When Nvidia wheeled out its original midrange DX10 graphics chip, I was pretty disgusted. The GeForce 8600 GT was so pitiful, its DX10 capabilities were largely irrelevant.

But with the launch of the new GeForce 8800 GT midranger, all is forgiven. The 8800 GT does exactly what I want from a midrange chip. It delivers near-flagship graphics performance for a tiny fraction of the cost. And what great timing, too. With the release of Crytek's latest shader soaked masterpiece, Crysis, suddenly gamers with 18-month old GPUs will be desperate for an affordable upgrade.

Affordable DX10 performance

As my esteemed colleague Dan Grabham reported earlier today, the GeForce 8800 GT is based on a new 65nm production process. That allows Nvidia to cram in 112 stream processors running at a scary 1.5GHz and make it available at a remarkably affordable £150 or so.

Compare that to Nvidia's existing high end graphics chip, the £300-plus 8800 GTX (or the silly money 8800 Ultra if you must) and it's impossible not to draw some remarkable conclusions. First, the 8800 GT is essentially a high end part being offered for midrange money. The GTX may have a few more stream processors (128 to be precise). But they're slightly lower clocked.

Hence, the bargain basement GT has essentially the same pixel shading power as the premium priced GTX. As for Nvidia's existing second rung video chipset, the 8800 GTS, forget it. It doesn't stand a chance.

The GT's only weakness, therefore, is memory bandwidth. Thanks to its simpler 256-bit memory bus, the 8800 GT lags significantly behind the 8800 GTX and its 384-bit controller.

Pixel pushing powerhouse

But if early performance numbers circulating on the web are accurate, it's not a major handicap. The GT gets within 10 per cent of the GTX in most gaming benchmarks.

I hardly need point out that makes the big old 90nm bruiser that is the 8800 GTX look pretty pointless. NVIDIA needs to roll out a new performance flagship. And soon.

The 8800 GT is so good it's even making me rethink one of my pet hates. I haven't historically been a fan of Nvidia's multi-GPU SLI platform. But the 8800 GT suddenly has that looking like a winner, too. Why not snag a pair of 8800 GTs for about the price of a GTX and enjoy some serious pixel pushing power?

Tempting, eh?

It's really, really good. Um-kay?

Really, I could go on ad infinitum about how impressive the new 8800 GT is. I could tell you how its 65nm process technology translates into massively reduced power consumption. And how that in turn means the chip will form the basis of the most powerful notebook GPU in history. Probably.

But you get the point. The only remaining question is how AMD, Nvidia's main rival in the graphics market, can possibly compete.

Well, it just so happens that ATI is prepping its own die-shrunk high end GPU, currently codenamed RV670. Except this particular pixel pushing puppy is based on an even finer 55nm production process. However good RV670 is, there will only be one winner: gamers.