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CD Projekt Red2020REDengine 4Action RPGOpen world

Cyberpunk 2077: GPU requirements and performance

The standard stress test for ray tracing. Cyberpunk 2077 runs acceptably on modest hardware in pure rasterisation, but its Ray Tracing: Overdrive path-tracing mode is among the heaviest workloads any consumer GPU faces, and it is the mode most people are actually asking about when they compare cards.

What actually limits performance here

The part that generic system requirements never tell you.

  • Rasterised performance scales close to raw GPU throughput and is not unusually memory-hungry at 1080p or 1440p.
  • Turning on standard ray tracing costs a large chunk of frame rate; path tracing (Overdrive) costs far more again and is impractical without upscaling on anything below the top tier.
  • Ray tracing raises VRAM use noticeably. 8 GB cards are the first to struggle once RT and high-resolution textures are combined.
  • The game supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS, so every vendor has an upscaling path here.

Published system requirements

The publisher's own figures. They describe a baseline, not the hardware needed for high settings at a high frame rate.

Publisher-stated system requirements for Cyberpunk 2077
TierGraphics cardProcessorMemoryTarget
MinimumGeForce GTX 1060 6GB / Radeon RX 580 8GB / Arc A380Core i7-6700 / Ryzen 5 160012 GB1080p, Low preset
RecommendedGeForce RTX 2060 SUPER / Radeon RX 5700 XT / Arc A770Core i7-12700 / Ryzen 5 7600X16 GB1080p, High preset

Technologies supported

Which vendor features this title implements, which decides how much your graphics card's feature set is worth here.

Ray tracing

Supported

Includes a full path tracing mode, which is dramatically more expensive than standard ray tracing.

DLSS

Supported

NVIDIA cards can render at a lower internal resolution and reconstruct the image.

FSR

Supported

AMD's upscaler is available, and works on other vendors' hardware in its earlier versions.

XeSS

Supported

Intel's upscaler is available, with dedicated hardware acceleration on Arc cards.

Frame generation

Supported

Available on hardware that supports it. It raises the displayed frame rate without improving responsiveness.

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Estimated

Which graphics card do you need for Cyberpunk 2077?

The least expensive in-production cards whose estimated frame rate in this title is centred at or above 60 FPS, at High settings with no upscaling. The range shown for each card is the model's uncertainty band, so the lower bound can fall under 60.

CompareYourGPU estimate

Modelled from the estimated performance index and this title’s demand classification. Not a measured benchmark. How the model works.

1080p

Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling

  • Arc B570

    $219 MSRP · estimated 60-90 FPS

  • Arc B580

    $249 MSRP · estimated 75-105 FPS

  • RTX 5050

    $249 MSRP · estimated 65-90 FPS

1440p

Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling

4K

Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling

Measured

Verified benchmark data

Frame-rate figures transcribed from named third-party measurements.

No verified benchmark data for this game yet

CompareYourGPU only publishes frame-rate figures it can attribute to a named, linkable measurement. None have been transcribed for Cyberpunk 2077 yet, so nothing is shown here rather than numbers that would look authoritative without being verifiable.

Cyberpunk 2077: common questions

What are the recommended system requirements for Cyberpunk 2077?
CD Projekt Red lists GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER / Radeon RX 5700 XT / Arc A770, Core i7-12700 / Ryzen 5 7600X and 16 GB of RAM for 1080p, High preset. Publisher requirements describe a baseline experience, not the hardware needed for high settings at high frame rates.
Does Cyberpunk 2077 support ray tracing?
Yes. It also offers a full path tracing mode, which is dramatically more demanding than standard ray tracing. CompareYourGPU classifies its ray tracing load as extreme relative to other titles here.
Does Cyberpunk 2077 support DLSS, FSR or XeSS?
It supports DLSS, FSR, XeSS. Frame generation is also available on hardware that supports it.
How demanding is Cyberpunk 2077?
CompareYourGPU classifies it as heavy on rasterisation and extreme with ray tracing enabled. Rasterised performance scales close to raw GPU throughput and is not unusually memory-hungry at 1080p or 1440p.

Sources

Last reviewed . Demand classifications are CompareYourGPU’s editorial judgement, not measurements.

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