Silicon Valley’s favorite journo Fuad Abazovic is upturning rocks in NVIDIA land to reveal details of the firm’s second-gen ION part.

Confirmed in a late February investor presentation, ION’s next generation has been shrouded in secrecy until recent whispers from insiders at big green. The rumors go that the upcoming platform, dubbed ION 2 for now, will undergo a die shrink and bump the shader count from 16 to 32+.

The modifications to the core design of the ION package should considerably boost the ION’s 3D rendering process… Or trigger a deluge of crummy CUDA apps.

That said, ION’s already robust performance will need a sharp kick in the pants if it hopes to contend with Intel’s Pine Trail platform which we prattled on about in June.