Gears Of War: E-Day On PC Won’t Let You Play Without A Ray Tracing-Capable GPU
Overview & Key Takeaways
Ahead of its release next month, the official PC specs for Gears of War: E-Day have been revealed. The next game in the series has looked good in recent previews, and if you're aiming to reach a high level of fidelity, you're going to need some fairly chunky PC hardware for 4K gibs and perfect reloads. The good news is that no matter which graphics preset you choose, you'll only need 16GB of RAM--welcome news considering just how much memory costs in the current tech climate.
One thing worth pointing out is that graphics cards without dedicated ray-tracing hardware aren't supported. It's not the first time this has been the case--Indiana Jones and the Great Circle being a prime example--but it does create a hard generational lock for interested players. By making ray-tracing hardware a baseline requirement, the game completely phases out massively popular GPUs like the GTX 1060 or AMD's RX 5000 series, making the RTX 2060 the absolute minimum threshold for playing the new Gears of War.
Developer The Coalition says it has continued to iterate and improve PC stability and performance across a wide range of hardware configurations since July, and if you're aiming to run the game at 1080p and 60fps, you'll need a GPU like an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, an entry-level RTX 5050, or an AMD Radeon RX 6600 with 6GB of VRAM. Hitting the 1440p 60fps sweet spot increases the hardware requirements to GPUs with 8GB of VRAM, while running the game at 4K 60fps means you'll need a 12GB GeForce RTX 5070 Ti or an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.
It's also worth noting that a solid-state drive is required for the game's installation files, and you'll need to free up 115GB of storage space on it. Across the presets, you can expect support for upscaling technology like Nvidia DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 3.0T, which will ease the burden on your PC. The Coalition added that the game includes a benchmark tool to help you fine-tune how it runs on your system.
Gears of War: E-Day PC Requirements
| PC Requirements | Minimum | Recommended | Ultra |
| Graphic preset | Medium | High | Ultra |
| Performance Specs | 1080p 60fps | 1440p 60fps | 4K 60fps |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 / Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 6600 / Radeon RX9060 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 / Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060ti / AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT / Radeon RX9060XT | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2600X / Intel i7-6850K / i5-10400 | AMD Ryzen 5 5600 / Intel i5-11600K | AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D / Intel i7-14700K |
| VRAM | 6 GB | 8 GB | 12 GB |
| RAM | 12 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage (SSD Required) | 115 GB | 115 GB | 115 GB |
Launching on October 6 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and day one on Xbox Game Pass, Gears of War: E-Day chronicles the first disastrous encounter between the humans living on the world of Sera and the Locust. The developers behind it recently spoke to GameSpot about a wide range of topics, from solving lore problems to how you strip the flesh off of enemies in the game's new take on Horde mode, and it looks like there's even a Smash Mouth-inspired achievement that you can earn if you want to be a real all-star.
Ahead of its release next month, the official PC specs for Gears of War: E-Day have been revealed. The next game in the series has looked good in recent previews, and if you’re aiming to reach a high level of fidelity, you’re going to need some fairly chunky PC hardware for 4K gibs and perfect reloads. The good news is that no matter which graphics preset you choose, you’ll only need 16GB of RAM–welcome news considering just how much memory costs in the current tech climate.
One thing worth pointing out is that graphics cards without dedicated ray-tracing hardware aren’t supported. It’s not the first time this has been the case–Indiana Jones and the Great Circle being a prime example–but it does create a hard generational lock for interested players. By making ray-tracing hardware a baseline requirement, the game completely phases out massively popular GPUs like the GTX 1060 or AMD’s RX 5000 series, making the RTX 2060 the absolute minimum threshold for playing the new Gears of War.
Developer The Coalition says it has continued to iterate and improve PC stability and performance across a wide range of hardware configurations since July, and if you’re aiming to run the game at 1080p and 60fps, you’ll need a GPU like an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, an entry-level RTX 5050, or an AMD Radeon RX 6600 with 6GB of VRAM. Hitting the 1440p 60fps sweet spot increases the hardware requirements to GPUs with 8GB of VRAM, while running the game at 4K 60fps means you’ll need a 12GB GeForce RTX 5070 Ti or an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.
It’s also worth noting that a solid-state drive is required for the game’s installation files, and you’ll need to free up 115GB of storage space on it. Across the presets, you can expect support for upscaling technology like Nvidia DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 3.0T, which will ease the burden on your PC. The Coalition added that the game includes a benchmark tool to help you fine-tune how it runs on your system.
Gears of War: E-Day PC Requirements
| PC Requirements | Minimum | Recommended | Ultra |
| Graphic preset | Medium | High | Ultra |
| Performance Specs | 1080p 60fps | 1440p 60fps | 4K 60fps |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 / Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 6600 / Radeon RX9060 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 / Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060ti / AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT / Radeon RX9060XT | Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2600X / Intel i7-6850K / i5-10400 | AMD Ryzen 5 5600 / Intel i5-11600K | AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D / Intel i7-14700K |
| VRAM | 6 GB | 8 GB | 12 GB |
| RAM | 12 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage (SSD Required) | 115 GB | 115 GB | 115 GB |
Launching on October 6 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and day one on Xbox Game Pass, Gears of War: E-Day chronicles the first disastrous encounter between the humans living on the world of Sera and the Locust. The developers behind it recently spoke to GameSpot about a wide range of topics, from solving lore problems to how you strip the flesh off of enemies in the game’s new take on Horde mode, and it looks like there’s even a Smash Mouth-inspired achievement that you can earn if you want to be a real all-star.
