Most important is 's announcement Wednesday that to run Windows .

Nvidia also announced Wednesday that one unnamed PC maker planned to build a mini-PC using the Ion platform. And No. 3 PC maker said earlier this week that it was interested in building Ion-based PCs this year.

Ion is an design that combines its GeForce 9400M GPU, the mobile version of one of its most powerful graphics processors, with an Intel Atom CPU.

The motherboard, amount of RAM, and other specifications are not dictated by Nvidia, said a company spokesman, Ken Brown, but most expect Ion systems to use mini-motherboards suited for netbooks and mini-PCs.

Microsoft said its testing showed that Ion-based PCs will be able to deliver 1080p HD, video, including Blu-ray movies, "exciting" videogame play using DirectX 10 video technology, support for premium Vista features such Aero Glass and Flip3D, and faster video transcoding and photo editing because of the Nvidia graphics chip.