Nvidia today launched a new generation of graphics processor Ion, which is specifically designed for small computers with Intel's Atom processor. The new generation of Ion, who unofficially called the Ion 2, is adapted to "Pine Trail" series of Atom processors.
The Pine Trail-based processors from Intel has integrated graphics processor, but Intel has purposely made sure that graphics performance is not sufficient to, among other things, to play the video at full HD resolution. This is the cheap, Atom-based systems will not compete too much against the company second, more powerful processor solutions.
Many users would have their mini-laptop to be used for more tasks than what Intel envisions think, and it is here Nvidia Ion processors come into the picture.
According to Nvidia shows the test package 3D Mark 06 that a system with the new Ion-processor Atom N450 and 1 gigabyte DDR2 memory delivers ten times the graphics performance of a similar system without the ion-chip. This should be enough for games like World of Warcraft and Spore. 
At the same time Nvidia Optimus technology, which automatically determines whether the processing tasks to be done by Ion-chip or the integrated graphics, open the battery times of up to 10 hours for a system with a six cell battery. Measurement is done with Mobile Mark 2007, but results will necessarily depend on the use of the system and system configuration.
Optimus technology will switch Ion processor as long as there is no need for it.
According to Nvidia will be launching more than 30 different products with the new Ion GPU in the summer. This includes netbooks, but also small, desktop computers, motherboards, slot cards and discrete "bare bone" systems.
The first products will likely be the netbook computers Acer Aspire One 532G and Asus 1201PN, which probably can be expected in April. In addition, there are Asus EeeTop 2010PNT and Lenovo C200.
