Need for Speed will push your PC hard at high detail

By Jon Martindale February 19, 2016

Need For Speed PC Reveal

It’s been a long time since anyone has asked the question “can it run Crysis?” without nostalgia, and no real game has come along to replace it. While the upcoming Need for Speed reboot port for the PC isn’t likely to take that crown any time soon, it is still a pretty tough game that will require a relatively powerful system to get running at smooth frame rates at ultra settings.

One of the big reasons it’s worth waiting for a PC port of racing titles like Need for Speed is that they often run at higher frame rates, rather than the 30FPS cap on consoles. That sort of thing is much more noticeable in fast-paced titles like racers, so it makes sense — but of course you need the hardware to be able to output all those extra frame rates.

Let’s start things off light though and look at the minimum specifications (via TechReport) for the game; most people should be able to hit those:

CPU	Intel Core i3-4310 or equivalent with at least four hardware threads
RAM	6GB
Graphics	Nvidia GTX 750 Ti 2GB or AMD HD 7850 2GB

Nothing there is too hectic and though there may be a few people with GPUs without 2GB of VRAM, that is increasingly rare these days.

Related: Buying a GTX 970 or AMD 390? Both are now available with free games.

The recommended settings however are much heavier hitting. They will, we’re told, allow you to play the game at 60 FPS at 1080p with everything set to high, so that’s perhaps no surprise, but far fewer people will have systems capable of handling it:

CPU	Intel i5-4690 or equivalent with at least four hardware threads
RAM	8GB
Graphics	Nvidia GTX 970 4GB or AMD R9 290 4GB

Although the GTX 970 is currently the most popular graphics card for Steam gamers, there are still only around 10 percent of all those referenced in the Steam Hardware survey that have PCs with comparable hardware to these specifications.

In short, not many people will be running Need for Speed at full whack when it gets released, but then that’s the case with most AAA games.

The real question is, can yours? Need for Speed hits PC on March 17.

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