Okay so first things first - the bad news. Total War: Warhammer has been delayed. Originally scheduled for the end of April, Creative Assembly's ambitious fusion with Games Workshop's tabletop strategy game will now hit on May 24th. Boo. They need a bit more time for fine-tuning, claiming this is possibly "the best Total War game [they've] ever made", so they don't want to rush it. Fair enough. 

But, we do now have our hands on the system requirements so you've got plenty of time on your hands to make sure your rig's up to the task. Take a deep breath, forget about the Chaos DLC controversy, and head on in and check out the official Total War: Warhammer system requirements. 

Total War: Warhammer Minimum System Requirements (15-25 FPS Low @ 1080p)

  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit
  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0 GHz or AMD Phenom 8650 Triple-Core 2.3 GHz
  • RAM: 3 GB System Memory
  • GPU RAM: 1 GB Video Memory
  • GPU: GeForce GTS 450 1GB, Radeon HD 5770 1GB or Intel HD 4000 (Low)
  • HDD: 35 GB Available Space
  • DX: DirectX 11

Total War: Warhammer Recommended System Requirements (45-55 FPS High @1080p

  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2 GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz
  • RAM: 8 GB System Memory
  • GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
  • GPU: GeForce GTX 760 or Radeon R9 270X

Total War: Warhammer Ultra System Requirements (Ultra @ 1080p)

  • OS: Windows 7 64-bit
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0 GHz or AMD FX-9370 4.4 GHz
  • RAM: 8 GB System Memory
  • GPU RAM: 4 GB Video Memory
  • GPU: GeForce GTX 980 or AMD Radeon Fury X

Well they're a heck of a lot lower than we'd anticipated. The Total War series is an absolute resource hog, and Total War: Warhammer is on course to be the best looking of the bunch. On the surface it looks as if there is going to be a great deal of scaleable options to get Total Warhammer running on a wide range of rigs. 

It's not often that a developer outlines what settings its specs are for, but Creative Assembly have nailed it here. Unfortunately those minimum requirements certainly are the bottom of the barrel. It might be capable of running on a Radeon HD 5770, GTS 450, or even an Intel HD 4000 but you're going to have to really sacrifice both visuals and frame rate. Creative Assembly tout between 15-25 FPS at Low, so it's going to probably look terrible, but at least you can play. Look out for benchmarks from us down at this end nearer the time. 

Head up to the recommended specs and you'll spot a fair leap, but still a very reasonable set of system requirements to run Total War: Warhammer at High and close to 60 FPS. I'm amazed a GTX 760 or R9 270X is up to the task, but it certainly means the majority of enthusiast gamers should really be able to crank the myriad of graphics options up. 

It kind of goes without saying but the Ultra requirements for TW: Warhammer are obviously sky high. This is premium tier stuff when there's heaps of units on-screen and all the graphics settings are cranked up. Creative Assembly recommend an Intel Core i7-4790K, and in truth AMD doesn't really have anything to match up to this. The FX-9370 should suffice but it's not exactly a popular processor. As a series these are some of the most CPU intensive of all time, so you may see your frame rate held back significantly if you can't match these specs. It's a shame in this sense there's no DirectX 12 support out of the box, but who knows what a future update may hold. 

Remember, you can always check out how well your PC can run the Total War: Warhammer System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarking and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the Total War: Warhammer benchmark chart.