The Witcher 3 Remastered Demands Serious Hardware For 4K Path Tracing

CD Projekt RED has revealed the official PC system requirements for their highly anticipated visual overhaul of The Witcher 3, with the aptly named The Witcher 3 Remastered. PC gamers are in for a big upgrade, but with detailed hardware specifications covering a wide range of performance tiers, from basic rasterisation all the way up to the most demanding path-traced graphics modes, some may be in for a shock on how big the performance hit will be despite this games age.

The Witcher 3 Remastered

The developers have provided a breakdown for various resolutions, presets, and frame rates. At the entry level, achieving 30 frames per second at 1080p on the Low preset is fairly accessible, requiring an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 alongside an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660, AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, or Intel Arc A580. Although, I prefer to at least start at 60 FPS myself, and for that you’ll need High settings, with an Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, paired with 16GB of RAM and an RTX 2060 Super, RX 6600 XT, or Intel Arc B580. Stepping up to 1440p at 60 FPS on Ultra requires significantly more performance, asking for 24GB of system RAM and cards like the RTX 3070 Ti, RX 6800 XT, or Arc B580 an utilising some form of upscaling.

The Ray Tracing and Path Tracing Toll

Turning on the advanced lighting features is where the hardware requirements truly escalate. Just to get a foot in the door with Ray Tracing at 1080p and 30 FPS, you will need to rely on upscaling technologies like DLSS, FSR, or XeSS. This minimum RT tier requires an Intel Core i7-11700K or AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 16GB of RAM, and a GPU on par with the RTX 2060 Super, RX 6600 XT, or Arc B580. Pushing Ray Tracing to Ultra at 1440p for a smooth 60 FPS experience will demand a serious modern system, including an RTX 4080 or the new AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, again with the help of DLSS or FSR upscaling.

For 4K Path Tracing at 60 FPS, CD Projekt RED recommends an Intel Core i9-13900K or AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with 24GB of RAM and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5080. Even with this expensive hardware, achieving that 60 FPS target will require both DLSS upscaling and Frame Generation… Yeah, that’s uh, not great.

• Minimum (1080p / 30 FPS / Low): Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 12GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 1660, AMD RX 5500 XT, or Intel Arc A580.
• Recommended (1080p / 60 FPS / High): Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super, AMD RX 6600 XT, or Intel Arc B580.
• Ultra (1440p / 60 FPS / Ultra): Intel Core i7-13700K or AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, 24GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti, AMD RX 6800 XT, or Intel Arc B580 with XeSS.
• RT Minimum (1080p / 30 FPS / RT / Upscaling): Intel Core i7-11700K or AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super, AMD RX 6600 XT, or Intel Arc B580.
• RT Recommended (1440p / 60 FPS / RT Ultra / Upscaling): Intel Core i7-13700K or AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, 24GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 4080 or AMD RX 9070 XT.
• Path Tracing (2160p / 60 FPS / RT Ultra / DLSS + Frame Gen): Intel Core i9-13900K or AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 24GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 5080.
• Storage & OS: 60GB SSD required (95GB on the Epic Games Store) and 64-bit Windows 11 for all tiers.

Where to Buy

I think we can all agree that a top end graphics card reaching 60 FPS with upscaling and framegen is a ****ing joke. Plus, they didn’t tell us what the rasterised performance would be for any graphics card above the RTX 3070 Ti. CD Projekt RED will release The Witcher 3 Remastered today (29 September). If you already own the Complete Edition of the game, this graphical upgrade will be provided as a completely free update.