Some pundits may not see the point of putting a discrete GPU into a power-tight platform like a netbook, but Acer possibly does - if the latest whispers from Taiwan are to be trusted.

The PC manufacturer has decided to build Nvidia's Ion 2 chippery into future product, say moles by way of DigiTimes.

Ion 2 will inevitably connect to Intel's next-gen Atom CPUs - due 10 January 2010 - all of which contain a GPU core and a memory controller. That leaves Ion 2 is either a slightly better integrated GPU or a discrete GPU in its own right, depending on how Nvidia plans to push it. Either way, it's arguably a hard sell for a power-constrained environment light the inside of a netbook: does this machine really need two GPUs?

Or Nvidia may focus on nettops which, being desktops, are a little less power-sensitive than portables. Intel certainly has new - also GPU-enabled - desktop Atoms coming: the single-core D410 and dual-core D510. ®