Wednesday, December 17th 2008
NVIDIA Reference Design Atom Nettop Spotted
NVIDIA has concrete plans to take up chipset manufacturing for ULPC, and nettop platforms based on the Intel Atom processor. With its visual computing expertise and platform core logic technologies, NVIDIA hopes to cash in on the segment in need for better consumer value than what it already enjoys. VR-Zone pictured the reference design nettop PC that uses the Intel Atom processor, aided by NVIDIA's MCP79 chipset.
The chipset is monolithic, and handles the jobs of a memory controller, graphics controller, and a peripheral hub. The chipset sits on a 10-layer PCB motherboard, which gives you an idea on the component density of the MCP79. The platform supports single core and dual core Atom processors. It supports single channel DDR3 memory in speeds up to the PC3-10666 (1333 MHz), with connections to a SO-DIMM module. A GeForce 9 series integrated graphics controller provides display output through DVI-I. There is a gigabit ethernet controller, and 8-channel HD audio. The front portion of the chassis provides a larger portion of the connections, which includes the audio (including optical SPDIF), USB 2.0, and eSATA. NVIDIA will allow OEM vendors to make their own case designs housing the platform.
Source:
VR-Zone
The chipset is monolithic, and handles the jobs of a memory controller, graphics controller, and a peripheral hub. The chipset sits on a 10-layer PCB motherboard, which gives you an idea on the component density of the MCP79. The platform supports single core and dual core Atom processors. It supports single channel DDR3 memory in speeds up to the PC3-10666 (1333 MHz), with connections to a SO-DIMM module. A GeForce 9 series integrated graphics controller provides display output through DVI-I. There is a gigabit ethernet controller, and 8-channel HD audio. The front portion of the chassis provides a larger portion of the connections, which includes the audio (including optical SPDIF), USB 2.0, and eSATA. NVIDIA will allow OEM vendors to make their own case designs housing the platform.
43 Comments on NVIDIA Reference Design Atom Nettop Spotted
A touch screen, with some sort of software emulating a keyboard in the place of the Nvidia logo would be even better.
*Didn't realize there was a HDD in the thing already. One is enough.
ive been looking at these...
www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4473724652.html
mount a 7 inch LCD on it and you can put it all sorts of places.
(sorry for that)
What I really mean is:
1./ Any idea how powerful the MCP79 chipset is for graphics.
2./ Can it handle DX10, for Vista desktop bling.
3./ I wonder if it can handle older DX7 games... I doubt it, but who knows. Would be interesting if it could handle a minimum DX and OpenGL spec even if not that fast.
4./ MOST IMPORTANT, is that a full spec dual link DVI? Can I run 2 screens at 1600x1200 on it? Or can I run 1 screen at 2460x1600?
5./ Is the HDMI output fuill spec 1080p? Can I run separate screens, one on HDMI and one on DVI? Or is it duplicated on the different connector.
A 9400M would mean that it would be able to not only watch HD vids but moreover play the source engine based games properly (as well as many recent titles, at low quality however).
Kudos to nvidia for making such a simple platform, but yet with much capabilities. Only thing is that I'd hope that that platform stays cool. It'd be a shame if the TDP of the chipset is dreadful however-it would only be limited to nettops and that would somewhat suck.
Unfortunately i cant use things for just what they are designed to do, so personally im going to need a little more then a dualcore Atom and a single channel of ram to do my bidding before the bigscreen.
The MCP79 is full HDMI 1.2 1080p capable with DirectX10. Im pretty sure the MSI VR705 & Asus F50GX notebook has the same chipset. I think there are 5 or 6 variants of the MCP79 chipset, one being the MCP79-SLi chipset. MMMM Hybrid SLiiiiiiiiii.
No this little ' Nbox ' as OnionMan put it cannot play DirectX 7, but can do DirectX8 :) This little baby is so advanced its beyond Crysis :P
Ok thats cool.
This thing is really cool though, and with a dual core Atom it would rock along fine: I could see schools buying this (I want my school to buy some, we don't have enough PCs), it would make a great net-top or multimedia PC, and a backup PC...
I want one! But, I don't have the money. :(
We need 4"x3" keyboards and a thumb sized mouse. :laugh::laugh::laugh: I was just curious why do you want so many eSATA ports in such a thingy? I think that even my PC doesn't have so many. :confused: