Nvidia’s next-generation ION to launch in Q1 2010; shown off at CES

Nvidia will showcase ION 2 at CES 2010 in January, with a formal launch penciled in for the first quarter of 2010. Nvidia confirmed the existence of the chip during a conference call yesterday and expects several partners to be showing off ION 2 devices at CES.

Nvidia has apparently delayed the release of the chip due to pressure from its partners such as Asus, HP and Lenovo who are still enjoying good sales of netbooks/nettops using the original ION. ION 2 is expected to run twice as fast as the original, sporting at least twice as many shaders.

The planned Q1 2010 release date makes sense as ION is not believed to be compatible with the Intel Pine Trail platform, although the ION 2 chip is. The reason for this is that ION is a chipset part, which cannot be used in the two-chip structure of Pine Trail. ION 2 will be a discrete GPU chip that has full compatibility with the new Intel platform.

Nvidia says that ION 2 will be 5-10x faster than Intel Pine Trail graphics; it will support Windows 7 Home Premium; have 5+ hours of battery life and cope with HD video/Flash content. Obviously this will come at a premium but that hasn’t stopped the interest in current ION netbooks.

Via Fudzilla (1, 2 and 3).