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ION to face uphill struggle for now

by on09 April 2009

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Taiwanese companies are reluctant

Despite Acer already having announced it's AspireRevo, aka the Hornet, other Taiwanese vendors doesn't seem to be quite as keen on the idea of building ION based systems, as they're concerned about what Intel will think.

On top of this, there's also the cost issue, as an ION solution will be more expensive than using Intel's 945GC chipset. It's questionable if Intel will bring a version of the GN40 chipset to the desktop market, as it seems like the company doesn't want Atom to compete with its other product offerings.

As things turned out, Atom is too good, at least in terms of sales and Intel seems to be concerned that if they do anything more to improve the platform, they'll end up selling less of its other processors and chipsets which carry a higher price tag.

The Taiwanese companies might yet be convinced to make ION based systems, but according to Digitimes, they're hoping for a 20 to 30 percent price reduction before they're willing to jump on what isn't exactly a fast moving bandwagon. It won't be easy for Nvidia to reduce the price this much, as they only sell one of two key parts that make up the ION platform.

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Last modified on 09 April 2009
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