Borderlands 4 test shows big frame rate drops, even with an RTX 5090 and 9950X3D

Borderlands 4 might be struggling on PC, according to some early impressions from those playing the game. One video in particular shows the game struggling to hit 70fps in some areas on a rig equipped with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

While the Borderlands 4 system requirements don't exactly demand the best graphics card from our buying guide, they did sit on the high side for a modern 3D game. The artwork in Borderlands 4 might look cartoony, but just like Doom The Dark Ages, it still requires a decent amount of GPU horsepower.

While a few creators have acknowledged performance slowdown in chaotic moments, the main concern comes via jackfrags on YouTube. In the video below, jackfrags shows the game running on the Badass graphics preset, running at 2,560 x 1,440, and using Nvidia DLSS on the Quality setting.

During the game, the frame rate counter in the top left-hand side of the screen shows that the game averages around 120-130fps outside of combat, but as soon as something starts happening on screen, this drops to around 100fps.

As jackfrags moves through the game and past the first boss fight, performance tanks to an average frame rate of between 60-80fps with only occasional spikes back to the 100fps mark.

This is quite disappointing given that these two components are basically the most powerful gaming GPU and CPU on the market. Given that DLSS is also deployed, it's got gamers worried that their mid-to-low-end systems stand very little chance of getting good performance in Borderlands 4.

Visually, the gameplay in the video looks okay, with the odd stutter here and there, but the most noticeable issues are when engaging in combat outside of the initial boss fight. The video shows jackfrags losing up to 25% of the game's performance during firefights, before the game stabilizes again once the fights are over. There are also flickering lights and some noticeable texture pop-ins happening throughout the second half of the video.

Most curious is that, despite playing on the top graphical preset, there was room to increase some of the graphics settings when jackfrags was navigating the menus. This means that the top graphical preset doesn't even use the highest in-game settings, yet still appears to struggle on high-end hardware.

Time will tell whether these issues impact a larger portion of players on PC, and what it means for those who have no way near as much power in their rig.

If your hardware is starting to look a little dusty, you can check out our guide to the best gaming PC to find a new rig to play Borderlands 4. If you're happy with your in-game performance, you can also check out our Borderlands 4 Shift codes guide to redeem some cool freebies. If you're hoping to play this looter shooter on a handheld, you can check out our Borderlands 4 Steam Deck guide.

Are you playing Borderlands 4 on PC and struggling to get desirable performance? Let us know over on our community Discord server.