generation ION computers
• It’s not called ION 2

OK, now for some details. First, because Intel went and combined the CPU and GPU onto a single chip, NVIDIA couldn’t just take over the graphics and memory control functions anymore. Instead, the new ION processor is a separate video card, similar to a discrete graphics solution. The next-generation ION GPU will come on a PCI Express card that fits into mini-laptops with 10 or 12 inch screens. Yep, that’s one of the other differences, for the first time you’ll see 10 inch netbooks with ION graphics. This isn’t a huge surprise, since Acer already introduced the Aspire One 532g netbook with next-generation ION graphics.

Here’s what you might not have known, though. NVIDIA will offer two different versions of the new ION platform. The version that fits in 10 inch netbooks has 8 GPU cores, while the 12 inch model has 16. The result is that 10 inch netbooks with next-gen ION will perform about as well as laptops with first generation ION. Larger laptops, nettops, and all-in-one PCs with ION graphics will be much faster. NVIDIA says the 16 core version of ION scores about twice as high as first generation ION on benchmarks such as 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage.

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It’s not just notebooks like the Asus Eee PC 1201PN on display at CeBIT in Germany that are getting the next-generation NVIDIA ION treatment. The folks at Engadget stumbled across the first all-in-one Eee Top desktop computer with next-generation ION graphics at the trade show today.

The Asus Eee Top ET2010PNT has an incredibly long and complicated sounding name. It also has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom D510 dual core processor and NVIDIA ION graphics which should give this machine enough power to play HD video and some video games without taxing the low power processor.

The computer also has a large touchscreen display and all the benefits of cramming an entire PC into the same case as the display… whatever they may be.

You can find a few more photos and not a lot of specs at Engadget.

Zotac is updating its nettop lineup to add support for Intel’s latest Atom processor and NVIDIA’s next-generation ION graphics.

The Zotac Zbox HD-ID11 is the same size and shape as the earlier Zotac MAG nettop. But the new model features a 1.66GHz Atom D510 dual core processor and faster NVIDIA ION graphics.

It looks like the computer will be available as a barebones system, since there are no specs listed for memory, hard drive, or operating system options. But you do get a 2.5″ hard drive bay andВ  a single 200-pin DDR2-800 SODIMM slot. The computer also has 802.11b/g/n WiFi and 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet.

The ION graphics processor has 512MB of dedicated memory and supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.2.

The computer has 6 USB ports, HDMI and VGA output, and mic and headphone jacks. There’s also an eSATA port and flash card reader. The system comes with a VESA mount and a DVI to VGA adapter.

Probably one of the most unusual design elements is the fact that you can open the case without any tools. You simply need to remove two “thumb screws” to open the Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11 and insert RAM or a hard drive.

via Netbooked

So is the next-generation NVIDIA ION platform faster, slower, or about the same as the ION chipset found in notebooks such as the Samsung N510, Lenovo IdeaPad S12 and HP Mini 311? An early benchmark suggested it wasn’t quite up to snuff. But it turns out that test was performed on a pre-release netbook with the less powerful of NVIDIA’s 2 next-gen ION chips.

Now that NVIDIA has officially launched the platform and a number of new ION-powered devices are on display at CeBIT in Germany, the folks at Notebook Italia have had a chance to run a benchmark on the Asus Eee PC 1201PN. This machine features the new 16-core version of the next-generation ION chip.

And lo and behold, it did score better in the 3DMark06 benchmark than the Eee PC 1201N, a similar notebook with first-generation ION graphics. When I ran the benchmark on an Eee PC 1201N, I got a score of 1559. Notebook Italia reports that the Eee PC 1201PN scored 2013 on the same test.

The Eee PC 1201PN probably isn’t going to take on the Alienware M11x gaming ultraportable anytime soon. But it’s definitely a step above earlier ION-powered machines in the graphics department.

You can check out a video showing the Eee PC 1201PN in action after the break.

Update: Netbook News.de has the benchmark results using 3DMark03. The score? 4482. That’s noticably higher than the 3049 notched by the Acer Aspire One 532g with the less poweful version of next-gen ION.

via Netbooked

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Shuttle was making small form factor desktop computers long before the current nettop craze got started. But the company has been pretty happy to jump on the bandwagon with a number of tiny, low power desktops sporting Intel Atom processors. The latest is the Shuttle XS35, which should be on display at CeBIT next week.

The XS35 will have a 1.6GHz Intel Atom D510 dual core processor. It’s a barebones system, meaning the Shuttle XS35 won’t come with a hard drive, RAM, or operating system. But you will have room for a 2.5″ hard drive and a slimline optical disc drive. It also has VGA and HDMI output, Ethernet, and 5 USB ports.

But the exciting part is that the XS35 will also use NVIDIA GT218 graphics, which a Shuttle press release pretty explicitly says is synonymous with “NVIDIA ION 2.”

There’s no word on the price or exact dimensions, but Shuttle says the XSS35 will be just 1.3 inches thin, which ain’t bad for a compact system with a disc drive.

via SlashGear

Google’s Chrome OS won’t be officially launched until later this year, but the netbook-centric operating system is open source. And that means that anybody can download the code, tinker with it, and put out a pre-release build that you can install and run. And that’s exactly what Hexxeh has done… repeatedly. The latest Hexxeh build of Chromium OS (the pre-release, open source version of Chrome), includes a nice surprise for anyone looking to squeeze a little HD video playback out of their mini-laptop: support for the NVIDIA ION chipset.

The NVIDIA ION platform bundles an NVIDIA graphics processor with a low power Intel Atom chip. Right now, there are only a handful of ION-powered netbooks and nettops on the market, but if you happen to have an Eee PC 1201N, Lenovo IdeaPad S12, Samsung N510, or HP Mini 311, it looks like you can install Chromium today and enable HD video playback.

Chrome OS is a light weight, Linux-based operating system designed to bridge the gap between desktop and local applications. Or rather, demolish that gap. Most of the applications Google expects you to run using Chrome OS are based in the cloud rather than on your computer. The OS is basically a glorified web browser with media playback capabilities and a few other tricks includign caching for accessing some data while offline.

via Engadget

NVIDIA has yet to officially unveil its ION 2 platform. But based on a series of leaks, announcements, and the fact that the Acer Aspire One 532g with next-generation NVIDIA ION made a surprise appearance at Mobile World Congress in Spain last week, here’s what we know: ION 2 is basically a GeForce GT218 that can be paired with an Intel Atomor other CPU to offer higher performance graphics.

It doesn’t matter if the CPU has integrated graphics, like the Atom N450 with GMA 3150 graphics, because ION 2 uses NVIDIA’s Optimus technology to automatically switch between integrated and dedicated graphics depending on the tasks you’re performing. In other words, if you’re playing a game or watching a high definition video, ION 2 kicks in. If you’re surfing the web and battery life is more important than graphics performance, you’ll rely on the integrated graphics.

But how does the next-generation ION platform stack up against the first generation ION chipset available in a handful of netbooks and nettops today? And how does it fare against the GMA 3150 graphics that come standard with most netbooks?

It’s a bit early to make any definitive judgments. But the folks at Netbook News managed to grab some time with the Acer Aspire One 532g with ION 2 graphics and they ran the 3DMark03 benchmark. The verdict? It scored a respectable, if not spectacular 3049. The Samsung n150, by comparison, scored just 704 points. Higher scores are better. They tell me that they used the same test on a Samsung N510 with first-generation ION graphics and it notched a score of 3513.

Again, these scores may be due to a variety of features, and not just the ION chipset. But if you were holding out hope that ION 2 was going to be significantly faster than the first generation, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The Acer netbook actually got a lower score than the Samsung N510.

But while bleeding edge games might give the Aspire One 532g some trouble, the mini-laptop should have more than enough graphical prowess to handle 1080p HD video playback and some 3D gaming. The exciting thing about ION 2 isn’t that it’s faster than ION 1. It’s the fact that it exists at all. When Intel decided to combine the GPU and CPU into a single chip, NVIDIA could have just decided to drop its ball and go home. Instead, the company figured out a way to bring discrete, switchable graphics to low end mini-laptops.

We should have more details soon, when NVIDIA is ready to make an official announcement. And I’m going to withhold final judgment until I’ve had a chance to test an ION 2 system or two myself… or at least until I’ve seen test results for a few more systems.

You can check out the benchmarking video, courtesy of Netbook News, after the break.

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