The N8 has a 680MHz ARM, 256 MB Ram and hardware accelerated OpenGL-ES 2.0. If they can write a DirectX driver for the GPU, then that should be good enough.
The really interesting question is if they'll do something interesting enough to differentiate themselves from their field. Given how dull the current lineup of Windows 7 phones is, they might have some real opportunities.
That and the fact WP7 still doesn't support less than WVGA screens really makes me question how Nokia is going to compete at the low end with WP7. Honestly I think a big part of the threat to them is not even the "smartphone" market but rather that their low to mid range phones where all their volume comes from are going to get knocked out by Android.
Fair enough. The N9 will ship with a 1GHz processor, if rumors are to be believed, So I'm guessing that will their first Windows 7 platform, unless they're building something W7 specific from the ground up.
The really interesting question is if they'll do something interesting enough to differentiate themselves from their field. Given how dull the current lineup of Windows 7 phones is, they might have some real opportunities.