Today I saw Intel announced their numbers and it wasn't pretty - but it's not the end of the world. People are speculating that Intel's announcement is a leading indicator of what's to come throughout the industry. I'm not so sure about that, but I am absolutely convinced that Intel is running hard, getting lean, and they have some amazing technology under the hood.
The question is, should Intel be able to dictate where their technology is sold and how it's implemented in order to maintain their revenues and margins? I mean if someone buys a chip from company A shouldn't they be able to install it on company B's motherboard and use company C's hard drive, and so forth? You'd think.
This little device that I hold in my hands is pretty nifty. It's Nvidia's new ION platform - a tiny PC featuring a new Intel processor and an Nvidia GPU. It's a wee little package, a PC that's capable of gaming among other things. Through Visual Computing you can get this baby to run some pretty intense applications and overall it's pretty amazing how well it works. Oh yes, I can play Call of Duty 4 on it fluidly using my new HP 25.5" display via HDMI.
Nvidia sent this to me awhile ago and I've been testing pretty much everything on it. The system is smaller than a standard CD Rom, and the motherboard consists of a small package which could be installed virtually anywhere.
The question is, should Intel be able to dictate where their technology is sold and how it's implemented in order to maintain their revenues and margins? I mean if someone buys a chip from company A shouldn't they be able to install it on company B's motherboard and use company C's hard drive, and so forth? You'd think.
This little device that I hold in my hands is pretty nifty. It's Nvidia's new ION platform - a tiny PC featuring a new Intel processor and an Nvidia GPU. It's a wee little package, a PC that's capable of gaming among other things. Through Visual Computing you can get this baby to run some pretty intense applications and overall it's pretty amazing how well it works. Oh yes, I can play Call of Duty 4 on it fluidly using my new HP 25.5" display via HDMI.
Nvidia sent this to me awhile ago and I've been testing pretty much everything on it. The system is smaller than a standard CD Rom, and the motherboard consists of a small package which could be installed virtually anywhere.
I'm thinking of using this thing in my 64 Impala SS resto-mod as the central computer for the vehicle - however it's far more capable than just a car PC.
This, my friends, is an example of where the future of computing may go. The large desktops are bound to change. For those of you who are tired of the big, power hungry, loud boxes I assure you that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Besides our Firebird system which has been received with open arms from pretty much everyone we've shown it to, there will be others who follow our lead.
Now here's the thing I find most interesting about the Nvidia ION platform. It uses a processor that Intel probably never intended to go into such a solution. It uses the Intel's ultra low cost ATOM processor. Combine that with the Nvidia GPU and Visual Computing, and you can probably see why Intel may have an issue if this thing ever sees the light of day.
My guess is no one at Intel anticipated that an insanely low cost ATOM processor would ever be used in a platform outside of a low cost netbook in a corner of India or Brazil. They probably assumed that the ATOM wouldn't eat into their high margin high revenue generating business.
Could it though?
Of course I'm only speculating, but I'd be very surprised if Intel doesn't have something to say about this platform -- or maybe they'll embrace it and help advance such computing.
Yes, this really makes things interesting for 2009. I'm not sure we want to go down this road, but if we do - it should make for a very interesting outcome.
What do you guys think? Do you find this platform interesting? How much would a PC this small - and somewhat expansion limited - have to cost in order for you to buy it?
10 blogger comments:
First of all, how do i get one? i really want to test is and do a review for my website.
Second i do believe intel saw this Atom eating into their profit but they have no chance, after all they are getting ready to fight ARM and in the end they will sell mostly "atom" maybe the market moved to quickly to embrace Atom.
Happy New Year and keep the good posts.
Metro aka Felipe
Hey Rahul,
Not sure if you know this, but VIA Artigo is also something very similar to the nVidia ION. Based on your description, the ION is fully asembled unlike the Artigo Pico which you (ie, the end client has to put together). I currently use the Artigo to run a NAS (www.freenas.org) and I'll have to agree with you that the future of computing might head over in that direction.
Now, with that being said and you giving us a little glipse of what the ION capability, the real question that comes to mind is if this new product has the ability to transform or evolve itself into a fully fledged server running VMWare ESX software to create Virtual Machines to help reduce the cost of operating a data center. Any thoughts ?? If so do reply back to me. (I have sent you an email via Facebook).
Thanks
That's really cool, I like it. Assuming it did everything and had a hard drive I would probably pay around net book pricing?
I imagine Intel may try to strong arm people from running this program. It looks like it could hurt their low voltage notebook chips, no?
This is pretty much what Nvidia has been talking about for a while: Good enough CPU. The main difference between this and Via's solution is Nvidia DX implementation and CUDA. Could you get the same performance per watt or per dollar with VIA? I doubt that? Could you accelerate transcoding with VIA? I don't think so. To me, Intel suddenly found itself a child that it does not like. However, it seems like this opens up an opportunity for companies like AMD and Nvidia who can operate in a different margin.
It needs to cost less than $600(CAD). That puts it into a competitive space with the PS3, while remaining a more capable machine.
I wrote about that on your 328KPH forums ages ago about a PC competitor to the console, and what you've got in your hands is it. Just put a shortcut to Steam on the desktop and call it a day.
Provide a matching (stackable) external DVD or Blu-Ray and go after the media space too.
Mike has it correct. This thing will have to compete with consoles so it should be priced in that ballpark. As someone else stated, netbook pricing would be about right.
Now if you could use your considerable influence to get MS to make an XBoxOS to put on it instead of Windows, you'd be in the house.
However, it IS butt ugly.
Wow that is really interesting.
this is precisely where the future of client computing needs to migrate -- basically, Apple's mac-mini on steroids, not that most folk need steroids, but the orig. mini was certainly underpwr'd.
nevertheless, having been embedded in this industry for almost a decade, my priceless journey from Bombay to Austin - is one w/ insight into the depths of global compute necessity, i.e., most users require good-enough computing, which this type of machine is perfectly capable of providing.
the end-user ultimately doesn't give a rat's arse where his/her performance is delivered from, & so the right balance of CPU, GPU (w/ hybrid) & OS - should def'ly provide the adequate flops-per-$-per-watt-per-cubicCm necessary to *dominate* the nxt decade of client-computing !
Will this be able to boot ESXi off of a USB stick? That would be great since you then could connect to external disk via iSCSI. I would pitch any internal disk then.
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