We all know that path tracing is a bit of a GPU hog, and if you plan on running it in the remaster of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you're going to need a beefy and relatively new rig for this graphical mode. However, to get the game up and running on the lowest settings at 30 fps, you won't need a very recent GPU.
With The Witcher 3 Remastered going live today, CD Projekt Red has shared what you can expect to run with every major CPU and GPU brand, with Low graphics at 30 fps requiring a relatively meagre Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 / AMD Radeon RX 550 XT / Intel Arc A580, plus an Intel Core i5 8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600.
However, for path tracing, you will need an Intel Core i9 13900K or AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080. To get the estimated 60 fps at 4K, you will have to not only run DLSS, but you will need to use frame generation. That does mean it should fare better at 1440p or 1080p. CD Projekt Red does not specify which level of upscaling (though it says it's on Auto, whatever that means) or what level of frame generation is present for this setting.
As we saw in our investigation of Pragmata's path tracing earlier this year, we are expecting The Witcher 3 Remastered's path tracing to offer better shadows and highlights to generally make the world feel more 'real'. However, whether or not it's worth the hit to performance will be dependent on your tastes (and your rig). I'm not personally sold on even ray tracing's benefits all of the time, so it would be a tough sell for me, even if I had a rig good enough to run it.
Intel Core i5 8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
Intel Core i7 8700K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
Intel Core i7 13700K / AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
Intel Core i7 11700K / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Intel Core i9 13900K / AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 / AMD Radeon RX 550 XT 8 GB / Intel Arc A580
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT / Intel Arc B580
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT / Intel Arc B580 (XeSS)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 / AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
Also notably, the RX 9070 XT isn't listed as an option for this top-tier graphics mode. That's most likely because this GPU struggles more than equivalent Nvidia ones to deal with path tracing, and at any rate it's less powerful in general than the RTX 5080 listed.
At the higher end, the 24 GB memory requirement may be tough for some rigs, what with the memory crisis continuing to rage. Still, the bottom end of this table isn't too bad. The GTX 1660 was a mid-range graphics card that launched seven years ago. That does mean that your rig you played the original The Witcher 3 on at launch won't be able to run the new remaster even on low settings, in case you were wondering.
But if you own the original game, you will be able to play the new remaster for free, and the Complete Edition is half off if you somehow don't already have it. With a new expansion out next year, it might finally be time for that replay.
1. Best gaming laptop: Razer Blade 16
2. Best gaming PC: HP Omen 35L
3. Best handheld gaming PC: Asus ROG Xbox Ally X
4. Best mini PC: Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT
5. Best VR headset: Meta Quest 3
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