Tom Clancy's The Division 2
Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is, naturally, the sequel to The Division, which was published three years ago and remains a staple in our benchmark suite for its great-looking graphics. Like the original, The Division 2 utilizes Massive Entertainment's proprietary Snowdrop Engine. It's still DirectX 11- and DirectX 12-compatible, and the game continues showing a preference for AMD graphics hardware. We're not entirely surprised since this multi-platform game is optimized for the Xbox One (with an AMD APU), PlayStation 4 (also armed with an AMD APU), and PC. So, let's see how The Division 2 runs when we set it up on a mid-range test platform with several different graphics cards, various host processing core counts, and a couple of popular resolutions.
The Benchmark Sequence
Like the first title in this franchise, The Division 2 includes a built-in benchmark sequence that does a good job of taxing host and graphics processing subsystems. It's divided into four parts, presenting scenes rich in reflections or vegetation and others with more geometric complexity or greater rendering distances.
Minimum Requirements and Recommended Hardware
Game details on the Ubisoft Store differ slightly from the publisher's product page. The former suggests you need at least a Radeon R9 270 or GeForce GTX 670 for 30 FPS at 1920 x 1080, while the latter ups that to a Radeon R9 280X or GeForce GTX 780. Overall, though, the game's requirements can be satisfied with most modern graphics cards.
At the low end, an AMD FX-6350 or Intel Core i5-2500K are considered ample. However, we did notice The Division 2's integrated benchmark reporting high CPU utilization. Given an "Elite - 4K | 60 FPS" recommendation that includes a Ryzen 7 2700X or Core i7-8700K, it's safe to guess the game can fully exercise high-end hardware.
| PC Hardware | Minimum | Recommended |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-2500KAMD FX-6350 | Intel Core i7-4790AMD Ryzen 5 1500X |
| Memory | 8GB | 8GB |
| Graphics Card | Nvidia GeForce GTX 670AMD Radeon R9 270 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 970AMD Radeon RX 480 |
| Graphics Memory | 2GB | 4GB |
| Operating SystemDirectX Version | Windows 7/8/10DirectX 11/12 | Windows 7/8/10DirectX 11/12 |
It's also worth noting that Ubisoft spells out the benefit of playing this multi-platform title on PC. The main differentiators are an uncapped frame rate, multi-screen and widescreen display support, an uncapped display resolution, variable refresh rate support, full UI and HUD customization, and support for high dynamic range.
MORE: Best Graphics Cards
MORE: Desktop GPU Performance Hierarchy Table
MORE: All Graphics Content
