The updated version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt introduces path tracing as a primary rendering method, making it one of the most demanding titles for modern GPUs. Testing was conducted across 46 graphics cards using standard presets (Low, Normal, Ultra) and path tracing, excluding frame generation and upscaling for baseline measurements.
For 1080p resolution at Ultra settings, mid-range cards like the GeForce RTX 5050, RTX 4060, RTX 3060 Ti, Radeon RX 7600, RX 6700 XT, and Intel Arc A750 maintain 60 FPS. At 1440p, performance requirements increase, necessitating at least a GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, RTX 4070, RTX 3070 Ti, Radeon RX 9070, RX 7900 GRE, or RX 6800 XT for stable gameplay.
At 4K resolution, only top-tier hardware such as the GeForce RTX 4090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 achieves 60 FPS on Ultra settings. Lower-tier cards require significant quality reductions or upscaling to remain playable. The game supports DLSS 4.5, FSR 4, and XeSS 2.0 for performance scaling.
Path tracing remains highly resource-intensive. Without upscaling, only the GeForce RTX 5090 exceeds 60 FPS at 1080p. With balanced upscaling enabled, cards like the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, RTX 5070, Radeon RX 9070 XT, and RX 7900 XT reach the 60 FPS threshold at 1080p, while 4K path tracing performance is limited exclusively to the RTX 5090.
