Valve · 2023 · Tactical Shooter
Counter-Strike 2 is Valve’s Source 2 rebuild of the long-running competitive shooter, replacing CS:GO with updated lighting, physics and smoke rendering. It still runs comfortably on modest hardware by modern standards.
The move to Source 2 did raise its baseline requirements slightly compared to the previous engine, particularly around VRAM and installed storage space.
| Requirement | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-750 / AMD equivalent | Intel Core i5-9600K / AMD Ryzen 5 3600 |
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 660 / AMD equivalent, 1GB VRAM | NVIDIA GTX 1650 / AMD RX 570 |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage | 85 GB | 85 GB |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 11 64-bit |
Source: the publisher's own officially listed system requirements (view source). Actual performance still depends on drivers, background load and in-game settings.
Want to know how YOUR specific CPU and GPU actually pair up, not just whether you clear the minimum?
Test Your ConfigurationCompetitive tactical shooters are deliberately light on hardware so more players can hit high, stable framerates, which means even a modest GPU clears the recommended spec — the bigger lever for competitive play is a high-refresh-rate monitor and a CPU that keeps the 1% low framerate steady during firefights.
The jump from 8GB to 16GB of RAM between the minimum and recommended spec is where Counter-Strike 2 stops paging textures and level data from disk mid-play — below 16GB, that shows up as short stutters and pop-in rather than a flat drop in average framerate. At roughly 85GB, plan storage for Counter-Strike 2 the same way you would for any modern title: an NVMe SSD keeps load times and texture streaming noticeably smoother than a hard drive at the same free-space total.
8GB is the publisher's stated minimum, meaning Counter-Strike 2 will start and run, but 16GB (the recommended figure) avoids the stuttering that comes from paging assets off your storage drive mid-session. Use our RAM calculator to check your exact total against everything else you run alongside it.
For Counter-Strike 2, the GPU is the more common limiting part at higher resolutions and settings — our PC Bottleneck Calculator breaks this down by your exact CPU and GPU pairing instead of a generic rule of thumb.
Plan for at least 85GB free, not exactly 85GB — day-one patches, DLC and shader/texture caches routinely add several more gigabytes after install. Our Storage Calculator can help you plan an upgrade if you are close to full.