How To Make Negative Ion Generator

Nosotros've been pretty large fans of Nvidia's Ion production for netbooks, which turbocharges the lame integrated graphics found in Intel'southward Atom line with something really capable of decoding all that howdy-def flash video on the web and fifty-fifty playing a few basic 3D games. If yous'll retrieve, the previous generation of Intel Atom based netbooks were 3-chip solutions: you lot had the Cantlet CPU, the "North Bridge" containing the memory controller and integrated graphics, and the "South Span" with all the I/O and interconnect stuff. The Ion platform replaced both the North Bridge and South Bridge with what Nvidia calls an MCP – media and communcations processor. It'south basically a single flake that includes the retentivity controller, I/O, and integrated graphics. In other words, the original Ion brought the three-chip Atom solution from Intel down to a two-fleck solution, while improving graphics functioning. It was a major selling point.

The Next Generation Ion, revealed today, sort of makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand, non because it'due south a bad products, only because the marketing message isn't clear to consumers. Information technology's no longer a "platform" – it's an add-on to an existing platform in the same way that any GeForce discrete graphics bit is an add-on to any notebook of any other size. It'southward just… GeForce for netbooks. For this and other reasons, the whole marketing message around the Next-Gen Ion is a little worrisome. Let me to explain.

The new Intel "Pine Trail" platform for netbooks (those netbooks with the Cantlet N450 or N470 CPU) gets rid of the North Bridge flake – the Intel graphics and memory controller have been integrated into the CPU itself. So with Pino Trail, Intel is down to a two-chip solution: the CPU and the South Bridge. What the side by side-gen Ion does is boost that back to a three-flake solution past adding a GPU, consummate with up to 512MB of it's own DDR2 or DDR3 memory (something that wasn't required in the original Ion, mind you). This graphics chip connects to the Southward Bridge via a PCI Express x1 link.

The new Ion will employ the aforementioned Optimus technology Nvidia recently unveiled for larger notebooks. This is cool stuff. Basically, it'southward automatic switchable graphics that you, equally a user, never need to even think nearly. Instead of the computer having an internal hardware switch to turn off the Intel integrated graphics and plough on the Nvidia discrete graphics, the computer only always displays the Intel integrated graphics' frame buffer contents. The special Nvidia driver detects when you lot start viewing video or running 3D graphics and will power up the discrete graphics, copying the frames it renders to the Intel integrated graphics' frame buffer. Then, it automatically shuts off and powers downward when y'all stop viewing video or running 3D. Optimus is really cool stuff, but the fact that the next-gen Ion uses it only farther underscores that what once was a replacement "platform" for Atom-based netbooks is now an additional detached graphics chip.

The Next-Generation Ion will come in two flavors. Ane has viii graphics cores, the other sixteen. They're really the same bit, based on a very low-end version of the GT2xx family, with some parts "fused off" on the 8-core version to attain the lower ability and thermal requirements of smaller netbooks. My guess is that it'due south the GT218 chip, constitute in the GeForce 210M. The 8-cadre version can have either a 32-bit or 64-bit memory interface, while the 16-core version always has the 64-bit retentiveness interface. You'll find the eight-cadre flake virtually exclusively in x-inch or smaller netbooks, while the 12-inch ultra-premium netbooks and desktop "nettops" will get the 16-core version, since they accept a lilliputian more jerk room on thermals and power. Nvidia says operation of the 8-core version should exist comparable to the original Ion, while the 16-cadre version should be as much every bit twice as fast.

Here's some other problem with the marketing: y'all don't know which one you're getting, really. 1 version of the fleck is literally twice as fast as the other, but both are merely called "Next-Generation Ion." Nvidia tells us all the 12-inch netbooks and nettops are using the 16-cadre version, but there'south nothing to force manufacturers to do this. If someone wants to make a super-thin 12-inch netbook and use the 8-cadre version, you really wouldn't know it unless the manufacturer spells out in the specs exactly which version of the "Adjacent Generation Ion" it'due south using. This is similar Nvidia selling two dissimilar GeForce mobile chips, one twice every bit powerful as the other, and not giving them unlike model numbers to differentiate each other. In fact, that's exactly what this is.

Nvidia is focusing on the "experience" of Ion, which is genuinely much better than the stock integrated graphics you get with an Atom based netbook or nettop. The video decoding acceleration is worlds better, as is the 3D graphics performance. That was true of the previous generation, as well. Nvidia has made some hay with the press almost how the new Ion has a package size of 23mm by 23mm, which is forty% the size of the origional Ion's package, thanks in office to a compress from 65nm manufacturing to 40nm. This is a completely disingenuous comparing. The first-gen Ion was an "MCP" production, a complete GPU plus retention controller plus I/O controller in i. It replaced two Intel chips with one from Nvidia. The new Ion replaces aught, it adds a 23mm by 23mm fleck and a bank of dedicated graphics memory to the new 2-chip Intel Pine Trail platform.

I'thou all for giving users the power to get away from the truly awful Intel integrated graphics and buy something amend. The new Ion is definintely good news in that regard. But let's call a spade a spade – the new Ion is just a actually low-end GeForce mobile discrete graphics chip for Ions. To exist fair, Nvidia doesn't claim the Side by side Generation Ion is a "platform" in its marketing materials, every bit far as I can tell. But by keeping the same branding as the previous product, which is a platform, it confuses consumers nigh what they're actually buying.