The Witcher 3 system requirements

The Witcher 3 system requirements are very achievable, even for older or budget gaming PCs and laptops. However, both its next-gen update and its upcoming 10th anniversary DLC - called Songs of the Past - have seen the game's system requirements rise since the game initially released. Some of these changes include hard drives no longer being supported and Windows 11 being required, so you may need to upgrade if you want to jump in and experience the new DLC for one of the greatest games ever made.

These changes also include updates to the minimum graphics card requirements, although most gamers won't suddenly need to upgrade to the best graphics card around - they're still very modest options. However, this is an area you'll want to consider upgrading even further if you want to experience the ray tracing and other upgrades available in the latest version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. On which, if you need a hand getting the best out of this game on your rig, be sure to check out our guide to the best Witcher 3 settings on PC.

Here are the Witcher 3 system requirements for PC:

* CD Projekt Red hasn't made it clear what the new recommended specs will be for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, so this table still shows the original specs. We would expect them to be much higher than this, though.

The Witcher 3 minimum requirements are very low, despite the recent changes for the Songs of the Past DLC. The game originally only needed an Intel Core i5-2500K-class CPU, 6GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 660-class GPU. These have increased significantly to either an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel Core i5-8400 CPU, 12GB of RAM, and a graphics card at least as powerful as the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB, with at least 6GB of VRAM.

Other changes include Windows 7, 8, and 10, all now no longer being supported, with Windows 11 required. This has the knock-on effect that only CPUs supported on Windows 11 will work with the game, and only GPUs with active driver support on Windows 11 will work.

Hard drives are also now completely unsupported, as CD Projekt Red notes that " SSDs offer faster load times, smoother asset streaming, and improved overall performance." You won't need one of the best SSDs just to get this game up and running, though. A basic drive like the WD Black SN850 will do fine.

Here are the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt ray tracing system requirements:

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt ultra specs, as updated with the new next-gen version, allow for ray tracing, and this is where the specs you'll need take a big step up. You'll need an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 paired with an Intel Core i7-9700K and 16GB of RAM.

Take our Witcher 3 system requirements PC benchmark test to answer the question… Can I run The Witcher 3?

If you're looking forward to the Witcher 4 release date, you can check out the first look we got at the game during an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo, which also helped us take a crack at predicting the Witcher 4 system requirements. Also, you can read up more on the Witcher 3: Songs of the Past DLC.