Since Ion started to gain traction, we aren't surprised to hear that ION2 is shaping up nicely. Given the license dispute with Intel, we weren't surprised to hear from our sources that nVidia will support Atom and Core 2 architecture, e.g. FSB-based processors.
Core i3 and i5 remain out of hand, but our sources close to the company claim that there aren't many issues around supporting AMD architecture instead. "We are a founding member of HyperTransport consortium, we were the first company to market with HyperTransport; remember that nForce 1 used HyperTransport between IGP and MCP on Xbox console in 2001, two years before AMD shipped their first HT-enabled CPU".
SATA 3.0 with its 6Gbps [750MB/s] speed looks a mandatory part for chipsets in 2010 and there is a question who will be the first out with SATA 3.0 support, AMD [SB800 series] or nVidia. Hardware-wise, journalists from Fudzilla discovered that ION2 will feature 32 shaders, double than the current hardware. ION of today is little more than a rebranded GeForce 8200, if anyone remembers that chipset [first chipset to lose nForce branding] - we're talking about a two and half year old design here.
According to information from the nVidia's official page for mobile GeForce chips, 32 GT200-class shaders pit this part as "GeForce G220M" or "GeForce GT220", above GeForce G210M [16 shaders, 64-bit memory controller, 12.8 GB/s] and below GeForce GT230M [48 shaders, 128-bit memory controller, 25.6 GB/s]. Given the integrated nature of the memory controller, you should expect following characteristics:
- 32 Shaders
- DirectX 10.1 Compliant
- Around 600 MHz GPU clock
- Around 1200 MHz Shader clock
- 128-bit memory interface
- DDR2-800, DDR2-1066, DDR3-1066, DDR3-1333
- 12.8 - 21.3 GB/s memory bandwidthAround 20W TDP
You can expect this part coming at the end of 2009, in time for holiday shopping season.
