NVIDIA ION platform could cost 3x as much as vanilla Intel Atom

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has publicly spelled out the pricing for the company’s ION platform. Here’s the skinny: The GeForce 9400M processor that NVIDIA bundles with an Intel Atom CPU in ION-powered netbooks and nettops costs about $30 to $35. While that might sound like a lot, it means that the total cost for the ION platform can be 3 times higher than a basic Intel Atom chipset.

That’s because Intel charges about $45 to computer makers that just want the Atom CPU. If you also take the Intel 945GSE chipset with integrated GMA950 graphics, you pay just $25. So computer makers essentially have a choice of spending $25 to put an Atom CPU and chipset in a computer, or about $75 to use the ION platform. That cost will most likely be passed along to consumers, but amid the netbook price wars, some computer makers might be reluctant to include any components that will drive up the price of their netbooks, even if it does boost graphics and video performance as well.

via Netbook Choice and Xbit Labs


Posted on Friday, July 3rd, 2009, 4:13 pm by Brad
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  • J
    I paid $25 extra to out bluetooth in my HP mini. I've never used it but I would pay it again in a heartbeat to have the feature. I think anyone who reads this site would be willing to pay a few extra bucks for proper video. I know I would.

    -J
  • Zobeid Zuma
    How much does a Tegra chipset cost, by comparison?
  • MonkeyKing1969
    Well, $75 is about worth it...but as I said before the manufactures can't pad that price. A ION based machine is not worth and extra $170.

    I'd like to see an ION chip being "the price of doing business", meaning that $70 investment in parts only raised the price of the unit by $95. The netbook is still on a razor thin margin, but nobody is on the hook if teh computer costs $495 instead of $399.
  • as147
    And so it begins. As I have posted many times before most organisations including Intel are trying to increase the prices (their margines) in netbooks because of the low margins that exist currently. I suspect "passing on" the NVidia ION cost is not what will happen. They will inflate it.

    I believe the netbook prices will soon (and in some cases already have) started to nudge the traditional low end laptop costs.


    If this happens across the board demand for netbooks will drop dramatically and we will be back to the bad old days of paying for power and features we don't use so that higher margins can be justified.
  • REMF
    If those oem's have two brain-cells to rub together they will use the Via Nano CPU alongside the Nvidia Ion GPU.

    Atom is hopeless (i own one), and Intel is acting against the consumers interest with its monopolist practices, so i await the likes of Samsung and Lenovo to announce 11.6" Nano/Ion netbooks.
  • A 9
    I guess Intel needs to make up the $1.45 Billion they were fined in Europe for antitrust practices. Hmmmm....
  • Bill Gates
    Buy the Atom with the 945 chipset and throw it away. Duh!
  • tiny28
    how about they just buy the atom/945 combo package for the cheaper price and simply not use the chipset. It will be a lot of wasted silicon but I think that falls on intel's shoulders due to their pricing scheme.
  • Funny you should ask, I don't know but have just been reading about Tegra. What I think with HD is that capacity is the problem. We need a new format that gives us the same quality but uses far less space. What we have now sucks.
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