Nvidia's new netbook platform aimed at old-school Windows XP

05.08.2009
Windows 7 , but Nvidia Inc. is bucking the trend, releasing a second member of its ION graphics platform targeted at netbook and net-top PCs running Windows XP.

The ION LE is technologically identical to the existing ION technology, which is an Nvidia 9400M mobile graphics chip typically paired with Intel Corp.'s Atom CPU.

The difference is that ION LE will support, at best, the DirectX 9 graphics technology in Windows XP, not Vista's DirectX 10 nor Windows 7's DirectX 11, which will be able to for better multimedia performance.

That would seem to be a disadvantage, with Windows 7 launching in late October, although it plans to continue letting for a year after that.

Matt Wuebbling, senior product manager for notebook GPUs at Nvidia, says that the vast majority of games still run on DirectX 9, as well as all high-definition (HD) video content.

"For a $400 netbook, does [having] DirectX 11 really matter?" he asked, because ION LE will otherwise provide the same graphic performance and 1080p HD video as ION.