Acer last week announced its Aspire One 532G netbook as the first to carry Nvidia's forthcoming Ion 2, but few details have been revealed about the next-gen graphics chip. Some folks at NetbookNews recently got their hands on the Aspire One 532G at Mobile World Congress, and they managed to sneak in a 3DMark 03 graphics benchmark.
While the results aren't conclusive, the Ion 2 actually performed worse than the original. The Aspire One 532G scored 3,049 3DMarks, which compares to 3,593 3DMarks for the Ion LE-equipped Samsung N510. Netbook Choice speculates that this may show issues Nvidia has faced with Intel's Pine Trail architecture.
Since the GPU-maker isn't allowed to create chipsets around DMI, the Ion 2 likely uses PCIe to interface with Pine Trail. It's suggested that limited bandwidth over PCIe could be the culprit – at least partially – but there are other explanations. For instance, Acer and Nvida might have crippled the system to keep it stable while being shown at MWC. Unpolished drivers could also be responsible.
An Nvidia representative quickly responded to the unflattering benchmark results: "I can't vouch for the accuracy of the benchmark that was performed at that show. I believe the units there were pre-release systems. We haven't provided performance data yet for the public, we'll have more details coming in early March."