NVIDIA ION powered Netbooks to be available by June

The NVIDIA ION platform Netbooks to debut at Computex Taipei 2009

Computex 2009 which will be held in Taipei in June has become the largest computer exhibition in Asia and the second largest in the world, next to CeBIT in Germany. It attracts observers, analysts, and journalists from the computer & IT industries from all over the world to discover and report the latest technological developments and trends.

Computex will set the stage for NVIDIA to display its ION platform for Netbooks. The NVIDIA ION platform would enable the users to play rich media and popular games in high definition on their Netbook. This was earlier restricted to higher priced laptops but users can now experience the premium performance on their low cost Netbooks.

The ION platform is a combination of the GeForce 9400 GPU and the Intel Atom processor which delivers up to ten times the graphics performance of the normal Intel integrated graphics, plays full-spec 1080p HD video, supports Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows 7, and can run popular PC games. Moreover, it takes almost half the space of the normal Intel Atom based chipset and has minimal effect on battery life.

Ion is already being used in Nettops like the Acer AspireRevo but is yet to be used in Netbooks, where battery life and size constraints prevent these systems from using dedicated graphics. So, this platform would serve the right purpose for the casual gamer who wants portability and a decent amount of gaming and video performance.

Some of the key benefits of the NVIDIA ION platform are:

1. Premium DirectX 10 graphics

2. Full 1080p HD video

3. True Fidelity 7.1 audio

4. NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology to accelerate applications, performance increases by upto 10X, better video encoding.

Netbooks featuring this technology should be available by June which would further stir things up in this segment and push sales.