Cyberpunk 2077 System Requirements: Ray Tracing Recs Revealed

Cyberpunk 2077 Minimum PC: 1080p Low

CD Projekt Red and Nvidia provided the above slide detailing all of the recommended specs. Interestingly, all mention of AMD graphics cards has been scrubbed from the list. However, the left two columns of the list basically haven't changed since what was stated in Night City Wire episode 3 (starting around the 20:30 mark), with Nvidia apparently adding five additional columns. Let's start with the minimum specs first:

• Core i5-3570k or Fx-8310
• GTX 780 3GB (or RX 470 4GB)
• 8GB RAM
• 3GB VRAM
• 70GB storage
• Windows 7 or Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 1080p Low

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? It says 1080p low, but it doesn't state whether that's for 60 fps or 30 fps. If we were to hazard a guess, it's closer to 30 than 60.

Recommended PC: 1080p High

• Core_i7-4790_or Ryzen,3_3200G
• GTX_1060_6GB, GTX_1660_Super(or R0_Fury)
• 12GB RAM
• 6GB VRAM
• 70GB SSD storage
• Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 1080p High

The recommended hardware for 1080p high is still pretty tame. The GPUs are moderately faster — according to our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, Nvidia's 1060 6GB is about 30 percent faster than the GTX 780; meanwhile, AMD's R9 Fury X is about 30 percent faster than the RX 570 4GB, so the vanilla R9 Fury is perhaps 35 percent faster than the minimum RX 470. Note that the R9 Fury X is also about 25 percent faster than the GTX 1060 6GB.

For newer GPUs, both the GTX 1650 Super and RX 5500 XT provide similar performance, but the 1650 cards only have 4GB VRAM, so Nvidia also suggests the GTX 1660 Super. That's a big spread in performance, as the 1660 Super is over 40 percent faster than the 1060 6GB.

On the CPU side, things are a bit weird. The Core i7-4790 is similar to the i7-4770K, and both should be substantially 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.

While the recommended PC hardware targets 1080p high, we again don't know if that's 30 fps or 60 fps. The 1060 will probably land in the 35-45 fps range on average, while the GTX 1660 Super should be close to 60. Again, it's a pretty low bar for a gaming PC.

Recommended PC: 1440p Ultra

• Core i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 3200G
• RTX_2060 (or RX_5600_XT)
• 12GB RAM
• 6GB VRAM
• 70GB SSD storage
• Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 1440p Ultra

Moving up to 1440p ultra recommendations, the only real change is in the GPU department. This is still without ray tracing enabled, and CD Projekt Red (or Nvidia) recommends an RTX 2060. It's not clear if that's with or without DLSS, but we figure an RX 5600 XT should be relatively close to the RTX 2060 if the recommendation is for without DLSS.

Recommended PC: 4k Ultra

• Core i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 3200G
• RTX_2080_Super, RTX_3070 (or RX_6800)
• 16GB RAM
• 8GB VRAM
• 70GB SSD storage
• Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 4K Ultra

4K ultra continues to push up the GPU ladder, and it also moves to recommending 16GB of system RAM and 8GB of VRAM. The RTX 2080 Super and RTX 3070 are recommended here, but is this with DLSS or not? We don't know for sure. An RX 6800 from AMD should also do pretty well, we think, but we'll have to test next month to see how they actually stack up.

Recommended PC: 1080p Medium Ray Tracing

• Core i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 3200G
• RTX_2060 (or RX_6800)
• 16GB RAM
• 6GB VRAM
• 70GB SSD storage
• Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 1080p RT Medium

Of course, turning on ray tracing kicks the requirements up quite a bit on the GPU front. For the medium ray tracing setting, running at 1080p (and almost certainly with DLSS enabled now), we're back at 1080p now. The CPU continues to be a bit of an oddity, the VRAM obviously drops back to 6GB (because that's what the 2060 has), but otherwise, it's basically the 1440p ultra non-RT specs. AMD's RX 6800 is most likely going to be highly competitive in this range, but then it's a $580 card going up against a $300-$350 card.

Recommended PC: 1440p Ultra Ray Tracing

• Core_i7-6700 or Ryzen 5 3600
• RTX 3070 (or RX 6800 XT?)
• 16GB RAM
• 8GB VRAM
• 70GB SSD storage
• Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 1440p RT Ultra

1440p ultra ray tracing continues the march up the GPU ladder, with the RTX 3070 getting the primary recommendation. Again, likely with DLSS enabled, we're looking at hardware that AMD may not actually be able to match in terms of RT performance. 1440p DLSS quality means rendering at something like 1810x1018 and upscaling,Nvidia generally has superior ray tracing performance plus Tensor cores that AMD can't match. If you want ray tracing at 1440p, your best bet will be the 3070 or a 2080 Ti, and maybe the RX 6800 XT will come close.

The CPU finally gets a bump up as well, to the i7-6700 or Ryzen 5 3600. The latter certainly makes a lot of sense. Can the original Skylake 4-core/8-thread i7-6700 actually keep up, though? We doubt it, unless everything is just GPU limited at this point (which it probably is). Still, we'd suggest aiming for the i7-8700 or higher on the Intel side if you want to run at maxed-out settings.

Recommended PC: 4K Ultra Ray Tracing

• Core i7-4790 or Ryzen 3 3200G
• RTX 3080 (or RTX 3090)
• 16GB RAM
• 10GB VRAM
• 70GB SSD storage
• Windows 10 64-bit
• Target: 4K Ultra

Finally, for 4K ultra with ray tracing enabled, only the RTX 3080 will suffice, or the RTX 3090 if you really have deep pockets and can find one. The CPU recommendations are the same as for 1440p RT Ultra, and VRAM is bumped to 10GB (because that's what the 3080 has). Will this provide 60 fps using DLSS quality, DLSS balanced, or DLSS performance? That's what we want to know.

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