Shuttle XS3510MA - my dream come true
We first heard about the Ion a few years ago like that NVIDIA about the brand name of your new product. What you might have known is a new chipset, a dedicated VGA controller and that IntelThe Atom processor comes with fairly powerful hardware that gives you enough cocoa to run games or watch 1080p full HD movies.
While Ion hasn’t gotten bad, we have to say today that expectations were exaggerated about it. In fact, we were able to run older games on it, as well as the fact that 1080p was scrambled on it, but sometimes the image was choppy, the sound slipped, in a word, if someone asked me, I said it was good up to 720p, above it was a fishy one. Interestingly, although the news was that the Ion was conquering west of us, it didn’t really want to spread in our home country. Gábor and I hoped for a long time that we could test their Ionos gadgets, and then the desire slowly faded.
Today, however, they are no longer about Ion, but about Ion 2. A stronger system and a simpler implementation, at least when we look at things from NVIDIA’s perspective. The Ion chipset was replaced by an orphaned GPU. The chip, codenamed GT218, is made with 40-nanometer technology and connects to the Intel Pine Trail system via a PCI Express interface. Pine Trail is the platform for the new Atom processors, so at least in terms of processor, there is no difference between Ion and Ion 2, apart from the evolution of CPUs over time, of course.
So Ion 2 is essentially different from a “traditional” Intel Atomic system in just one chip. The GT218 can use DDR2 or DDR3 memories, the amount of memory can be 512 MB, and of course they are onboard, i.e. modules soldered to the motherboard. The chip supports DVI, HDMI and Display Port outputs, ie the application of the image, in the case of HDMI the sound also becomes a slap in the face.
Significantly, NVIDIA also deployed Optimus Technology for the Ion 2. In this case, we don’t have to think that our Nokia phone will become a mini killer in two seconds. The name Optimus refers much more to optimization, which makes smart use of available graphics power, thereby saving some energy. The essence of the procedure is that the system only turns on the more knowledgeable VGA chip when it is really needed, in other cases the more economical Intel solution provides the image. It also needs a proper operating system to make it work, but luckily Windows 7 already has Microsoft WDDM 1.1, so switching between GPUs works great.
The latter option, Optimus, is only available on laptops, as the technology is about optimizing the energy consumption that desktop devices, such as Shuttle the solution in this article is not necessary because battery mode does not exist here. Because of this, although in theory the structure would know, we can’t even live with Optimus because the Intel graphics driver for the Atom is disabled.
What does Ion 2 promise? Essentially what its predecessor did. Small size, low power consumption, adequate performance for less machine-intensive games and playback of full HD content. It soon turns out that promise is a nice word if they keep saying as well as they know about the Greens, as well as what the Shuttles have managed to build around the platform.
