NVIDIA's Ion Platform: Performance Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 3, 2009 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Gaming Performance: The Other Advantage
The GeForce 9400M that is spec’d for NVIDIA’s Ion platform is the same 9400M used in full sized notebooks. It’s a 16 SP core running at 550MHz with a 1.4GHz shader clock. While you can’t game on a standard Atom system, it is possible to do so on an Ion machine.
Gaming performance is no contest. This is truly the advantage of Ion. At the lowest possible quality settings in World of Warcraft the Atom/945G platform delivered an average of 7 frames per second in our test. Hardly playable.
Ion managed a smooth 35 fps. While it’s not fast enough where you can go crazy with the detail settings, it is possible to get your WoW fix on an Ion based netbook while it isn’t on a standard netbook configuration. Note that simply moving to a low end Celeron improves performance considerably. Move to a Celeron and use two channels of DDR2 memory and you get another performance boost.
Fallout 3 is an even more clear-cut victory. We still have to run at the lowest quality settings to even get something playable, but at least it can run. On the 945G based Atom board Fallout 3 wouldn’t even run without crashing.
The Ion platform actually has an advantage here: it's got more memory bandwidth. I have to populate two DDR2 DIMM slots on the Celeron board in order to actually show a performance advantage over Ion.
Under World of Warcraft the Ion was only 5x the speed of Intel’s Atom/945G. Left 4 Dead however proves to be more GPU dependent and runs at nearly 10x the speed on Ion as it does on Intel’s 945G. While I wouldn’t want to play Left 4 Dead on any Atom machine, it’s at least remotely possible on an Ion.
Left 4 Dead is actually slightly faster on Ion than on our Celeron 430 testbed. I suspect this (and the Fallout 3 behavior) is due to the Celeron 430 being a single-core, single threaded processor while the dual core Atom in the Ion can work on four threads at once.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
69 Comments
View All Comments
sikahr - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - link
It'2 not about money.It'2 not about weak INTC's chip combo.
It's about platforms. AMD&Intel have whole platform to sell.
NVidia haven't.
Soon there will be no entry level processors from Intel&AMD without integrated GPU in CPU.
So, to resume it:
Nvidia is out of chipset business very soon.
You can call me nutjob or moron, but that is how things really are.
Look, I don't hate Nvidia, all my 3d video cards till now are Nvidia, but this is reality about future of chipsets.
chrnochime - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
You've just made yourself a fanboy by calling someone a moron.So what if they have 1.3b? Intel has tons more money and they can crush Nvidia anytime they want.
Hrel - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
What the hell is going on with that guy's face in the Casino Royal picture??!! It looks like his face is morphing with male genitalia???yyrkoon - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
"The GeForce 9400M is a far better chipset than Intel’s 945G. It should be, it’s a good four years newer. But I do wonder if we’ve taken things a little too far here. I wonder if Ion actually has too much GPU and not enough CPU? Don’t get me wrong, I like Ion; I’d like to have it over a standard 945G platform. I’m just not sure what I’d do with it."I'd use it on our RE system ( renewable energy; Solar/Wind ), and worry less about how much power I am drawing while watching SD video at night. Also perfect for many other applications such as low res gaming, IRC, Photo editing with CS2/CS3, web browsing, and the list goes on and . . .
Bottom line; Whether you're on grid, or off grid ( RE, or utility power ) you're going to use less power and worry less about either your battery bank going down too far, or paying too much for power for doing most mundane tasks.
Right now, I use a AM2 mini ATX board with nv 6150 graphics, an AM2 1210 underclocked to 1Ghz, and undervolted to .80v, and still use ~75W with a 19" WS LCD. It'll play some modest games well @ 1024x728, it'll run CS3 well enough. However, I suspect an ION system would handle all this just as good or better while cutting another 20-30W power consumption.
Now . . . here is to hoping that "we" will see some good ~100W 80Plus power supplies around the corner. That is, assuming OEMs give us a desktop/barebones options.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
As mentioned, these power numbers don't seem exactly impressive. Assuming the quoted numbers are correct, plenty of laptops can match/beat those. Plus, they already include the power supplies. Assuming your monitor draws around 30W, you could easily use that with a laptop and get 40-45W total at idle, and maybe 60 W at load. Plus, it would probably not be nearly as painful as Atom to run Photoshop on.iwodo - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
Am i the only one who thinks there is something wrong with that Idle Power?You mentioned 1 Atom Core being disabled, is that re enabled during other benchmark?
I cant wait to see how a 40nm Geforce 9400 will do.
Only If Atom is 64Bit Capable. I could see new Mac Mini coming.
Honestly I think Ion is capable of doing 95% of what i do day to day on my computer.
sprockkets - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
The Atom is 64-bit capable and is hyperthreading enabled. Going from a C2D to an Atom is a downgrade for the Mac Mini.But that won't stop Apple from putting a positive spin on that...
Casper42 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
You guys crack me up."We didn’t have an external Blu-ray drive so this was the best method of being able to watch a Blu-ray on the machine"
1) Grab a SATA to eSATA converter that comes with every Gigabyte Mobo you have reviewed in the last 3 years and use that to connect a SATA BluRay Drive (I dont think they even make PATA Blu-Ray) to one of the eSATA ports on the Ion
2) Hook up a power supply from a nearby ATX machine OR use a single drive power supply like the ones that come with the USB to SATA Adapter most good PC Techs keep in their bag (http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimag...">http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimag...
Problem solved!
anandtech02148 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
we're good to go for summer browsing. decent gpu is perfectly match for widescreen web browsing. sounds like a fun hobby to build one of these little toy.UNCjigga - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Any chance AMD will slip you a full-on Neo "Yukon" reference platform for comparison testing?Also, will the Ion chipset support VIA's Nano?