Once Intel turned its spat personal with Nvidia by slamming the GPU maker's Ion platform, which came after Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang charged Intel with attempting to "stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business," which came after Intel sued Nvidia over a Nehalem license, which came after what looked to be a truce between the two companies when Nvidia finally loosened its license on SLI technology for use on Intel's X58 chipset...where were we again? Ah yes, it was Nvidia's turn to publicly respond to Intel's Ion bashing in "Oh no he didn't!" fashion, and so the GPU maker has fired back with a 13-page document in defense of Ion.
While Intel's document pleads with vendors to not buy the hype surrounding Ion, Nvidia's document, titled "Nvidia Response to Intel Claims on Ion," says that the Ion gives a "faster, more feature rich, better experience." The company also dedicates three pages to quotes from Microsoft, software and game developers, and technical publications in an attempt to refute Intel's claim about a lack of support for Ion.
It's not quite the 'go-for-the-throat' verbiage we've recently come to expect from these two companies, though Nvidia did take a few jabs at Intel's Atom platform. Nvidia referred to its MCP79M/MCP7A-based Ion as a "modern 2 chip solution" compared to Intel's "4-year-old 3 chip design." Nvidia also contends that Intel's upcoming Pineview, an Atom chip with an on-die IGP, will just force consumers to use Intel graphics rather than improve performance and expand CPU support like the second-gen Ion will do.
Oh, and Nvidia did include a giant VIA Nano logo next to four smaller Intel CPU logos, which in geekville is the equivalent of flipping someone the bird. Atta boy, Nvidia.
