Intel's hoping to quash rumors from earlier this week that it would use its position as the Atom's manufacturer to put up a barrier to NVIDIA's plans for its Ion netbook platform. We had heard that Intel was drawing a hard line on Atom availability, only letting the processors sell alongside Intel's other chips, the ones NVIDIA hoped to replace with its own offerings as part of Ion. Unless system manufacturers can buy just the parts they need from Intel and NVIDIA to put together Ion systems, the project won't work.

While Intel didn't explain just how vendors got the wrong impression about its intentions for Atom sales, the company emphatically stated that it will not attempt to block NVIDIA's platform, and that Atom chips are available as stand-alone CPUs, independent from purchases of the company's graphics processors. Although no partners have been announced yet, there's now nothing stopping companies from adding NVIDIA's GeForce 9400M GPU to netbook systems, enabling high-performance 3D gaming and video playback. So, sorry VIA, but it looks like the teeter-totter balancing act between upcoming netbook chipset solutions has once again tipped in favor of NVIDIA and Ion.

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