NVIDIA's Ion Platform: Performance Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 3, 2009 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Keeping Atom in Perspective
I ran one last benchmark on Ion: SYSMark 2007.
I chose SYSMark 2007 instead of going back to an older benchmark for one reason in particular: people seem to be putting too much faith in what Atom can do. These results here are useful for two things: 1) to showcase the performance of NVIDIA’s Ion platform vs. a standard Atom + 945G, and 2) to remind everyone what sort of performance Atom provides today.
The desktop CPU in the chart above is an Intel Celeorn 430. It is a 65nm single-core Conroe based processor with 1MB of L2 cache running at 1.80GHz. This is a horribly crippled version of the Core 2 processor we all fell in love with over two years ago. A single-core Atom, what’s found in all shipping Atom notebooks/netbooks, is less than half the speed of this processor running a modern day workload.
This isn’t a slight against Atom. Intel’s Atom is an excellent processor. It’s small, extremely power efficient, cool and well architected. But it delivers the performance of a lower-end mainstream notebook from over four years ago. Keep that in mind people, especially before you go out and spend $600 or $700 on a PC based on Atom.
Intel also sees netbooks as $299 - $349 machines. At those price points, Atom delivers good enough performance. But start approaching $1000 and it starts becoming silly very fast. Spend $200 - $300 on a CPU and you’ll easily have 4 - 5x the performance of an Atom in modern tasks.
Atom’s low power consumption gives it the ability to cheaply fit into small form factors. You pay a small premium for that advantage, but let’s not forget that Atom was never designed to be a notebook/desktop replacement. And Ion doesn’t change that either.
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sprockkets - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Anand reported the GN40 will be mobile only and have no SATA on it. Not the same markets.SirKronan - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
I have a car that has a decent-sized LCD screen built into the front of the dashboard (review camera, climate controls, etc.) From the moment I heard about Ion I got excited. I want to build one of those things into my car. I sure hope they are released with good pricing before the summer's over, because that's what my summer project will be. Kits online abound that add an external video input into my car's LCD. With one of those kits, I want to integrate the small Ion PC into my dashboard. I will also connect bluetooth and wireless N to it. I will integrate a USB port right into the dash as well. Using a solid state disk, I'll be able to consume a minimum amount of power, but it will be connected to everything. I'll have music on it, when we park in our driveway we can wirelessly sync content from our home media server, use a bluetooth mouse on the the dashboard, a bluetooth keyboard when we're at a random hotspot to surf the web. I'm so stoked for this. It will be noticeably faster than the 945 in all tasks, and playback video flawlessly. We won't have to pack around the laptop in the car to play videos for my son anymore. And, the project won't cost an arm and a leg ... hopefully.Thanks, Anand. Good review.
Casper42 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
And with the 3D Acceleration, you could use a mapping software that does true 3D rendering as opposed to 2D sprites.SirKronan - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
Absolutely. I plan on installing a USB based GPS as well. Will be a lot bigger screen than our current Garmin.chucky2 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
I was thinking along the same lines: This will be great for the Car PC crowd that wants video in their ride.Chuck
Bull Dog - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
I thought black was ok, not pretty but ok.White on the other hand is purely hideous.
shmina - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
The GeForce 9400M in the MacBook is spec'd at 16SP, with a core running at 450MHz with a 1.1GHz shader clock.The specs you stated are for the desktop GeForce 9400 that has a 30W TDP vs. the 15W for mobile.
deputc26 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Wait 20W at idle???? My Laptop with T8100, 8600m GT and 1440x900 screen, 802.11n and bluetooth(the huge power hog) draws only 11w at idle. How is this low power??7Enigma - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
I'm interested in the explaination here as well...SilentSin - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
I noticed this too. Was powerplay not fully implemented in this thing? The Atom 330 is spec'd for 8W TDP vs. 2.5W for the 230 used in the Eee Box so the difference in power usage here seems to reflect that exact bump of about 5.5W in the CPU. So that means those power consumption figures point to the NV chipset using just as much power as the dinosaur 130nm 945G chip. What gives? I know there are a metric crapton of features added by using the NV chipset, but I would still expect an overall reduction. Remember that most reviews of the Atom platform seemed to blame the 945G for the "high" power usage figures. I would have hoped a more focused mobile-oriented chipset would have done better. Maybe the problem is in the demo box? It looks as if they are using dual phase power distribution where they could probably get away with single phase for something like this, maybe that is the culprit.