If you are struggling to run PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds or looking to build a new PC to play PUBG you might be wondering, Is PUBG CPU or GPU intensive?
In this post, we will be answering that question as well as looking at how many CPU cores you need, if you can run PUBG without a dedicated graphics card, and our recommended components for this game.
Table of Contents
Is PUBG CPU Or GPU Intensive?
PUBG is considered to be a more CPU-intensive game than GPU intensive one, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need a good graphics cards to run this game. PUBG in general is a pretty poorly optimized game and a lot of people struggle to get good frames even on decent PC setups.
Whether PUBG is a CPU or GPU intensive is often discussed in the community and the consensus is that it’s more demanding on your CPU than GPU. That’s not the case for everyone though and it’s really going to depend on your setup.
PUBG is extremely demanding on every component in your computer including the RAM so you can’t skimp out on any component in your PC like you could in a game like League Of Legends where you don’t even need a dedicated graphics card. You need to have a really good PC to run PUBG smoothly.
Why Is PUBG So CPU Intensive?
PUBG is a CPU-intensive game for a couple of reasons. One of the biggest ones is it’s built on the Unreal Engine as we mentioned earlier, which tends to be very demanding on the CPU as well as the GPU.
Another reason is the game has massive maps. Games like PUBG and other battle royals with an open world are going to be CPU intensive. It takes a lot of CPU resources to process all the buildings, items, vehicles, and visual effects.
The next reason is the number of players in each game. Each game of PUBG has up to 100 players that the CPU needs to track and render which puts quite a lot of strain on the CPU. This is a big reason why the game can seem to run fine when you are by yourself looting but lag as soon as you get in a big gunfight.
How Many CPU Cores Do You Need For PUBG?
You need at least 4 CPU cores to run PUBG and you need 8 cores if you want to run it well. PUBG is a very resource-intensive game so you are going to need a lot of cores and a lot of threads to run it smoothly.
For PUBG, single-threaded performance on your CPU is important and that’s why outdated CPUs from AMD and Intel tend to struggle running this game. Ryzen CPUs from AMD as well as the most recent CPUs from intel do a good job of running PUBG. You can see our recommendations for CPUs later in this article.
PUBG is built on the Unreal 4 Engine which means it can make use of up to 8 threads. An 8 core CPU is recommended to run this game well, but a 4 core can do the job and not become a bottleneck. In general, weaker CPUs with lower core and thread counts tend to be the main bottleneck for PUBG and it’s a big reason why it’s considered a CPU-intensive game.
Can You Run PUBG Without A Dedicated Graphics Card?
No, you absolutely can not run PUBG without a dedicated graphics card. Even if you have a good integrated graphics card you are going to struggle to run the game even at 720p. This is mostly due to the fact that PUBG is terribly optimized.
Without a dedicated graphics card, you might not even be able to get to the main menu. There are plenty of games you can run without a graphics card or with a good integrated graphics card, but PUBG is not one of them. If you want to play PUBG you will need to get a good graphics card.
Is PUBG A RAM Heavy Game?
Yes, PUBG is RAM heavy game and uses between 6.5GB to 10GB of RAM depending on your in-game settings while playing. We recommend you have 16GB of RAM to run the game comfortably on higher settings. We recommend a minimum of 8GB if you want to run the game on low settings with nothing else running in the background.
The speed of your RAM is also something to consider, but it’s not nearly as important as the amount you have. The difference fast RAM makes is going to depend on your PC setup, mainly your CPU and motherboard. The difference it makes is going to be about +10% in the best-case scenario.
So, if you are considering upgrading your RAM focus on the amount first and if you have the extra budget you can look for some higher speed ram to min-max your PUBG performance.
Reccomended CPUs For PUBG
According to Bluehole, the developer of PUBG, the minimum CPU requirements are an Intel Core i3-4340 or an AMD FX-6300. These minimum CPU requirements are quite generous as both of those CPUs will struggle to get above 30 FPS in 1080p. We would recommend you do not try and run PUBG with either of these CPUs
The recommended PC requirements for PUBG according to Bluehole is an Intel i5-6600K or an AMD Ryzend 5 1600. These recommendations are definitely a bit more reasonable and will run the run game well. However, we have some different recommendations.
The cheapest CPU we recommend for PUBG is the Intel Core i5-10400 and that is only if you want to play the game at a 1600×900 resolution.
We recommend an Intel Core i5-11400F or Intel Core i5-11400 to run PUBG at 1080p as well as 1440P.
To run PUBG at 4K we recommend the Intel Core i5-12600K or something very similar.
Reccomended GPUs For PUBG
The minimum recommended GPUs according to the developer are an NVNVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 2GB or an AMD Radeon R7 370 2GB. While powerful 2GB cards can run PUBG on the lowest settings we would not recommend getting a new graphics card with less than 4GB of VRAM.
The recommended GPU according to Bluehole is the Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti OC Edition. Which is a great good GPU that will run the game at 1080p, but keep reading to see our personal recommendations
The cheapest GPU we recommend for running PUBG is the GTX 1650 and that is you want to very smooth experience at 1600×1900 resolution
For playing smoothly at a 1080p resolution we recommend either the GTX 1650S or the RX 5500XT
If you want to play lag-free at 1440p we recommend either the GTX 1660 Ti or the GTX 1660S
Lastly, if you want to play PUBG at 4K resolution we recommend the RTX 3060 Ti, the RTX 2080, or the RTX 2080S
What Should You Upgrade First?
Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all answer for which PC component you should upgrade first to improve your PUBG performance. You first need to find out what the bottleneck of your setup is. It could be your CPU, graphics card, or even your RAM. Once you find the component that is holding your setup back you can decide if it’s worth it to upgrade or not.
We recommend checking out this great article from Make Use Of on what upgrades matter the most for a PC.
Conclusion
There you have it, that is everything you need to know about PUBG and whether it is CPU or GPU intensive. Hopefully, you now have a better idea of the PC components needed to run PUBG as well as why you need them. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is a hard game to run for even great PCs. So, don’t feel too bad if your PC is not running it smoothly.
If you have questions or would like to give your own thoughts on this topic please do by leaving a comment below.
