Starfield: GPU requirements and performance
A demanding title with no ray tracing at all, and one where the CPU matters far more than usual. Cities and dense interiors can hold a fast graphics card back regardless of which one you buy.
What actually limits performance here
The part that generic system requirements never tell you.
- There is no ray tracing mode, so this is a rasterisation-only comparison.
- Major settlements are heavily CPU-limited; a graphics card upgrade alone will not fix low frame rates there.
- DLSS, FSR and XeSS are all available, and frame generation is supported.
- 16 GB of system RAM is a genuine floor, not a suggestion.
Published system requirements
The publisher's own figures. They describe a baseline, not the hardware needed for high settings at a high frame rate.
| Tier | Graphics card | Processor | Memory | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 5700 | AMD Ryzen 5 2600X / Intel Core i7-6800K | 16 GB | Not stated |
| Recommended | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | AMD Ryzen 5 3600X / Intel Core i5-10600K | 16 GB | Not stated |
Technologies supported
Which vendor features this title implements, which decides how much your graphics card's feature set is worth here.
Ray tracing
Not supportedNo ray tracing mode, so results reflect rasterisation only.
DLSS
SupportedNVIDIA cards can render at a lower internal resolution and reconstruct the image.
FSR
SupportedAMD's upscaler is available, and works on other vendors' hardware in its earlier versions.
XeSS
SupportedIntel's upscaler is available, with dedicated hardware acceleration on Arc cards.
Frame generation
SupportedAvailable on hardware that supports it. It raises the displayed frame rate without improving responsiveness.
Reserved advertising space. No advertising network is connected yet, so nothing is served here.
Estimated
Which graphics card do you need for Starfield?
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.
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
1440p
Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling
- Arc B580
$249 MSRP · estimated 50-70 FPS
- RX 9060 XT 8GB
$299 MSRP · estimated 55-80 FPS
- RTX 5060
$299 MSRP · estimated 50-75 FPS
4K
Around 60 FPS, High settings, no upscaling
- RX 9070
$549 MSRP · estimated 50-70 FPS
- RX 9070 XT
$599 MSRP · estimated 60-85 FPS
- RTX 5070 Ti
$749 MSRP · estimated 60-90 FPS
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 Starfield yet, so nothing is shown here rather than numbers that would look authoritative without being verifiable.
Starfield: common questions
What are the recommended system requirements for Starfield?
Does Starfield support ray tracing?
Does Starfield support DLSS, FSR or XeSS?
How demanding is Starfield?
Sources
- Steam store pagePublisher-stated system requirements for Starfield
Last reviewed . Demand classifications are CompareYourGPU’s editorial judgement, not measurements.