Fudzilla is reporting that Nvidia has introduced a lower-priced version of its ION chipset, which is branded as ION LE. Like the original ION, the LE is designed to boost the graphics performance of Atom CPUs by providing a faster alternative to Intel’s sluggish graphics chip. However, unlike the original ION, the ION LE will only support Direct X 9, which means it won’t play all the latest games that take advantage of Direct X 10, which comes standard with Windows Vista and is supported by Windows 7 (which has Direct X 11).

Nvidia spokesperson Ken Brown assured us that the new chip will work well with Windows 7, stating “ION LE is fully compatible with Windows 7 and provides the same level of graphics performance as ION, but it will not support DirectCompute or DirectX 10 APIs.”