Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty PC System Requirements Analysis

Phantom Liberty PC System Requirements are out, and they are a MASSIVE change from the original Cyberpunk 2077 PC System Requirements. Is your PC ready for Phantom Liberty?
Sources:

Test system specs (ResizeBAR/SAM ON):

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[kurtwinter]

New Cyberpunk 2077 requirements: A PC from 2077

[darkezowsky]

"RT Ultra" CPU then is "Minimum" CPU now, nice 🤯

[ScottTempler]

The new recommended hardware on the Infographic does specifically mention NVME drive on the Ultra setting. The dramatic jump from a RX 5700 XT to a 7900XTX is crazy

[djmeowth]

This is bizarre. There's got to be something strange going on here. I don't think I've ever seen an expansion increase the base game's requirements so drastically that people who could previously play on low settings will now no longer be getting a playable experience. Even super-long-running games like WoW increased their system requirements much more gradually than this over a much longer period of time than 2.5 years. I'm seeing several possibilities here - 1) CDPR is massively overestimating system requirements in order to dodge complaints of poor optimization, 2) CDPR is trying to push high-end PC hardware for some kind of kickback from component manufacturers, or 3) the expansion is _actually_ going to be horribly optimized and the system requirements are what you'll need to brute-force your way past it all.

[pcmasterracetechgod]

Little niche pro tip, when searching SSD's in PCPP, if you're looking for 1TB SSD's, set the filter to like 900gb+ because some (albeit not that many these days) have their capacity at like 960gb. Just a habit from using PCPP for a long time

[Darinsss]

They clarified on the forum post relating to the updated system requirements that they are using an upscaler on all these requirements. They consider an upscaler a standard feature -- they only mentioned frame gen with overdrive because it is unique and new.

Edit: quoting the dev: "Listed specifications were tested for default settings at given presets (we only tested unmodified presets). Whenever an upscaler is enabled by default, the measured FPS counts and corresponding requirements will reflect that.
(Note: Please keep in mind that I'm talking about updated presets, not the ones that are currently in the live version of the game.)

This was not indicated within the infographic, because we've had upscalers in Cyberpunk 2077 for quite long already and by now we consider it a regular setting."

We need clarity on which presets have the upscaler enabled by default.

[annielittlee]

Keep in mind that the requirements went up way higher with the patch 1.4 or 1.5, so 1060 used to run it better before that.

[poodoo]

I'm more convinced every time I see these lists that the devs haven't tested the game on any of these setups

[uwtm]

Getting "The more you buy, the more you save" vibes from this. "Now, repeat after me: the more you buy, the more you save"

[anarchicnerd]

SkillUp did a preview recently of Phantom Liberty, and he mentioned the overhaul that was coming to the games systems. CDPR were cagey but the big things they mentioned were an overhaul of the cop system, a new max star wanted level that introduces MaxTac to hunt you down and a complete overhaul of the AI system - specifically enemies are deadlier, more aggressive, they react faster, coordinate better together, use more advanced tactics like distracting, flanking and flushing with grenades. That might be your enhanced CPU requirement right there. I'm concerned - I just bought a R7 5700X because of the blend of price, performance, core count and stability. Did CDPR just forget Ryzen 5000 exists?

[karmillious]

This chart is quite odd. It skips 1440p, a much more popular resolution than 4k, has mismatched AMD and NVIDIA GPUs (in terms of rasterization performance), and specifies between SATA and NVME SSDs. I also noticed another weird thing: the 1080p minimum CPU is a Ryzen 5 1600 for 30 fps at low, the recommended 1080p high CPU is the Ryzen 7 7800x3D for 60 fps at high, but the minimum ray tracing CPU is a Ryzen 5 5600 for 30 fps at 1080p, and the recommended CPU for 1080p Ultra Ray tracing at 60 fps is a Ryzen 7 7900x. This is weird because the CPU doesn't normally change that much between graphics settings, and there's a massive gap between a Ryzen 5 1600 and a Ryzen 7 7800x3D. Most people would say that a Ryzen 7 7800x3D is overkill for 1080p gaming at any settings. This makes it very hard to tell what kind of CPU you'll need for 1080p high/optimized settings. Given how the base game launched, we should all wait and see how the game performs at launch.

[kuyt]

Those are insane CPU requirements. An i7 12700 for 1080p 60fps?

[PeterPauls]

I think they became overly cautious. This is the only explanation for me why they pushed out that strange system requirements…

[skp]

For those people who cannot afford an upgrade, I would think that it would be fair for the improved graphical options to be just an option, much like what they did on the Witcher 3 Remaster. I myself will not be able to run the game after the patch. These new specs are just way above what I can afford, but then I bought this game because I knew my system could handle it just weeks ago. A refund should be an option for those who are going to be affected, if the they do not consider those conditions.

[stuffmcstuff]

I have a 5600x, a 6700xt, 32gb ram at 3600mhz - 1080p monitor. I have 500+ mods installed and CP can easily exceed my refresh rate on high/ultra with out breaking a sweat. I really don't see how that would be less taxing than this new update coming. Something is fishy there.

[watersMO]

Hard to imagine that even a Ryzen 7600 wouldn't be sufficient for 1080p60, unless this update is truly going to utilize 8+ cores.

[Dingbat]

The margin from the low 30fps to the 60fps medium settings is a pretty big bump. In the "how to make sure only a small share of the gamer market can play" ... that's pretty much it. Anyhow, if a game is too demanding or the Devs are too lazy to optimize things, I just won't bother even if I do have the hardware to play it.

[jonesy]

WTF My 2060 just Hopped out of my case and shot itself in front of me.

[Koshea]

I use to use system requirements on recent upcoming games to determine if I needed to upgrade something on my PC, Mass Effect: Andromeda and original Cyberpunk 2077 launch being the last two examples of me getting hardware before the game was out to be ready for a game. But now between this and Starfield system requirements being all over the place...now I think I'll just get the games I know I want to play and if the performance is too bad I'll decided to upgrade from there.

[sir.fender]

Something to note: those cheap SSD's you are showing typically do not have a DRAM controller built in but are still WAY faster compared to an HDD. SSD's without a DRAM controller can potentially have a shorter lifespan and they can sometimes run slow when Windows is applying updates in the background. For a boot drive, I would highly recommend a higher quality (Samsung, Crucial, Kioxia) SSD with a DRAM controller built in and it can be affordable at 256GB. For games, you can use one of the inexpensive DRAM-Less drives. All of this is possible if your computer supports multiple storage drives. If your computer ONLY supports one storage drive; absolutely make sure the SSD has a DRAM controller built in.