All I want is a tiny nettop that can do 1080p. It looks like only Ion can do that now. I will definitely wait for Pineview if it can do that too.

I want better graphics, I want the ability to have access to new technology or old technology in new forms. If ION can make up for the shortcomings of my wife's dell mini 9, then I would like to have one.

I want the ability to have a better screen resolution than 1280x600. I want the small form factor for travel. Between 6 and 10 inches seems about right. I want to have integrated GPS, ability to play BluRay quality video, and great wifi access. If it can play a nice 3d game or two, that would be icing. Intel is dropping the ball here, and most of that dropped ball is nothing more than Intel preventing the full use of it's Atom processor by vendors.

Not that Intel is anti-competitive or a stereotypical evil corporation or anything like that...

"The document compares the Atom’s current TDP of 8 W against Ion’s 15.5 W."
is intel STUPID!!!! how are they going to compare nvidia's chip set against the atom CPU....try comparing chip set to chip set....duh...

the atom will be 8 watts no matter what!!!

the atom plus Intel's chip set draws 33-35 watts

the Ion chip set of 15.5 plus the atom's 8 watts = 23.5

bosjee,

Can you please explain why you need 1080p on tiny nettop? My calculation shows that if you screen is 10" the 1080p will result in about 216dpi. That is great if you planning to do image processing, but it is really over-kill for video watching. Good video quality is achieved at 72dpi and the excellent would be at 150dpi. Please, I am looking for understanding, not to disrespect you. May be I am missing something here?

Sounds like Intel is worried, they should be. Before Intel became a dominant chipset maker, they would have welcomed and co-marketed the Ion. Anything that makes their CPUs look better used to be a benefit, now it's all about how much of the all the markets they can control.

I don't know where Intel is getting the 8W number (perhaps the Poulsbo chipset), but it's certainly not the almost universally used 945GC/GSE. See the comparison of Intel's reference Atom board to Nvidia's Ion from which the below quote is taken.

For output to an HDTV. The Ion would form the basis of an excellent HTPC.

No market for it? I'm thinking a new Mac Mini or maybe on AppleTV? Intel does realize the Apple switched to Nvidia chipsets for the macbooks right?

Sorry, that was not my question to bojee. I understand the ION platform and I think Intel is shooting themselves in foot by fighting the Nvidia.
I agree that ION could be cool HTPC, but tiny nettop is useful on you kitchen top and excellent video quality could be achieve at 720p or less. There is issue if you have a 1080p source and you want to transcode it on the fly, but nettops was never attended for that.

Can't wait for nvidia to start making it's own processors. It would be great; more innovation and lower prices (not to mention a big F.U. to Intel). BTW i am not and amd, nvidia, ati, Apple, Microsoft etc etc fanboy, so don't start...

I am however a competition/innovation fanboy so go ahead and flame away at that.

they may as well join forces.....

nvidia will potentially increase their atom sales anyhow so i don't see Intel loosing money there.

BUT if Intel refuses to join forces....nvidia will most likely join with via.....then Intel will have lots of trouble selling their chip sets AND the CPU because folks will choose nvidia over Intel EVERY TIME!


you give the Intel the chance to more profit and they say "ALL OR NOTHING!"

well i guess they will get nothing.

with an efficient little PC like this Intel will have lots trouble selling its socket 775 and I7 cpu's cause the only people who will be buying it are enthusiasts, gamers, and video editors.

The average Joe just does basic computing!

Intel should just end this and buy Nvidia. It would be a sad day, but god get over this junk!

still think intel has a point, they're telling OEM's to wait for pineview platform wherein it integrates a memory controller, IGP, and could be using a 32nm process.

Um you should know sal that nettop's also include the mini-pcs like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6883220004

That is a nettop. What you are thinking of is called a netbook, two different things that run on a similar platform...So I guess you did miss something, it's ok happens to the best of us.

Although 1080p on a 8" screen will be useless, I suppose just being able to play the movie is a good thing by itself. I've always hated converting movies to lower res, just so I can watch it on my smaller devices. If ION allows me to skip the converting and use the same files I use on my desktop, then I suppose it's worth it.

I don't see what the fuss is about. Intel should just sell the atom chips to nvidia and let them sort out the ion netbooks etc. That way they're making all the profit from their own solution (which according to them is better) and they'd make money from nvidia even if ion flops.

the problem is that intel wants to sell their chipsets WITH the cpu....they dont want nvidia cutting into their chipset profit.

intel cannot see the light that by joining forces with nvidia they can actually make more money than they are currently making now, because of more interested parties.

nvidia did a good job showing the Ion off....just look at the results....EVERYONE wants one including ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop replying to SAL-e, he was talking about a ntebook, where as the prvious commenter was referring to a nettop.

And to SAL-e maybe I should calrify this further the guy "Bjosee" or w/e probably wants to pair up a nettop system b/c of it's extremly small form factor w/ a 42" Lcd or Plasma or w/e doesn't really matter.

just another example fo corperate greed gone wrong ... jeezus christ , where are the lawyers screaming anti-trust ???? if this were MS they would avhe been up thier butts about this kind of thing like last year LOL

Holy crap, I'm switching to AMD if Intel's going to be a douchebag like this from here on out...

Are you one of the guys who like monopoly to a market segment ? This is the reason why i`m an AMD fan and not Intel, even thow intel holds the crown in high end computing, the prices of CPUs are hold low because the existance of AMD and other competitors and all those Intel fans should thank that AMD exists ... now Intel goes for Nvidia when they offer something better. I will never pay for something produced by Intel, i don`t wanna be a part of that greed. Take away AMD and nvidia from computing and you`ll end up with a high priced monopoly from Intel and till now they suck hard on graphics part. Guess it`s gone to their heads that hey can do anything since core 2 duo.

Obviously, I'm not Bjosee, but I did answer your question, you just missed it (or refused to see it). One reason is for output to an HDTV. A secondary reason (as another poster mentioned) is to be able to use the same source on a desktop and a nettop/netbook/htpc as on a desktop/laptop, without transcoding. Transcoding audio is not a big deal since it can be done significantly faster than real-time. Transcoding non-scalable video (I don't know of any current scalable video formats) is time consuming, significantly slower than real-time on even the newest/fastest machines under $10,000. That's a great reason to want to be able to play HD video on a Nettop or netbook, even if you don't have a screen that handle 1080p.

have any of you guys seen the nvidia ion in action playing 1080p blueray videos with no problems?

this would make a GREAT HTPC! especially if they made the box a little bigger to accept 3.5 inch harddrive's

i have a full blown PC running mythtv (wish i had this little ion though) LOADED with DVD movies ripped using handbrake and blue ray movies ripped using ripbot264. i have a 2tb drive and believe me...TONS of space for movies.....DVD rips end up 1-1.5gb in size and blueray movies 5-10gb.....if animated or computer animated ~3gb with NO quality loss.

but my setup was EXPENSIVE!!!! this little nettop could get people in the game for probably 300 bucks or less.... i,m assuming maybe 150 for the ion board with atom cpu (or some other cpu)over 200 if using a via cpu....plus HD ect.

heck the ion that was reviewed on toms hardware can fit a 500 gig laptop sata drive....plus its around that time again when they up the size of 2.5 inch harddrives.

on another note what about a netbook running the ion chipset with a HDMI out connector? take to a friends house to watch movies???

or when you come home hook it up to your LCD tv and attach wireless keyboard and mouse and use it as a PC?

lots of options here!!!

just so that you guys know.....

my intel quad core q6600 2.4 ghz cpu takes from 8-12 hours to rip a blueray movie (no quality loss)

overclocked to 3.0 ghz it takes 6-10......hard to imagine that a 8 core 3.0 (that is if i could actually afford one would cut my best time by only half.....

transcoding 1080p content requires a quadcore minimum.....

if you want 1080P get a normal laptop. adding 1080P would defeat the purpose of why netbook's exist. and that is because there cheap laptops. besides there would be no purpose if they added 1080p if you couldn't take advantage of it on the screen itself.

That doesn't make sense; your saying adding a feature to netbook makes it no longer a netbook? With almost everything the same except the chipset it magically becomes more then a netbook and you should just buy a laptop.

hmm do you work for Intel?

the point has been made more than once....

still some folks cant afford a 1200 laptop with a 1080p lcd......but if the ion takes off.....you can be that the next net book will have a 720p LCD with HDMI out......

you can try to convince people till you are blue in the face, but they are still going to do what they feel like in the end.

Intel sees they made a big mistake licensing their FSB tech and whatnot to Nvidia back when Nvidia first got into the chipset business. Intel didn't see any threat, and to be honest, the first couple generations of NForce didn't really pose much of a threat (not even to VIA or SIS). However, once Nvidia started tying their chipsets to their graphics cards (onboard GPUs, SLI, etc...), Intel started feeling the heat.

Seriously, the NForce 4, 5, and 6 series were top of the line, and people were willing to go to Nvidia for the enhanced graphics performance in high-end games. The fact that Intel licensed crossfire from ATI, which at the time was a weak performer (thanks in part to Intels lack of PCIe bandwidth) didn't help much.

Now, Intel has licensed CrossFire and SLI for their x58, and are trying to prevent Nvidia from making Core i7 chipsets. Trying to hurt Nvidia in the Ion market is just an extension of that tactic. Intel is just a greedy, monopolistic corporation, and like any such corporation, they will only accept success if it comes after driving all their competitors into the ground.

I have to agree with what he's saying; that a netbook or umpc with a screen resolution of max 1024x600 can't even playback 720P video (unless rescaled).
And it makes little to no sense to use a mini notebook to view HD video of the 1080 P or i standard.
Computers like the EeeBox, or Ion platform could make up for great HDTV pc's!


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As far as Via VS the Atom, I still believe to this date, that the Atom is slightly better (partly due to it's effective HT and 45nm process).
I hope via will be able to design their chips on a smaller die too. Current 65nm processes are a little outdated.

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Then again, why would you want to watch the few 1080 HD video's that are available on:
1- a device that has no blueray player
2- a device that costs as much as a blueray player
3- a device that generally has SD card as storage device (although later netbooks are equipped with HD's around 80GB)
4- a device where batterylife matters, and if you would be able to decode 1080 video it will most likely not last 1 full movie on the battery
5- I understand you get the point of the screen resolution. If you plan on watching HD movies on your device, why not buy a laptop that CAN decode it, and where you DO have enough pixels on the screen to display it? There are plenty of options out there. You can't expect a mininotebook to have all day battery life, while having enough horsepower to decode 1080 video! This might only become possible when better power saving technology become available, and when the whole mobo chipset including GPU and CPU will be built on a 32nm or sub 32nm process.

I personally think the audience that wants to view 1080 video on a netbook is quite small, though the audience looking for a great HD capable system that is both small, and stylish is large!

I guess viewing 1080 video on a netbook capable doing so, could potentially double or triple the price compared to current models on the market.

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I think Intel sees it can make more profit by selling their old chipsets, allowing their old 65-90nm fabs to still produce,before they need to be redesigned.

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Or Nvidia + Via!

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Agree fully!
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a $500 laptop can do 720p easily, AND has a 1280x800 screen.
there are $600 laptops with 1440x900 screen resolutions out there, that give you some benefit in watching 1080 video over 720 (which would be the limit on a 1280x800 screen); perhaps a better buy for viewing HDTV then a mini notebook which costs nearly as much?

Sorry for missing out on the conversations here. Many of the users already answer the question of why one would need a nettop to play 1080p.

For a nettop with 1080p:
1. It can be hook up to a 1080p tv and stream the 1080p video contends.
2. Good as a HTPC.
Currently, I have Mythtv setup using a ralatively expensive desktop. It can do everything I throw at it but the draw backs are the energy cost and noise. An Ion plantform would be a good Mythtv frontend and backend if it can accept a tuner card.

For a netbook with 1080p, the need for this is that I don't need to transcode the 1080p source in order to view it.

Currently my notebook is just not powerful enough to stream 1080p/i sources.