343 Industries has brought the most iconic Halo title to PC with Halo 3, so now we an finally finish the fight on our beloved platform. But what hardware does Halo 3 on PC require? Is it more demanding than the previous titles? Or are the requirements just the same? We take a look at the Halo 3 PC system requirements...
Interestingly, Halo 3 on PC has some slightly different minimum requirements compared to the previous Halo titles, including lower ram, a slightly more powerful Intel CPU, and a slightly less powerful AMD GPU. Either Halo 3 on PC went through some new optimization, or something went wrong here. Either way, the Halo 3 PC minimum system requirements will net you 30fps at 1080p on Performance graphics settings.
Additionally, the recommended and 4K system requirements haven't been officially revealed for Halo 3 PC, but considering the minimum system requirements remained (mostly) the same, we can assume they will too. These requirements should get you 60fps at the Quality graphics settings for both 1080p and 4K respectively.
(*Some of the requirements merely list a suggested type of hardware, rather than a specific one, so we have selected some of the closest related hardware items based on their description in square brackets where necessary).
Halo 3 minimum system requirements
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- CPU: Intel Core i7-975 or AMD A12-9800 APU
- RAM: 2 GB System Memory
- GPU RAM: 1 GB Video Memory
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 or Radeon R7 Graphics [*AMD Radeon R7 240]
- HDD: 55GB
- DX: 11
Halo 3 recommended system requirements
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- CPU: Intel Core i7-870 or AMD FX-4100
- RAM: 8 GB System Memory
- GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti or AMD Radeon R7 360
- HDD: 55GB
- DX: 11
Halo 3 4K System Requirements
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- CPU: Intel Core i5-3450 or AMD FX-6350
- RAM: 8 GB System Memory
- GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 or AMD Radeon RX 480
- HDD: 55GB
- DX: 11
Aside from the lowered ram requirements of 2GB from 8GB for the minimum specs, Halo 3 PC features a very interesting upgrade of a Core i7-975 processor from the Core i3-550. What's most confusing here is that the i7-975 is actually more powerful than the recommended Intel processor, and about as powerful as the recommended 4K processor.
Secondly, the graphics card has dropped significantly from an HD 6850 to an R7 240. Granted they only specified the "Radeon R7 Graphics" as the minimum GPU, and considering the R7 240 is the lowest of the lineup, we can assume that is the minimum required GPU.
We haven't changed around the recommended or 4K requirements here, as they are the official specs for the Halo: The Master Chief Collection, so if you have any ideas as to what would be best suited for each requirement based on the new minimum specs then feel free to let us know in the discussion area at the bottom! With that said, let's do the usual...
In order to run the Halo 3 recommend system requirements you will need a Core i7-870 or FX-4100 processor coupled with a GeForce GTX 560 Ti or AMD Radeon R7 360 and 8GB of system memory. You can expect to get around 60FPS at 1080p screen resolution on high graphics settings with this hardware.
In order to run the minimum system requirements for Halo 3 you will need a Core i7-975 CPU or AMD A12-9800 APU along with a GeForce GTS 450 or a Radeon R7 graphics card like the Radeon R7 240 and 2GB of ram. You can expect around 30fps on Low graphics settings at 1080p resolution.
In order to run Halo 3 at 4K you will need a Core i5-3450 or AMD FX-6350 CPU grouped with a GeForce GTX 770 or Radeon RX 480 GPU and 8GB of ram. This should get you 60fps on maximum graphics settings at 4K resolution
To summarize, Halo 3 needs around a 9 year old PC to play at recommended settings.
As ever, remember you can always check out how well your PC can run the Halo 3 System Requirements here, where you can check benchmarks and performance from other users. Compare your graphics card to the Halo 3 GPU benchmark chart and we also have a Halo 3 Frames Per Second system performance chart for you to check.
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PC Specs
Im playing halo 2 anniversary edition and it looks really good at 1440p, solid 60 fps because at 4k i have dips to 40 fps or when there is too much smok but maybe thats due to optimization, and looking at the graphics of this game it actually looks worse than halo 2 so requirements shouldnt be higher
PC Specs
Getting to play this at 1440p with rock solid 144 fps has so far been an absolute dream! Enjoying the hell out of it. Lightyears ahead of the experience I remember way back when on the X360.
PC Specs
"Halo 3 storage requirement: 55GB"
Me: Wait, Thats Illegal.
PC Specs
Yeah, it was actually 6.4GB for me. For just the campaign. It might be another 3 gigs for the multiplayer, if that. Don't care for the multiplayer yet so I'm not sure.
PC Specs
It's easy to forget that Halo 3 is 13 years old now, but even so, those recommendations seem almost too forgiving. Just 2GB VRAM for 4K? Not that I'm complaining, but surely even such an old game has to be a bit more demanding than that?
PC Specs
Models a lot smaller, textures a lot smaller, nowhere near as many buffers for various effects, etc. It's really quite simple.
I ran some old games at 10K resolution and my (admitedly big) GPU didn't break a sweat, where something like The Witcher 3 didn't fit in the VRAM at 8K.