It seems like Intel is having some internal communications problems, as now an Intel spokesman called Bill Calder has gone on record to say that "There is nothing preventing vendors from using the Ion platform. We sell Atom as a stand-alone processor, or as package with chipset".

If this indeed proves to be true, then this is great news for Nvidia, but we wouldn't hold our breath just quite yet. Although it would be illegal for Intel to not to sell its processors to anyone that would want to purchase them, we're sure there could be certain "supply shortages" to those companies that wants to buy the processors without the Intel chipset.

This is the first time Intel has gone on record saying that it will sell Atom processors without the chipset bundle and it seems like Intel might be willing to take the right steps to boost the platform opinion among the slightly more power hungry users than the average netbook and nettop consumer, but we'll just have to wait and see how this one plays out.

Hopefully this will bring a new generation of more powerful Atom powered devices, especially based around the dual core Atom processors as we feel that a dual core Atom and the Nvidia chipset would be a sufficiently good platform for a wide range of users and it would make a great, low-power HTPC platform.

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Intel says no to Atom for Ion

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