Intel is using a two+ years old, lame graphics core for its new Atom parts. The new Atom chipset is stepping up from ultra weak and old G945GC to a “better” G31 generation one.

The graphics inside new Atom D510 and D410 single core is called GMA 3150, which promises to be the slightly faster version of G31 based GMA 3100.

Frankly, Atom graphics are going to continue to suck, and won’t let you play any decent games on it, but the fact that you will be able to use D410 and D510 processors with Nvidia’s Ion chipset is definitely a bright spark in the Atom graphics environment. Intel will naturally object as Nvidia's Ion makes Intel looks incompetent which is the case when it comes to computer graphics.

Atom will continue to be cheap, or affordable as Intel likes to say, but Intel graphics won’t get much better anytime soon. Atom can promise you entry level 2007 graphics performance that won’t look that good in 2010.