Epic Games · 2017 · Battle Royale
Fortnite is Epic Games’ battle royale and creative sandbox, built on Unreal Engine and scalable across a very wide range of hardware, from low-power laptops to high-end gaming rigs.
Competitive players typically prioritize high, stable frame rates over maximum visual settings, which this title’s flexible performance modes are specifically designed to support.
| Requirement | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i3-3225 | Intel Core i5-7300U / AMD Ryzen 3 3300U |
| GPU | Intel HD 4000 | NVIDIA GTX 960 / AMD R9 280 |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage | 40 GB | 40 GB |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10/11 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 roughly what frame rate your own CPU and graphics card get in Fortnite, not just whether you clear the minimum?
Check Your PC for FortniteOr check every game in our list at once with Can I Run It?, or the balance of your CPU and graphics card with the Bottleneck Calculator.
Battle royale maps load dozens of players, vehicles and destructible objects into memory at once, so CPU load climbs sharply in the endgame even when the GPU still has spare headroom — this genre tends to be more CPU-sensitive in practice than its recommended GPU spec alone suggests.
The jump from 8GB to 16GB of RAM between the minimum and recommended spec is where Fortnite 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 40GB, plan storage for Fortnite 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.
At 16GB, Fortnite asks for as much recommended RAM as any of the other 15 games we cover. 9 others ask for the same amount. Its 40GB install ranks #13 of 16 by size, so 12 of the games we cover need more free space.
Games with the closest published requirements (recommended RAM, install size and minimum RAM):
| Game | Recommended RAM | Install size | Recommended GPU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fortnite (this page) | 16 GB | 40 GB | NVIDIA GTX 960 / AMD R9 280 |
| PUBG: Battlegrounds | 16 GB | 50 GB | NVIDIA GTX 1060 3GB / AMD RX 580 4GB |
| Minecraft: Java Edition | 16 GB | 4 GB | NVIDIA RTX 2060 / AMD RX 5600 XT 6GB |
| Counter-Strike 2 | 16 GB | 85 GB | NVIDIA GTX 1650 / AMD RX 570 (our suggestion) |
The Bottleneck Calculator treats Fortnite as one of the esports games. Here is which part would set the frame rate on 6 pairings from budget to high-end at high settings; each pairing links to its full page.
| CPU + GPU | 1080p | 1440p |
|---|---|---|
| Core i3-12100F + RX 6600 | GPU-limited | GPU-limited |
| Ryzen 5 5600 + RTX 3060 Ti | Balanced | GPU-limited |
| Ryzen 7 5800X + RTX 3070 | CPU ~8% | GPU-limited |
| Core i7-12700K + RTX 4070 Super | CPU ~16% | GPU-limited |
| Ryzen 9 7900X + RX 7900 XT | CPU ~18% | GPU-limited |
| Ryzen 9 9900X + RTX 5080 | CPU ~32% | Balanced |
Estimate Fortnite FPS for your own CPU and GPU · Check every game against your PC · All CPU + GPU comparisons
What the parts in the table above do: CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD.
8GB is the publisher's stated minimum, meaning Fortnite 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 Fortnite specifically, the CPU tends to be the more common limiting part in practice, not just the GPU — check your exact pairing with our PC Bottleneck Calculator before assuming a GPU upgrade alone will fix low or inconsistent framerates.
Plan for at least 40GB free, not exactly 40GB — 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.
The publisher lists Intel HD 4000 as the minimum and NVIDIA GTX 960 / AMD R9 280 as the recommended graphics card for Fortnite. To see how your own card is likely to perform at your resolution, try our FPS Calculator, and check memory needs with the GPU VRAM Calculator.
The publisher lists Windows 10 64-bit for the minimum spec and Windows 10/11 64-bit for the recommended spec of Fortnite.