Custom-designed for low power and small mobile form factors, the chip has been taken up by almost everyone. The chip giant then recently launched the second-generation Atom, complete with integrated graphics and, consequently, lower platform-wide power-draw.
With Intel's focus on making Atom cheap and cheerful, the multimedia capabilities were largely neglected - a situation that remains true today. Graphics experts NVIDIA saw an opportunity and released its ION platform to complement Atom and provide basic 3D gaming as well as broader, feature-rich 2D functionality.
Now with second-gen Atom having integrated graphics, NVIDIA's job of marketing a discrete GPU - most likely called ION 2 - to its partners will become a little more difficult. The company will claim that netbook-orientated Atom still has fundamental problems in handing high-definition video files and Flash, so the need for better 'graphics' is indisputable for most folk.
Intel agrees that having multimedia capabilities on netbooks can be important for some, but rubbishes NVIDIA's ION as overkill. Intel Netbook Marketing Manager Anil Nanduri had this to say to Laptop Magazine.
What’s your take on Nvidia Ion so far?
"To run multimedia you don’t need a huge graphics chip. And that’s what those third-party decoder solutions will show in the marketplace. There are much more innovative ways to get multimedia capabilities that will continue to provide lower power and longer battery life. In terms of usages, netbooks are not meant for gaming. You can run Internet games fine today with the existing solutions. We believe (Ion) adds unnecessary additional cost and the other trade-offs make it less desirable. Our customers have the option to design netbooks how they want to but ultimately the market is going to decide".
What Nanduri is referring to is Intel's preferred third-party decoder, Broadcom's Crystal HD, presumably a lower-cost solution than NVIDIA's ION 2. We reckon that netbooks, as most see them, should have battery-life as their primary criterion, with gaming relegated some way down the list. Taking this view, we have some sympathy for Nanduri's stance, and think that NVIDIA will need to really aggressively price ION 2 if it's to succeed.
