Life on Ion
Even with only a single core, the Atom is largely fast enough for basic everyday tasks like word processing, web browsing, instant messaging, and the like. However, video playback is challenging and 3D games are a complete write-off. The Ion platform should have a big impact on both fronts, but is it enough to really expand the Atom's capabilities?

We'll start with video playback, where the GeForce 9400's video decode engine should make up for the Atom's lack of processing horsepower. Since most Atom-based netbooks and even nettops only come with single-core processors, we disabled one of the Ion platform's cores for these tests.

First, the easy stuff. Even standard-definition content pegs my Atom-based Eee PC's processor utilization above 60%, but on the Ion rig, the very same clip pegs the CPU at about 30%. Although I've yet to encounter a video that didn't play back smoothly on my Eee PC, I have heard that some SD clips are too demanding for an Atom at stock speeds. Those videos shouldn't be a problem for the Ion platform.

Of course, the real challenge with video these days is decoding high-definition content. An Ion-based system needs to be able to play back HD video smoothly, including Blu-ray discs, with little fuss if it's to be suitable for pint-sized home theater PCs. And it can, for the most part.

PureVideo HD makes Blu-ray playback possible

We tested HD and Blu-ray playback with PowerDVD running at 1920x1080 over HDMI, and we found that most content played back smoothly with between 25 and 80% CPU utilization on our simulated single-core Atom. The 1080p trailer for The Dark Knight was buttery smooth, as were high-bitrate Blu-ray titles 28 Days Later and Click. These two movies did consume more CPU cycles than the Batman trailer, but that's to be expected given the additional processing necessary to handle Blu-ray DRM, which isn't crunched by the PureVideo decode engine.

28 Days Later and Click are encoded with H.264 and MPEG2 codecs, respectively, so what about Blu-ray's third format, VC-1? We use Nature's Journey to test VC-1 performance, and on the Ion platform, playback was surprisingly choppy, pegging our single-core Atom config's CPU utilization at 100%. Nvidia says it optimized PureVideo HD for 1080p content, and that Nature's Journey playback is choppy because it's actually a 1080i movie—a format the company claims is a shrinking niche. According to Nvidia, the problem here isn't processing horsepower, but memory bandwidth. A dual-channel Ion setup, the company says, should play back Nature's Journey smoothly.

We've seen Nature's Journey exhibit comparatively higher CPU utilization than other Blu-ray movies on a Core 2-equipeed GeForce 9300 system, so the title clearly presents a considerable challenge. Enabling the Ion rig's second Atom core did lower CPU utilization considerably, and while playback was smoother, it wasn't as silky as the other movies.

Call of Duty looks right, but doesn't play particularly well

Gaming is another area where the Ion platform's GeForce graphics can vault it ahead of Intel's GMA competition, but here our expectations were measured from the beginning. We recently reviewed an Atom-based netbook from Asus that sports a discrete GeForce 9300M graphics processor that's quite similar to the GeForce 9400, and we found that the system's processor was largely the limiting factor when it came to games. The Ion platform, as it turns out, is no different.

Nvidia is quick to point out that the GeForce 9400 wasn't designed for hard-core gamers, which of course makes sense. But I would consider myself more of a casual gamer these days, and I still want to be able to play relatively recent titles. Half-Life 2, Quake Wars, and Call of Duty 4 are hardly new games, but none ran acceptably with the Ion platform configured with a single-core Atom CPU. I had to drop down to low resolutions and in-game detail settings just to get the games to run smoothly, and they didn't for long. Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty in particular would oscillate between smoothness and stutter depending on how much was going on in a given scene. Quake Wars, on the other hand, was pretty choppy throughout. Switching our Atom over to dual-core mode smoothed out Call of Duty just enough for the game to be playable, but it didn't improve performance in Half-Life 2 or Quake Wars to the point where I'd consider either tolerable.

Now before anyone chimes in that those games are far too hard-core for mainstream audiences, keep in mind that Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty: World at War, and all sorts of World of Warcraft derivatives filled out much of the best-selling PC games list last week. Spore and The Sims also made the list, and those will likely run better on an Ion box than your average first-person shooter. The problem is that those games will also run much better on a full-blown PC with a proper processor.

I suppose we should keep in mind that the GeForce 9400 only has to go up against a GMA 950 that won't even load most of the aforementioned games. In that respect, the Ion platform is far and away the most competent gaming solution available for the Atom processor. You'll just have to dig through the bargain bin for years-old titles or stick with simple games that don't demand too much from the CPU.

There's only so much the Ion platform can do to make up for an over-matched Atom processor in games, but its GeForce graphics chip can shoulder some of the load associated with more general-purpose computing tasks through CUDA and OpenCL. Apps that make use of the GPU for general-purpose computing are few and far between at the moment, but given the Atom's relative weakness, there's more room for improvement than you'll find on a standard desktop PC. Don't expect miracles, though. While the GeForce's CUDA processors can currently accelerate Folding@home, a few Photoshop features, and some video encoding tasks, they don't turn the Ion platform into a high-performance system.