Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: Don't Trust Projekt Red
Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: Don't Trust Projekt Red
We're confident the official Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements are far lower than what you'll actually want for the proper experience.CD Projekt Red has announced the official Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements, with a planned launch on November 19. Let's just be frank: They're bunk.
Not that the minimum and recommended PCs won't be able to run the game, but the way the game will look on those PCs? [Waves Obi-wan hand] "These aren't the graphics settings you're looking for."
It would be like a netrunner trying to hack one of the megacorps using a standard cyberdeck. Not happening! So what sort of PC hardware will you need to run the game in all its glory? Here's what you need to know about the Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements.
We know that Cyberpunk 2077 will support ray tracing and DLSS 2.0, which means if you want the full fidelity experience, you'll want one of the best graphics cards — and by that we mean you'll want at least a GeForce RTX GPU.
Cyberpunk also requires DirectX 12, though Windows 7 is supported as DX12 has been ported to it. If you have the money and some luck, the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 will, of course, more than suffice.
Hopefully supply will catch up to demand in the next few months and the cards will become more available. Alternatively, wait for the GeForce RTX 3070 or AMD's Big Navi.
We have some strong opinions about the official Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements. We'll start with the official specs, discuss why we think they're not really what you want, and move on to our own recommendations.
So let's jack into the matrix, put on a Cyberpunk 2077 Brain Dance, and get ready for the year's most anticipated game.
CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077 Minimum PC
CD Projekt Red detailed its official minimum and recommended specs in Night City Wire episode 3. (Skip to about 20:30 if you only want the specs). Let's start with the minimum specs first:- Core i5-3570K or FX-8310
- GTX 780 3GB or RX 470 4GB
- 8GB RAM
- 70GB storage
- Windows 7 or Windows 10 64-bit
So, that's your clunker standard cyberdeck that's barely enough to get you started as a netrunner. It has a CPU from 2012, a GPU from 2013 (Nvidia) or 2016 (AMD), a modest amount of memory, and a 64-bit version of Windows. Cyberpunk 2077 requires DirectX 12 (DX12), which was backported to Windows 7 but not Windows 8/8.1.
What sort of experience will this deck get you? CDPR doesn't say, other than to clarify that the targets are for 1080p low. Is that 1080p low quality at 60 fps or 30 fps, though? If we were to hazard a guess, it's closer to the former than the latter.
CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077 Recommended PC
- Core i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 3200G
- GTX 1060 6GB or R9 Fury
- 12GB RAM
- 70GB SSD storage
- Windows 10 64-bit
The step up to CDPR's recommended hardware is still pretty tame. The GPUs are moderately faster — according to our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, Nvidia's 1060 6GB is about 30% faster than the GTX 780; meanwhile, AMD's R9 Fury X is about 30% faster than the RX 570 4GB, so perhaps 35-40% faster than the RX 470.
(Note that the R9 Fury X is also about 25% faster than the GTX 1060 6GB.) For newer GPUs, both the GTX 1650 Super and RX 5500 XT provide similar performance.
On the CPU side, things are a bit weird. The Core i7-4790 is similar to the i7-4770K, and both should be faster than the Ryzen 3 3200G. A Ryzen 5 1400 would have been a more sensible minimum CPU, so it feels a bit like CDPR is just pulling models out of a hat.
Ryzen 3 3200G is limited to an x8 PCIe bus link, plus it's a 4-core/4-thread CPU. It's not going to beat a Core i7 Haswell or Devil's Canyon in gaming performance, in other words.
But the biggest problem, once again, is that we have no idea what sort of performance the 'recommended' PC hardware targets.
1080p high, but will it be at 30 fps minimum? Probably, maybe even close to 45 fps on average. If correct, that's a pretty low bar for a gaming PC.
More critically, there's no chance the recommended PC will do even minor ray tracing effects, never mind all the extras that are going to be available in Cyberpunk 2077.
Both AMD and Nvidia will have ray tracing hardware available by the game's launch (AMD might only be in consoles, or we might have RX 6000 by then).
So what sort of ray tracing experience can gamers expect? CDPR isn't saying. At least the SSD recommendation is sound.
For the record, CDPR's last game, The Witcher 3, actually breaks 60 fps on a GTX 1060 and R9 Fury at maximum quality.
But five years later, with all the detail being thrown into Night City? We just don't buy that the game engine will be so optimized that 60 fps at high quality will be achievable without stepping up to more recent CPUs and GPUs.
That goes double if you want to game at 1440p or 4K, with ray tracing and DLSS enabled.
It's also worth remembering that The Witcher 3 got a graphics downgrade in order to hit playable performance levels on the previous generation consoles.
It caused a bit of a ruckus back in the day, and while Xbox One and PS4 are certainly more capable than the PS3 and Xbox 360, they're not especially potent compared to a gaming PC.
Even the Xbox One X is only about the level of an RX 580 GPU, for example.
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| (Image credit: Nvidia) |
Tom's Hardware Cyberpunk 2077 Recommended PC
We're taking an educated guess here, but if you want to play at 1440p and maybe even 4K, using ray tracing effects, a beefier PC will be necessary.Actually, an RTX GPU is required as a bare minimum for ray tracing and DLSS right now, though AMD's Big Navi will at least take care of the ray tracing side of the equation by November (we hope).
Here's our high-end recommendation for a PC that should max out settings and quality at 1440p. Perhaps with DLSS, even 4K will be viable, but we'll have to wait and see when Cyberpunk 2077 comes out.
- Core i7-10700K : $394
- GeForce RTX 3080: $700 (when supply improves)
- NZXT Kraken X63 : $149
- Asus TUF Gaming Z490-Plus : $180
- G.Skill Aegis 2x16GB DDR4-3200 : $103
- Adata XPG Gammix S5 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD : $110
- Phanteks Eclipse P400A : $71
- Thermaltake TPD-0750M 750W Gold : $113
TOTAL PRICE: $1,820
Obviously, that's a lot of money for a gaming PC, but there's a good chance you won't need to upgrade everything just to play Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings.Mostly, getting the GeForce RTX 3080 is your best bet at being able to handle anything Night City might throw at you.
The good news is that you have two months to try and buy one, and the RTX 3070 will be coming at $500 on October 15 (and will sell out just as fast as the RTX 3080, almost certainly).
Past experience suggests the 3080 will be more readily available by November, though.
In terms of performance, while we don't know exactly how demanding Cyberpunk 2077 will be, having the fastest current GPU (that doesn't cost over $1,000) should suffice.
RTX 2060 Super and above ought to be able to manage 1080p at high with ray tracing as well, if you already have one of those, with the 2080 Super pushing into 1440p territory.
DLSS 2.0 is going to be a critical factor in enabling all of the ray tracing effects without tanking performance, though, based on what we've seen from Control and the Fortnite RTX update.
source : https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cyberpunk-2077-system-requirements-official-plus-our-recommendations