Playing Cyberpunk 2077 is good. Experiencing the Cyberpunk 2077 adventure is better! To be completely immersed in the intricacies of Night City, your PC's graphics card needs to be powerful enough to handle the game's vibrant action.
Enabling Ultra settings at high resolutions is far from the best option. You should instead aim for high-performance graphics cards.
Official minimum system requirements
CD Projekt Red, the studio that developed cyberpunk 2077, had indeed circulated information about the minimum configurations required for the game.
Thus, the studio specifies the following points:
- a Windows 7 or 10 64-bit operating system;
- a DirectX 12 driver library;
- an Intel Core i5-3570K or AMD FX-8310 processor;
- 8 GB of RAM;
- an Nvidia GTX 780 3GB or AMD Radeon RX 470 graphics card ;
- a 70GB SSD hard drive.
Furthermore, CD Projekt Red recommends the following configuration for optimal performance:
- a Windows 10 64-bit operating system;
- DirectX 12
- an Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 3 3200G processor;
- 12 GB of RAM;
- an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics card ;
- a 70GB SSD hard drive.
Some graphics cards tested
Several studies have investigated whether or not Cyberpunk 2077 can be played with different types of graphics cards. We outline the various graphics options available below. However, it's important to note that these options were tested on a PC with specific specifications:
- an AMD Ryzen 7 3800 X processor;
- 16 GB of RAM;
- DDR4 memory;
Good to know: If your PC is struggling to run Cyberpunk 2077 properly, you can try adjusting the crowd density settings . The "Game" section of the options allows you to do this to boost performance , although it may negatively impact the visual quality of the game world.
GeForce GTX 1060 and 1660
These are the minimum graphics cards required to play games in Full HD. On the GeForce GTX 1060, you can achieve 38 FPS – frames per second (the unit of measurement for the number of images displayed on a screen) – using the "medium" preset. On the other hand, the GeForce GTX 1660 is more recommended. It allows you to increase the preset to a high level and enjoy up to 45 FPS.
GeForce GTX 1080/1080 TI and Radeon RX 5700/5700XT
Playing Cyberpunk in 1440p is possible if you have a GTX 1080/1080 Ti or Radeon RX 5700/5700 XT graphics card. However, the "Ultra" preset is essential, which is a disadvantage as it is too demanding.
Regarding FPS, tests show 60 FPS for the GTX 1080 Ti and 40 FPS for the Radeon RX 5700 or 5700 XT.
GeForce RTX
The various GeForce RTX models have the potential to run the game smoothly with ray tracing on "medium" settings. Full HD is possible with the RTX 2060. As for 1440p, it's feasible with the RTX 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti.
To enjoy 60 FPS in Full HD or 1440p, simply disable ray tracing.
GeForce RTX 3000
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 3070 or 3080 graphics cards are the most powerful among the models tested for Cyberpunk 2077. The game does not lose its quality even when increasing ray tracing.
However, because there's always a however, achieving 60 FPS in Ultra HD isn't exactly thrilling when you're using "ultra" ray tracing. The RTX 3070 model allows you to reach 50 FPS with "ultra" ray tracing and "auto" DLSS. The RTX 3060 Ti, in turn, can approach 60 FPS in 1440p or Ultra HD, but only with "medium" ray tracing and "auto" DLSS.
In short
Because it's so incredibly exciting, Cyberpunk 2077 has very high performance requirements, especially regarding graphics cards. The information provided in this article aims to help you take your game to the next level and, who knows, maybe even become a Cyberpunk 2077 pro.
