Nvidia's Ion: Lending Atom Some Wings

[matthieu lamelot]

We got our hands on an early reference Ion platform, based on Nvidia's GeForce 9400 platform and Intel's Atom, and put it up against an Intel D945GCLF. Eager to see which one offered the best experience, we benchmarked Nvidia's latest.

Nvidia's Ion: Lending Atom Some Wings : Read more

 

[rootheday]

Let's be clear - the Ion reference platform is for a nettop - not a netbook. Its based on the dual core Atom 330. I doubt very much that Ion with a single code Atom 230 or N270 would have enough horsepower to do the BD decryption required for BD playback.

 

[matthieu lamelot]

Please, let me be clear : the platform reviewed was equipped with an Atom 230, not a 330, as is perfectly obvious from the pictures (one single die on the CPU package).
And, yes, it's powerful enough (thanks to the 9400M) to smoothly playback a BD like Casino Royale (including the HDCP decryption). CPU utilization rose to around 67 % during that test.
And even though the Ion ref platform is kind of a nettop (and we tested it with that in mind, comparing it to Intel's nettop platform), it could also fit in a netbook since 9400M TDP is very close to that of Intel 945GSE chipset that is found in most netbooks today : 12 W compared to 9,3 W. Nvidia and its partners would just need to drop 9400M's frequency a bit.

 

[randomizer]

Matthieu, I'm not sure who makes the onboard sound, but if it's Realtek you need to have Stereo Mix enabled for CoD 4 to run. Also, I found that I couldn't start CoD4 (with what appears to be the same error even though I can't really understand it) without plugging in speakers. Yes, speakers. Although any output device might have sufficed.

 

[mitch074]

Realtek codecs are quite common (thus I concur with randomizer); some are quite advanced in that they do automatic detection of what kind of hardware is connected to what pin (through best guess from device impedance, considering the low dB noise those codecs output they are some precise piece of ingineering), allowing autodetection of the sound setup (they will detect if you replace a microphone with a set of speakers, and switch configuration from stereo+microphone to 4.0 audio, for example; that requires driver support though).
If CoD4 requires sound (some games are funny this way) and no hardware is plugged in, then the sound card may report a status CoD4 wasn't expecting, and refuse to run.

 

[randomizer]

Well you'd think that they would have patched the game so that it doesn't have problems with needing Stereo Mix and output devices by now. What if my speakers are dead? That's just poor...

 

[amnotanoobie]

I immediately looked at the benchmark images, instead of reading the accompanying text around it, and I thought "WTH is AMD (green bar) doing on the nVidia ION platform." I thought I was linked to another page of another review.

 

[Guest]

hei man pls ...for now nvidia platform has some advantages but with DX11 you will not need gpu any more ...so for now it's ok for future this platform will be nothing but dust

 

[nukemaster]

You may not need a GPU, but a GPU is still far faster then the cpu at running games.

Good review its about time Atom got a little help.

 

[liemfukliang]

I wont buy atom until it can run PCMark Vantage, 3DMark Vantage. I don't mean it has to be high score, I just one it is finish the test and not error.

 

[Tekkamanraiden]

I'd like to be able to buy one of those little reference systems. It would make a nice little HTPC.

 

[gwolfman]

[citation][nom]amnotanoobie[/nom]I immediately looked at the benchmark images, instead of reading the accompanying text around it, and I thought "WTH is AMD (green bar) doing on the nVidia ION platform." I thought I was linked to another page of another review.[/citation]
LOL, I caught that too. "AMD green" == nVidia Ion. lol too funny

 

[gwolfman]

ConclusIon

Nice touch, :thumbsup:

 

[PrangeWay]

Quick question on audio playback during BR playback, 7.1 Dolby/DTS HD?

 

[scJohn]

Looking at the Setup page, it was not clear what kind of drive you used for the BR playback. Was it an internal or external drive?

 

[trevorvdw]

Atom with Wings .. where do they keep those at the grocery store?

 

[bounty]

330, BR/DVD burner, large HDD and a good tuner would be sweet. And 100Mb? come on, I want a server/htpc

 

[bounty]

Actually make that dual GIG nic's. Or at least 100 and 1GB so I can do some content filtering too.

 

[TheEvolution]

OK,
But the box looks ugly.....

 

[danimal_the_animal]

other sites report WAAAAY better results, but they seem to have gotten the dual core atom motherboards....also i heard you can over clock the atom to 1.9ghz sweet for a dual core!
I want one of these to replace my mythTV box in the front room....just waiting for mythtv ver. 0.22 and VDPAU to come out.

right now i have a asus pn5-em using the onboard video to playback all HDTV content as well ans blueray rips....was using an e2180 clocked at 2.66ghz untill i ran into a problem with stargate and also step into liquid where the audio was out of sync...actually the videocard could not keep up....i had to give my mythbox a swift kick in the ass with a q6600 running at stock speed....now everything runs perfect....but heck isnt the q6600 a 95watt CPU or is it rated higher...either way i could CERTAINLY use this ION but in a dual core version....with VDPAU all video would be taken care of by the videocard and a dual core atom would make perfect sense for what i am doing!

c'mon Nvidia...RELEASE this little box! i really need it for a mythTV front end...

 

[Guest]

FYI, the provided Ion sample's formfactor is NOT the Pico-ITX!

It is instead the updated formfactor, the Pico-ITXe. The revision includes the SUMIT connections that are the mystery connections. http://www.samtec.com/search/sumit.aspx

 

[danimal_the_animal]

Mini

isnt this the same sample everyone else got to test??? just that Tomshardware happend to get one with a single core rather than the dual core 330 that everyone else was getting?

I wonder if they sent Toms hardware a single core sample just to rule out the need for a dual core....since everyone else got that version.

what would be cool is if you could stack two boards together making it a quad or even more (scalable power) although i know the board probably only supports a single CPU....a board with two dual core CPU's on it sounds reasonable to me though!!!

nice small quiet and efficient server.

does the Atom have VM support?

 

[roberotto]

Why be surprised about the serial port on the intel board? There is so much application for this aged port that nobody plan move to usb, and there's no gain for this. The parallel port is a blessing. For those who disagreed, the current notebook that I am writing has an proprietary adapter with two serial ports, two parallels (male + female), and has some others special ports. The side part is that it is relatively new (T7250/Centrino Duo/2gb ddr2), not a museum peace at all.
The first time that I see this Intel platform, the only two things that comes in mind was industrial/house automation and thin clients.No need for six audio ports or so many sata connection in this usage. Nothing about games or hd video playback. One of the most used industrial touch panel runs on a Windows CE environment. I mind with this, we can improve the operator GUI and program in a more friendly ambient.
But the nVidia counterpart is a awesome platform, but don't fits industrial port needs. And I agreed: it's perfect for the new Mac Mini.

 

[cletus_slackjawd]

Good article, I should read again before posting but I won't.
I'm not really sure what the intended market is for these. They are cool beans because small is cute and low power is always good but no mass storage in this form factor so rule out HTPC, still too weak for gaming. I suppose they would make for neat little machines for kiddos, or tinkerers like the enthusiast community here. Someone is going to overclock 'em with water cooling to attempt to run crysis! But seriously, what's the cost on these? I just built an MSI Wind desktop for a coworker who doesn't need to game, it's pretty awesome. I think adding graphics horsepower in this category is like a DVD player w/built in coffee maker. Just doesn't make much sense. Convince me otherwise. Oh, again good article seriously, and I'm glad Nvidia is competing in this segment with Intel. Performance and value will improve now.

 

[Uncle Meat]

"Despite its proprietary physical format, this port is surely a PCI Express."

It is surely not. The controllers for everything on the daughterboard are in the chipset.