Rockstar Games · 2019 · Open-World Action
Red Dead Redemption 2 is Rockstar’s open-world western, widely regarded as one of the most demanding, best-optimized open-world games of its generation thanks to its extensive in-game graphics settings menu.
It scales unusually well across hardware tiers, from the minimum spec listed here up to genuinely punishing settings on high-end systems.
| Requirement | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2500K / AMD FX-6300 | Intel Core i7-4770K / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X |
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 770 2GB / AMD R9 280 3GB | NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX 480 4GB |
| RAM | 8 GB | 12 GB |
| Storage | 150 GB | 150 GB |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 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 ConfigurationOpen-world action games stream in traffic, pedestrians, physics objects and long draw distances continuously, which leans harder on the CPU (and on fast storage) than a linear, level-based game — a stronger CPU pays off more here than in most genres, even before touching graphics settings.
The jump from 8GB to 12GB of RAM between the minimum and recommended spec is where Red Dead Redemption 2 stops paging textures and level data from disk mid-play — below 12GB, that shows up as short stutters and pop-in rather than a flat drop in average framerate. At roughly 150GB, plan storage for Red Dead Redemption 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 Red Dead Redemption 2 will start and run, but 12GB (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 Red Dead Redemption 2 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 150GB free, not exactly 150GB — 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.