Some releases are designed to kick a gaming PC in the teeth, a stark reminder it’s time to upgrade. A new Witcher game is definitely one of those moments. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was recently delayed until May, but in the meantime, the system requirements have been released. It might be time to start looking for change in the couch.
As you keep reading, you might notice a tear running down my face. That’s because I’m going to have a long conversation with my wallet sometime later this year, in order to run The Witcher 3.
Here are the minimum and recommended specs, as released by CD Projekt RED today:
Minimum System Requirements
Intel CPU Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz
AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940
Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660
AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
RAM 6GB
OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
DirectX 11
HDD Space 40 GB
Recommended System Requirements
Intel CPU Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz
AMD CPU AMD FX-8350 4 GHz
Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 770
AMD GPU Radeon R9 290
RAM 8GB
OS 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1)
DirectX 11
HDD Space 40 GB
As for me, here’s a look at my PC. Please don’t laugh too hard. It’s pretty good at running everything but high-end games, which I’m typically playing on Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
Intel CPU Core i7 950 3.1GHz
RAM 16GB
AMD Radeon HD 7800
Oh boy…
By comparison, here’s what Assassin’s Creed Unity demanded on PC. Remember, though, Assassin’s Creed Unity wasn’t great on PC, and Ubisoft has a track record of poor optimization. CD Projekt Red, on the other hand, is known for valuing the PC and taking it very seriously.
Minimum
Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz or AMD Phenom II x4 940 @ 3.0 GHz
RAM 6GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 (2 GB VRAM)
HDD Space 50GB
Recommended
Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz or better
RAM 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMD Radeon R9 290X (3 GB VRAM)
Comments
17 responses to “The Witcher 3 Will Require A Moderately Beefy PC”
what is it with all the high system requirements :O
need new CPU and GPUs out to battle the increase!
it will never run in 4k 🙁 i suppose there should be a recommended resolution as well
My PC is a couple of years old, but looks like I shouldn’t have too much trouble running it. Good news.
Well I’ve got all those beat handily. Also I’m surprised Scoops is still running that 7870 (not 7800, that’s not a thing) from a few years ago (pretty sure that’s the one that came in that community donated box from GB).
i7 is overkill the game wont even use half the cores.
Too easy,but I’m gonna upgrade anyway. I wanna run this shit at ultra.
Seems… fairly alright and requirement similar to Witcher 2? You need a 670 or 680 to go 60fps in ultra back in Witcher 2 and they are recommending a GTX 770 which technically have similar performance as a GTX 680.
If they launch with a good SLI profile, I’m happy without upgrade 🙂
I fall right in between the minimum and recommended for my GPU (GTX 760). It would be interesting to know how the minimum and recommended compare to the consoles? Would I be better just getting this on PS4?
Well the 760 is miles more powerful than the PS4 so it would likely look better on your pc
Is this going to be another MGS:GZ situation where older CPU’s and GPU’s could run the game completely fine?
HAHA calling console gaming high end gaming Hahahaha
Well, my GPU is a bit under the minimum but everything else is at or above the recommended – and seeing as my monitor only runs at 1366×768, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Looking forward to getting my 16GB RAM, GTX 980, and i7-5820K stuck into this. Might have to revisit Witcher 2 to get back into the mood.
My once great rid is a bit out of date.
i7 920 at 3.0ghz
2 x gigabyte 560ti in SLi
12 gb RAM at 1600mhz
Guess this is as good a place to ask as any. I have a newly installed R9290X 4GB and an FX 3570 and yet with Wolfenstein and FC4 I can’t play on Ultra at 1080p with anymore than what seems like 30/40 fps. Incredibility frustrating when BF4 runs very well, at least 60fps at Max settings. Is something wrong with my rig? Or are those two games just really badly/not at all optimized for AMD? I know FC4 isn’t, but that’s ridiculous! I’m only trying to run at 1080/60/Ultra, not anything more? Have 8gb RAM, is that too little/bottlenecking somehow? Advice/thoughts anyone?
What is this FX 3570? Or are you saying about i5 3570?
Oops, meant FX 8370. Make that mistake a lot… And I use Speccy and the GPU doesn’t reach 95 ever, even in the enclosure it’s in. Still don’t understand any possible bottleneck. All seems to be up to scratch.
Install something like msi afterburner and see what temps your 290x is hitting. They throttle if they go over 95 degrees and the reference designs wouldn’t raise the fan speed unless it was in uber mode.
Both of those games have some hefty problems on AMD GPU’s, FC4 is more Ubisofts fault while the Wolfenstein issue is more down to AMD’s OpenGL support.