Escape From Tarkov System Requirements: Minimum, Recommended, And What To Upgrade

If you're wanting to know the Escape From Tarkov system requirements, check out this guide for the official minimum and recommended specs, alongside a couple of tips on what to upgrade to improve performance.

Harry Boulton

08th Aug 2022 15:25

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You'll want to have a look at the Escape From Tarkov system requirements before you buy the game, as you're going to want to make sure you have the specs to run the notoriously system-intensive game. The last thing you'll want in Escape From Tarkov is low frames and stuttering, as it is a tense extraction shooter where you can die in a matter of moments. So, to find out the Escape From Tarkov system requirements, including the minimum and recommended components, make sure to carry on reading.

Escape From Tarkov System Requirements: Minimum

Escape From Tarkov System Requirements Minimum

The following specs are presumably what you'll need as a minimum in your PC in order to boot the game up, but they are far from an optimal set up if you're looking to actually play the game.

There are things you can do to make the game playable on a less-powerful PC however, so make sure to follow our Escape From Tarkov best settings guide for all the tips you'll need.

Here's a full list of the minimum Escape From Tarkov system requirements:

OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64 Bit)
Processor: Dual-core processor 2.4 GHz (Intel Core 2 Duo, i3), 2.6 GHz (AMD Athlon, Phenom II)
RAM: 8 GB
Graphics Card: DX11 compatible graphics card with 1 GB memory
Sound: DirectX compatible audio card
Network: Permanent connection to the Internet
Disk space: From 19 GB HDD

As we mentioned, you're going to realistically look beyond these specs if you're actually looking to play the game at a decent frame rate, but at least you'll know what the bar you'll need to surpass is.

Escape From Tarkov System Requirements: Recommended

Escape From Tarkov System Requirements Recommended

The following components are what you're going to be looking more towards if you're wanting to play the game at a more stable framerate, but even then it doesn't give you a full picture of what Tarkov likes component-wise.

Here are the Escape From Tarkov recommended system requirements:

OS: Windows 7/8/10 (64 Bit)
Processor: Quad-core processor 3.2 GHz (Intel i5, i7), от 3.6 GHz (AMD FX, Athlon)
RAM: From 16 GB
Graphics Card: DX11 compatible graphics card with 2 GB or more of memory
Sound: DirectX compatible audio card
Network: Permanent connection to the Internet
Disk space: From 19 GB

While these components give you a really good base ground for a playable Escape From Tarkov experience, there are a couple of things you can do and focus on if you want to upgrade your system specifically for Tarkov.

Frustratingly, Escape From Tarkov is rather ambivalent towards your graphics card of choice. Of course, upgrading your graphics card is always going to give you more frames, but it gives a noticeably subdued improvement in Escape From Tarkov. By all means, go for one of the Nvidia 3000 or AMD 5000 series cards to get some extra performance, but you will almost always see your card at suboptimal usage levels.

On the other hand, one of the best ways you can see your performance skyrocket is by upgrading your CPU, specifically to one with high single-core performance. The recently released AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D seems to be the gold standard in Tarkov right now, but generally improving your CPU will see a larger potential increase than any other component realistically.

RAM is potentially where some players will run into a bottleneck in Escape From Tarkov as it is one of the more RAM-hungry games out there. Although the recommended specs state that 16GB of RAM is preferred, the general thought is that 32GB is a much safer choice.

You will largely get on ok if you have 16GB, but some of the newer maps in the game like Reserve and Lighthouse have consistently been able to exceed the 16GB limit. This can be one of the causes if you're running into stuttering - especially on these maps - so it might be worth upgrading.

The final slight omission from the recommended specs is the importance of having Escape From Tarkov on an SSD, as opposed to a hard disk drive. Many games are now encouraging their players to prioritise SSD storage to improve performance, and this is definitely the case with Tarkov, where load times and stuttering can be the bane of your life on an HDD. A standard SSD is better than nothing, but going for a high-performance M.2 NVMe drive is definitely the way to go if you can fit it into your system.

About The Author

Harry Boulton

Harry is a Guides Writer at GGRecon, having completed a Masters of Research degree in Film Studies. Previously a freelance writer for PCGamesN, The Loadout, and Red Bull Gaming, he loves playing a wide variety of games from the Souls series to JRPGs, Counter-Strike, and EA FC. When not playing or writing about games and hardware, you're likely to find him watching football or listening to Madonna and Kate Bush.

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