Control Resonant needs 16 GB of RAM and 120 GB of SSD space on every tier. A GTX 1070 or RX 5600 XT handles 1080p/30, an RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT handles 1440p/60, and 4K path tracing at 60fps needs an RTX 5080. Remedy published six tiers across raster and ray tracing, and every one of them assumes upscaling is on.
Requirements shared by every tier
- OS — Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
- Memory — 16 GB RAM.
- Storage — 120 GB of free SSD space. An SSD is required, not optional.
- CPU — Intel Core i5-8500 minimum, Intel Core i7-10700 recommended.
Storage is the real barrier for most people rather than the GPU. The PC download itself is roughly 104 GB, and Remedy asks for 120 GB free to install it comfortably.
Rasterization tiers (no ray tracing)
| Tier | Target | GPU | VRAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 1080p / 30fps | GTX 1070 or RX 5600 XT | 6 GB |
| Recommended | 1440p / 60fps | RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT | 8 GB |
| Enthusiast | 4K / 60fps | RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT | 10 GB |
This is a friendlier table than it looks for a 2026 release. A GTX 1070 is a nine-year-old card and it still has an official tier, and 4K/60 without ray tracing asks for an RTX 3080 rather than current-generation hardware.
Ray tracing tiers
| Tier | Target | GPU | VRAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum RT | 1080p / 30fps | RTX 2060 Super or RX 6600 | 8 GB |
| Recommended RT | 1440p / 60fps | RTX 4070 Ti or RX 9070 | 10 GB |
| Enthusiast RT | 4K / 60fps, path tracing | RTX 5080 | 12 GB |
The top tier is the headline everyone quotes: 4K at 60fps with path tracing wants an RTX 5080, a card that sits in a small single-digit share of Steam’s hardware survey. Most players should be reading the raster table instead.
The upscaling footnote matters
Every listed configuration assumes upscaling is enabled — Quality at the minimum tier, Balanced at recommended, Performance at the 4K path tracing tier. These are not native-resolution figures.
Remedy also states it curated these targets without using frame generation, so the quoted frame rates are real rendered frames rather than generated ones. On PC the game supports DLSS, FSR, HDR, ray tracing and path tracing.
Reading the table for your own PC
Find the closest GPU in either table and read across. If your card sits between two tiers, the lower one plus a higher upscaling preset is the safer expectation, since the tiers already bake upscaling in.
The CPU requirement is modest by comparison — an i5-8500 floor and an i7-10700 recommendation means most systems built for a modern GPU will not be CPU-limited here.
How it compares to consoles
For context on how expensive ray tracing is in this engine: PS5 Pro only enables ray tracing in its 30fps Quality mode and its 40fps Balanced mode, while its 60fps Performance mode runs 2160p without it.
That mirrors the PC tables, where the jump from 4K/60 raster on an RTX 3080 to 4K/60 with path tracing on an RTX 5080 is the single largest step in the entire spec sheet.
What the CPU requirement means in practice
The Intel Core i5-8500 floor is a six-core chip from 2018, and the recommended i7-10700 is an eight-core from 2020. Neither is demanding by 2026 standards, which puts the burden of this game squarely on the GPU and the SSD.
If you are upgrading one component for this game, it is not the processor. Storage headroom and VRAM are the two places where people actually run into trouble.
Storage is the real requirement
Remedy asks for 120 GB of free SSD space against a download of roughly 104 GB. A mechanical hard drive is not supported, which rules out a lot of older secondary drives that people use as game storage.
Pre-load opens 48 hours before launch, and on PC you have to start it manually in Steam or the Epic Games Store. Clearing the space before that window opens is the difference between playing at unlock time and watching a progress bar.
Upscaling and frame generation, clarified
Every tier in Remedy’s table assumes upscaling is on — Quality at the minimum tier, Balanced at recommended, Performance for 4K path tracing. If you disable upscaling entirely, none of the published targets apply to you.
Frame generation was explicitly not used when curating these targets, so the quoted frame rates are rendered frames. Turning generation on afterwards can raise the number on screen, but it is additive to these figures rather than baked into them.
Where the RTX 5080 tier comes from
The top tier exists because the game supports path tracing, a substantially heavier technique than standard ray tracing. Coverage noted that the RTX 5080 sits in a very small share of Steam’s hardware survey, so this tier describes an enthusiast configuration rather than a mainstream target.
It is also the reason NVIDIA chose this game for its RTX 50 Series bundle: Control Resonant is a showcase title for the generation’s rendering features.
Common questions about the spec sheet
- Can a GTX 1070 really run it? That is the official minimum tier, at 1080p/30 with Quality upscaling.
- Is 8 GB VRAM enough? Yes at the recommended 1440p/60 raster tier; the 4K tiers ask for 10–12 GB.
- Do I need an SSD? Yes. 120 GB of SSD space is listed at every tier.
- Is 16 GB RAM enough? 16 GB is what every tier lists, including the RTX 5080 configuration.
If your GPU falls between two tiers, plan for the lower one with a more aggressive upscaling preset, since upscaling is already assumed in every published figure.
If your PC falls short
GeForce NOW supports Control Resonant at launch, which removes local hardware from the equation entirely — you still need to own the game, but not to run it.
NVIDIA also bundled a free Steam copy with select RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti and 5070 hardware purchased between August 25 and September 29, 2026, redeemable until October 27. If an upgrade was already on the cards, that bundle effectively covers the game’s price.