Civilization VII recommends 16 cores and 32GB RAM for 4K gameplay — RTX 4070 or RX 7800XT is the minimum

Yesterday morning, Firaxis Games announced the Minimum, Recommended, and Ultra PC requirements for Civilization VII, the next in their timeless series of turn-based strategy games.

As an aside, Firaxis also mentioned that Civ VII would be coming to Mac OS X, Linux, and even SteamOS—likely meaning a natively playable Steam Deck port down the line since that device is only 720p/800p.

Civilization is known for being a PC series first, so no bloated (or lacking) console base specifications should be holding back the experience here— though there is some surprise that the demands for an "Ultra" class experience at 4K, 60 FPS, and High Settings demand a 32 GB allocation of RAM. This number is quite the increase of Civ VI's Recommend 8 GB RAM allocation.

The minimum system requirements for Civilization VII are pretty reasonable. For all tiers of performance and resolution, users should have at least 20 GB of space free on a Solid State Drive for the best experience.

For a playable experience targeting 1080p, Low settings, and 30 FPS, Firaxis recommends entry-level CPUs from Intel 10th Gen and AMD Ryzen's first generation— very old processors at this point that most PC gamers have likely long upgraded past. The graphics requirements of GTX 1050, RX 460, and Arc A380 are similarly reasonable. The old game's recommended RAM spec— 8 GB— is now the new minimum spec, probably the most significant bump for anyone already using 8 GB or less.

The new Recommended requirements targeting Medium settings at 1080p and 60 FPS do up the ante a little, though. Users are expected to have a 10th Gen Core i5 or a Ryzen 5 3600X-class processor and at least an RTX 2060, Arc A750, or RX 6600-class graphics card, which are considerably more expensive. The RAM requirement has also doubled while targeting the exact 1080p resolution as the minimum requirement, from raising detail to medium settings and targeting 60 FPS.

While large-scale RTS and city/society building games can get pretty intense with simulated aspects tied to the CPU and memory bandwidth, it still seems a bit surprising for many users reacting in shock about how high the requirements for Civilization VI at 4K 60 FPS have become. However, these are perfectly in line with— if not considerably more reasonable than— system requirements for several more realistic-looking, action-oriented titles on PC.

At least in terms of CPU and GPU, a 14th-generation Intel Core i7 or Ryzen 9 5950X-class CPU and the demands of an RTX 4070 or RX 7800 XT make sense considering the 4K, 60 FPS, and High settings target. 32 GB of RAM is still pretty severe for any modern game, though, and hints that the simulation aspects in play (or perhaps other gameplay elements like draw distance, zoom distance, or both) are particularly intensive on the CPU and RAM of each player's PC.