Xdefiant minimum and recommended system requirements – can you run it?

Ubisoft’s latest online multiplayer shooter Xdefiant has gotten quite the buzz about it; and not only because it’s free-to-play. By bringing some of Ubisoft’s iconic fighters into the arena, this Call of Duty-esque competitor gained some attention during its access periods, and the game’s full launch is just around the corner now. More specifically, you’ll be getting characters from favorite games including Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and more, which add a unique flavor to combat as you compete for glory across the different maps and game modes.

However, if you’re here then you no doubt want to double-check that your PC is ready to get stuck into the action of Xdefiant, without any issues of lag, stuttering, or failure due to your hardware. To that end, we’ve put this piece together to outline the Xdefiant system requirements for you. As an online team-oriented game, you might expect Xdefiant to be a bit CPU-heavy, but it remains enjoyably lightweight to run: this means that even some of the oldest and cheapest gaming rigs should be smooth sailing.

Xdefiant minimum system requirements – 1080p, 60FPS, Low Graphics Settings

To the luck of players, Ubisoft has actually outlined four sets of system requirements, providing solid guidelines for gamers across the performance spectrum: Minimum requirements, Recommended requirements, Enthusiast requirements, and finally Ultra requirements.

As you can see, the minimum system requirements for running Xdefiant really aren’t too demanding, which makes the game super accessible to gamers who don’t have access to the latest and greatest rigs. Needless to say, you won’t need one of the best gaming PCs for this title. While processors such as the Intel i3-10105F or Ryzen 3 3100 won’t be the most popular for the newest AAA titles, undemanding games such as Xdefiant shouldn’t present any issues.

To pair with that, Ubisoft is asking for either an Arc A380, a GTX 1050 Ti, or an RX 5500 XT, older low-end graphics cards. Like the CPUs, these are both a bit older and at the low-end of the performance spectrum, but will still see you cruising through 1080p at low graphics settings, so perfect for those that aren’t fussed about 4K and simply want to play. Of course though, if you do want better higher FPS and better performance, you’re better off browsing some of the best CPUs for gaming, and considering a GPU upgrade from there.

Xdefiant recommended system requirements – 1080p, 60FPS, High Graphics Settings

As you can see, there’s not a massive leap up to the recommended requirements, but the main thing of note is that there’s just a bit more RAM available all round, meaning you’ll have even smoother in-game data-retrieval – better performance basically! Ubisoft now advises of an Arc A750, GTX 1060, or a 5500 XT that has 8GB of RAM instead. This still isn’t a massive ask, as all of these cards still sit at the entry-level end of things, meaning it’s not out of the question for a range of systems to be playing Xdefiant at 1080 with high graphics settings enabled.

Xdefiant ‘Enthusiast’ and ‘Ultra’ PC specs – 1440p / 4K gameplay

The ‘Enthusiast’ system requirements outlined by Ubisoft see a natural generational step up for the CPU and GPU, but we’re still hardly departing from the low-end. CPU-wise, to run Xdefiant at a smoother 1440p you’ll need a minimum of the likes of an i5-10400, or a step into the Ryzen 5 series with a 5 3600. On the GPU side of things, you’ll need an Intel Arc A770 (which should work some magic when paired with an Intel CPU), a GTX 2060, or an RX 5600 XT. We’re still looking at a few generations behind current flagships, so you should be able to get these kind of components in your PC for pretty cheap if you don’t have them already.

Lastly, Ubisoft has shed some light on what kind of setups will be ready to run Xdefiant at 4K resolutions, and while we’re obviously seeing another generational step up, we’re still not quite gracing the power of the best GPUs for gaming. Instead, we’re still staying around the range of the best entry-level GPUs with the likes of a 3080 or a 6800 XT. However, you’ll obviously feel a nice difference compared to using a 1050 Ti.

What CPU and GPU do we recommend?

As you can see from the system requirements listed above, Xdefiant is not a demanding game, and we’ve taken this into account when thinking about which components we’d personally put into a rig that’s going to be running Ubisoft’s latest shooter. Of course, having low minimum requirements doesn’t mean that the in-game experience of Xdefiant will be lacking, and it’s already getting praise for the way its abilities are fun and vary gameplay without taking center stage from regular gunplay, and how it mixes sci-fi technology with reality-based weapons.

Okay, jumping into what we’d recommend, GPU-wise we’d probably go for a strong mid-range player such as an RTX 4060 Ti, an Ada card that proposes great value for money, or from Team Red, something along the lines of an RX 7700 XT, another good card for 1440p. This game doesn’t promise to be massively demanding on your GPU, but having those extra CUDA cores / Stream Processors and VRAM will smooth things out and add an even brighter pop of color to the already vibrant world of Xdefiant. For a CPU, we recommend an Intel i5-13600K, one of the best mid-range gaming processors, or a Ryzen 5 7600X.