The biggest Epic Store exclusive in its short history is almost upon us. Gearbox has revealed the PC system requirements for Borderlands 3, the massively anticipated co-op loot shooter which comes to PC on September 13th. Borderlands 3 promises to be bigger, better, prettier, and crazier than its predecessor, and here are the BL3 PC specs you'll need to join the party.
Borderlands 3 Minimum System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- CPU: Intel Core i5-3570 4-Core 3.4 GHz or AMD FX-8350 8-Core 4.0GHz
- RAM: 6 GB System Memory
- GPU RAM: 2GB Video Memory
- GPU: GeForce GTX 680 or Radeon HD 7970
- HDD: 75 GB Available Hard Drive Space
- DX: DirectX 11
Borderlands 3 Recommended System Requirements
- OS: Windows 10 64-bit
- CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 4-Core 3.4 GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 6-Core 3.4 GHz
- RAM: 8 GB System Memory
- GPU RAM: 6 GB Video Memory
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon RX 590 8GB
- HDD: 75 GB Available Hard Drive Space
- DX: DirectX 12
First things first, you should bear in mind Gearbox has partnered up with AMD for Borderlands 3. This doesn't really have any bearing on the system requirements provided but you can expect Borderlands 3 to be specifically tuned toward AMD Ryzen and Radeon hardware. AMD is front and centre of the official specs with Intel and Nvidia relegated to sub-text.
Whichever hardware brand you're aligned with though, you've got an extensive array of graphics settings at your fingertips with which to fine-tune Borderlands 3's PC performance. At the top level, there is the choice between DX11 and DX12, settings which are definitely worth fiddling with as DX12 doesn't necessarily perform better than DX11 (see Control). There are also a few dozen PC-specific graphics settings. Gearbox has never let us down on this front and we suspect Borderlands 3 will still run even on much lower-end systems than the specs suggest.
But, back to the system specs for Borderlands 3, and these aren't too shabby at all. Gearbox has kept even the recommended requirements reasonable, sticking to a mid-range GTX 1060 6GB or Radeon RX 590, along with a solid, yet old quad-core in the form of the Core i7-4770. These specs will be enough to get you playing Borderlands 3 at 1440p/Ultra which is really quite refreshing.
If you're eyeing up those minimum specs then be warned a quad-core CPU appears to be the absolute minimum in order to get Borderlands 3 running. It'll need to be slotted in alongside a 2GB VRAM DX11 video card and you should then be good to play Borderlands 3 at 1080p screen resolution.
As ever, remember you can always check out how well your PC can run the Borderlands 3 System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarks and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the Borderlands 3 GPU benchmark chart and we also have an Borderlands 3 Frames Per Second system performance chart for you to check.
Login or Register to join the debate
PC Specs
Sad the PC version has been delayed :(
PC Specs
what? really ? oh you mean because we have to wait 6 months to get the game on steam or somtehing?
PC Specs
You guess it right. But for me, I'll just gonna pirate them anyway.
PC Specs
But how am I supposed to play it with others if I pirate it
PC Specs
you can play with other pirates probably :D
PC Specs
Pirating games? Bwahahahahah Peasants.
Poison to the pc gaming community. Yet so proud.
PC Specs
We're not the poison of the gaming community. We just dont support platform exclusivity.
PC Specs
Too bad it's epic fail exclusive which means it doesn't exist on pc (to me at least).
PC Specs
preorder folks on pc , good luck playing day one without the preloading :)
PC Specs
These make no sence, isn´t this game supposed to be AMD game ?
PC Specs
What you just said makes no sense.It's sponsored by amd but not exclusive to their hardware .
PC Specs
"you can expect Borderlands 3 to be specifically tuned toeard AMD Ryzen and Radeon hardware"
gtx1060 and rx590 haha, specifically tuned, is it?
PC Specs
There's not a great deal between those cards but it can easily be read as 'go and buy AMD's more expensive graphics card rather than a 580". That and, well, at recommended specs AMD is probably going to get the higher frame rates. Seems a win for me
PC Specs
Yeah but it is ridiculous that an amd sponsored title recommends a stronger card than the enemy team... We will see if its an other case of ac odyssey where the amd optimalisations were nothing more than a logo at the start.
PC Specs
"Enemy team" LOL good one but the recommendations are never accurate anyway the 590's like what 10-20fps faster maybe more? they said its more optimised for AMD Hardware but if it's gonna be like AC Odyssey which like you said just had the logo but was more optimized for Intel+Nvidia as always which is stupid
PC Specs
if they put the Ryzen logo on it then it should actually run better on their hardware right? Or atleast thats the idea or maybe they dont want to give off the impression that they "paid" the devs for better performance on their hardware. Thats also dumb if they worked with the devs to optimize it, it should run btr
PC Specs
I can only think of like 2 games that ever honored that agreement and it was tomb raider reboot 2013 and deus ex human revolution 2011 that ran considerably better on r9 200 or 7970's and lower or whichever AMD cards were around at the time compared to NVIDIA counterparts but most games its the opposite a few exception
PC Specs
Yeah it could literally just be a marketing parnership with no dev work. 'Runs best on AMD Ryzen and Radeon' seems like something worth AMD paying for, even if it doesn't.
PC Specs
Btw besides of that anti-lag or whatever were there any amd specific stuff even announced for this game? Like nvidia sponsored games often have a sht ton of graphic options but haven't heard of amd specific ones?
PC Specs
Thats what im thinking although its a bit dissapointing i know Intel and NVidia have both worked with certain games to get them to run better on their hardware there is nothing wrong with that ofc you specifically want to optimize hardware that your company makes right? But it could be just the logo
PC Specs
And even just getting the logo there is probably a good thing for AMD either way since i imagine the game will sell well so its a good promotion for them in that way even if there isnt a big performance difference between Ryzen/Intel and Geforce/Radeon.
PC Specs
Yeah FidelityFX is in but that's the only AMD-exclusive thing I can see. Nvidia certainly do more in terms of partnerships and optimisation, although I think it's often just as much sabotage as it is optimisation. They make sure to chuck in one or two features which AMD cards just weren't built to handle, I guess a lot like AMD in your Tomb Raider/TressFX example.
PC Specs
True enough about the sabotage part but TressFX atleast from what i remember didnt have a big performance hit on either brands after a PATCH fixed it. Initially yes absolutely AMD tried pulling a fast one or perhaps they didnt test it on Nvidia's hardware (im cutting them some slack here) but gameworks was dirty by NV
PC Specs
I know TressFX was fixed afterwards and has never been an issue on Nvidia's hardware in later tomb raider sequels but im pretty sure gameworks in like Arkham Knight and The witcher 3 still to this day hit AMD hardware a lot more than NVIDIA's or perhaps they hit them about the same in performance terms like in exodus
PC Specs
No one came out of Arkham Knight looking good hah. Shame as that game looked incredible underneath the performance issues
PC Specs
Yeah it was a real shame graphically it was really impressive in 2015 i loved the way the rain looked in that game w3 in comparison looked terrible when it rained. Still havent seen a game with such good rain in it they eventually patched the performance to a "point" i replayed it earlier this year.
PC Specs
When you are driving the car around its still a mess and it can tank performance i ended up "keeping" the game when it was taken off steam and later they gave everyone that didnt refund the game all the DLC and all of the other Arkham games on Steam for free. Not a terrible deal but i imagine a lot of people had them
PC Specs
Oh you mean the image sharpening (anti lag is universal across all games) which is still exclusive to the 5700, 5700xt so its not even on all AMD GPU's currently definetly not on RX cards maybe by the time the game comes out it will be.
PC Specs
And yeah with all their faults by "black boxing" stuff Nvidia still puts a lot of work optimizing games that they put their logo's on . But they also put crippling stuff like gameworks in a few like hairworks that hit performance on their hardware too. But they put in the optimization work for sure and extra options.