With AMD and NVIDIA both competing to release the best possible PC components, game developers have the opportunity to push Video games to their limits. So we have compiled the top 5 PC games that need the best hardware to play on maximum fidelity.
Just a reminder that these might not be the “Best-Looking” games as it is subjective, but these definitely are the most demanding ones. As for the ranking methodology, we compared their frame rates when maxed out at 4K with all the settings like Ray-Tracing and path-tracing turned on, running all of it on a RTX 5090. To keep everything fair we got the numbers with all the frame-gen or upscaling tech disabled.
NUMBER 5: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Another game based on a Franchise with a cult-like following. This time you can feel the charisma of Indy in first-person with a narrative driven game with life-like visuals featuring a stealth focused sneak-up gameplay.
It was one of the first games to require Ray tracing cores just to even launch, But it’s infamous for its enormous VRAM requirements.Many high end cards can run it smoothly with everything maxed out except for the textures. And the 5090 can barely average 39 fps at 4k with
everything maxed out.
NUMBER 4: Black-Myth Wukong
I am sure everyone’s heard about this game where you play as a monkey and punish the bosses with a red stick. While this game definitely isn’t the best looking game in the list, it sure is demanding.
It is a bonafide Unreal Engine 5 title, with the final release borrowing some stock animations from the devkit. Although it is not as demanding on Ultra settings with the ray tracing off, enabling Path Tracing brings even the RTX 5090 to its knees, struggling to reach anything beyond 35 FPS.
However, it is worth mentioning that players can leverage frame-generation to effectively double the framerate for a smoother gameplay experience. Running it natively though, let’s wait for a mythical mid-range card sometime in the future powerful enough to allow that.
NUMBER 3: Cyberpunk 2077 RT Overdrive
With probably the most turbulent game launch in the past decade, Cyberpunk 2077 disappointed gamers with loads of bugs and performance issues. Even on the backend, it was a developer’s nightmare as it was taken off digital storefronts in the first couple weeks. But after years of hotfixes and patches to not only polish the game post launch, but also to repair their relationship with the community, Cyberpunk 2077 has one of the best comeback stories.
Now, it is really well optimized even on lower end hardware delivering striking visuals even at low settings. And with continued collaboration with NVIDIA, they introduced technologies like Path Tracing and Ray Reconstruction, which really advanced the Ray Tracing tech. These features make this game stand out even after 5 years of its release, making it visually on par with most AAA games even today. Maxing out all the settings, the RTX 5090 can barely average 33 fps at native 4k. But this game has the best implementation of DLSS frame-gen which can give more than 200 fps with the same settings.
NUMBER 2: Doom The Dark Ages
The original Doom is one of the most influential games of all time. It defined the shooter genre as we know it today. And id software is still at it today with Doom the dark ages. With the same gory animations and a wide range of badass weapons, this is a worthy sequel to a library of some of the all time greats.
And like Indiana Jones, Doom TGA required ray tracing just to launch and although when it was first released, the game ran at a respectable 80 fps with everything maxed out at native 4k. But soon after, the Path-Tracing patch was released and it dwindled that number down to a meager 30 fps. That shows how path-tracing can affect performance,less than half the performance in this case.
Honorable Mention: Delta force Black Hawk Down
Based on the 2001 Movie by Ridley Scott and a remake of the original game from 2001, this first person shooter recreates the events of the movie in stunning detail, showcasing some of the best graphics ever seen in video games.
NUMBER 1: Alan Wake 2
13 long years after the first game, Remedy finally released the long awaited Alan Wake 2, considered by many, a true next-gen experience. Praised for genre-defining horror sequences and gritty storytelling, the game features some of the best atmosphere designed in a video game, further enhanced by realistic motion capture and performance by the cast.
On the hardware front, however, the game finally killed the long standing Pascal architecture by designing visuals with mesh shaders, a feature unsupported by NVIDIA’s 10-series and AMD’s 5000-series cards. And it is taxing even on newer-gen architectures. When completely maxed out with Path-Tracing, the RTX 5090 can’t even manage 30 fps in the forest area. It needs DLSS to just pass the 40 fps mark.
So these were some of the most demanding games to challenge even some of the highest end systems available to consumers. But let’s not forget that just because you can’t max out a game’s graphics, you can’t enjoy it. Many youtube channels like Hardware Unboxed and Digital Foundry are dedicated to optimizing games to perform great while retaining most of the visuals.
But I wanted to end this off on a simple note- you don’t need the highest end hardware to enjoy video games. I think the best video games don’t even rely on realistic visuals which can easily get outdated. Although, good art direction is timeless.
So if you want a High-end 4K rig or even just a modest 1080p rig, we have got you covered. Call us on our toll free number to get greeted by our team, who can configure you the best PC as per your needs and budget.
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