What are the Horizon Forbidden West system requirements? Like many PS5 ports, Horizon Forbidden West is easy to run on older hardware but will demand some serious power if you want to enjoy 4K gameplay.
To get Horizon Forbidden West performing at its most demanding settings, you will need one of the best graphics cards available, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080. Luckily, to get the game moving on older gaming laptops and PCs, the barrier to entry is far lower.
Here are the Horizon Forbidden West system requirements:
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| OS | Windows 10 or later | Windows 10 or later |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 AMD Radeon RX 5500XT |
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 AMD Radeon RX 5700 |
| CPU | Intel Core i3 8100 AMD Ryzen 3 1300X |
Intel Core i5 8600 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 |
| RAM | 16GB | 16GB |
| Storage | 150GB SSD | 150GB SSD |
The Horizon Forbidden West minimum settings are listed as returning 30fps @ 720p using the ‘Very Low’ presets. You’ll need an Intel Core i3 8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X alongside an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 5500XT.
We’ve just seen confirmation that Nvidia is stopping production of GTX graphics cards, but we still expect to see them feature in many minimum requirements over the next few years.
You’ll need to jump up a few generations to meet the Horizon Forbidden West recommended specs, as these demand an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 GPU paired with an Intel Core i5 8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU. This is the hardware you’ll need to run the game at 1080p with 60fps.
The Horizon Forbidden West high settings are a fair jump up from the previous requirements, only asking for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 or AMD Radeon 6800. On the CPU front, you’ll need an Intel Core i7 9700 or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X.
Finally, the Horizon Forbidden West ultra settings are where you’re targeting 4K gameplay at 60fps. You’ll need an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900XT alongside an Intel Core i7 11700 or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X.
Where the specs get truly interesting, as you may have already noticed, is the flat 16GB RAM requirements across all levels. While it’s not unheard of for a game to start its demands at this level, to require no increase right up to 4K output is a little surprising. It has us wondering whether you might be able to get away with 8GB if only aiming for basic visuals, but perhaps the 16GB demand is a way to cover just in case performance isn’t ideal.
If you’re still worrying about the performance of Horizon Forbidden West on your gaming PC, Nixxes is taking its port expertise and bringing all three major upscalers to the game at launch. Nvidia DLSS 3, AMD FSR 3, and Intel XeSS will all be available to help lower-end machines achieve playable frame rates while frame generation is there for anyone looking to squeeze more frames out on the high-end.
It’s no surprise to see the Horizon Forbidden West download size also top the 100GB mark, but 150GB is genuinely quite concerning. You’ll also need one of the best SSDs for gaming given that there is no indication that a traditional HDD will hold up.
Take the Horizon Forbidden West system requirements PC benchmark test to answer the question… Can I run Horizon Forbidden West?