Ghost Recon: Breakpoint's PC requirements start getting Ultra hefty at 1080p
1080p, 1440p and 4K PC specs revealed
The PC requirements for Ubisoft's next big military shooty game Ghost Recon: Breakpoint were announced earlier today, detailing lots of nice PC-specific things like ultrawide and multi-monitor support, uncapped 4K frame rates, as well as support for Tobii eye-tracking and AMD's new sharpening FidelityFX tech. However, those looking forward to gazing longingly at the carefully coiffed hairs of Jon Bernthal's chinny chin chin may find themselves coming up short in the old graphics card department, as there's a weirdly large gap between what's required for High and what you'll need to play it on Ultra.
To their credit, Ubisoft have gone into a fair bit of detail for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint's PC requirements this time round, laying out what you'll need for Low, High and Ultra settings for those playing at 1920x1080, as well as what you'll need for playing on Ultra at 1440p an 4K. However, take a look at the specs below, and you'll notice there's a mildly ridiculous leap between High and Ultra, even at 1080p.
Minimum specs: (Low, 1080p)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 1200 / Intel Core i5-4460
RAM: 8GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon R9 280X / Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 (4GB)
OS: Windows 7-10
Recommended specs: (High, 1080p)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 / Intel Core i7-6700K
RAM: 8GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 480 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB)
OS: Windows 7-10
Ultra specs: (1080p)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X / Intel Core i7-6700K
RAM: 16GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
OS: Windows 10
The jump to 16GB of RAM I can perhaps understand, but to say a £200-odd graphics card is fine for High settings at 1080p, but that you'll need a £400-odd one to play on Ultra sounds a bit off the boil - especially when they list those same specs for playing on Ultra at 2560x1440 (see below).
Perhaps Ubisoft's idea of 'Ultra 1080p' settings means playing at higher frame rates beyond the traditional 60fps mark in this particular case, or maybe it is indeed twice as demanding as playing on High. However, when they fail to make any mention of said frame rates in their announcement post, it smacks of something being not quite right.
Ultra specs: (1440p)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700X / Intel Core i7-6700K
RAM: 16GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
OS: Windows 10
Ultra specs: (4K)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X / Intel Core i7-7700K
RAM: 16GB
Graphics card: AMD Radeon VII / Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
OS: Windows 10
It's not like we can use Ubisoft's PC requirements for The Division 2 to give us a better idea of what it might mean, either, as this stops short of specifying an Ultra 1080p spec and simply moves from Recommended specs for playing at 1080p 60fps to the Recommended specs for playing at 1440p 60fps.
Who knows, maybe someone in Ubisoft's technical department simply got a bit too trigger happy with their copy-paste commands, or maybe Jon Bernthal's face is just so ridiculously chiselled in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint that anything other than a doubly-expensive graphics card simply isn't up to the task of capturing his punishing level of fuzz ('cause he's the guy wot played The Punisher, geddit?).
Either way, the good news is that the game will be coming with its own internal benchmarking tool upon release, so I'll be able to check whether Ghost Recon: Breakpoint's Ultra setting really is that demanding before it comes out on October 4. Will Ubisoft end up amending their Ultra 1080p spec in the same way that Remedy lowered their PC requirements for Control just the other week? Let's hope so. In the mean time, though, here's a vague PC feature trailer featuring more beardy Jon Bernthal:
