Nvidia: Get Ready for Ion to Rock Low-Priced PCs

Nvidia has been promoting its Ion platform as a way to add graphics juice to Atom-powered PCs and netbooks...and products should start hitting retails soon.

Graphics developer Nvidia has been promoting its Ion graphics platform as a way to add some graphics punch to Atom-powered PCs and netbooks: although Intel’s integrated graphics controller will put pixels in a row and do the basic jobs needed for email and most Web applications, it was never intended for graphics-intensive games or applications. Of course, Nvidia is all about graphics power, and has been promoting its Ion platform as a significant graphics upgrade for Atom-based systems—and Ion has even been certified for use with Windows Vista, something that bare-Atom-powered systems cannot claim.

Now, Nvidia is telling consumers to hold on to their socks: Ion-powered systems should be landing at retailers during the second quarter of 2009—and, if industry rumors are to be believed, the first products may be announced within the next week. Nvidia says Ion-powered systems will be able to handle popular games like Spore,Call of Duty 4, Google Earth, Photoshop, and even the (get ready for it) Lego Batman.

Nvidia says the Ion platform gives visuals on Atom-powered PCs up to 10 times better graphics performance, and also lay the groundwork for supporting 1080p high-definition video, all while keeping low-powered and small-form-factor PCs very affordable for consumers.