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DFI working on ION/P45 hybrid motherboard |
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Written by Slobodan Simic
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Monday, 21 September 2009 14:32 |
Two systems on a single PCB
Almost every important manufacturer had, or plans to have, a product that uses Nvidia's ION, but every time it was either an Atom ION motherboard, or netbooks and nettops based on the ION. DFI has come up with a rather unique solution that pairs up Nvidia's ION with Intel's P45 chipset, and also does it in a rather unique way. The Hybrid P45-ION-T2A2 is actully a single PCB motherboard with two systems.
The left side of the motherboard is all about an Nvidia ION paired up with Intel's Atom CPU, while the right side is based on Intel's P45 chipset. The motherboard comes with a single PCI-Express x16, one PCI-Express x1 and two plain PCI slots.
The most interesting part is that these two systems can either run in a shared mode or fully independent from each other. These two systems share certain IO ports while some are intentionally left for a specific system.
It looks like an interesting concept, but the US $399 price tag might be a bit harsh. As this motherboard is still in its concept stages, a lot of things can change, so let's see what DFI can do about it. The guys from Tweaktown had a chance to check out this motherboard and you can find the video here.
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Motherboard 