The Civilization 7 system requirements need an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 at Ultra

It's been eight years since Civ 6 so the Civ 7 system reqs might look intimidating, but they're contextually on par with our expectations.

The Civilization 7 system requirements have finally been revealed, and they’re an interesting mix of old and new hardware, depending on the settings you want to run. However, if your gaming PC or laptop barely met the requirements of the previous game, you’re going to need some upgrades if you hope to run the latest Sid Meier turn-based global domination sim.

The Civilization 7 release date is still a few months away, meaning there is time to prepare your gaming PC to meet its system requirements. You won’t need the best graphics card, but if you’re aiming for the Ultra tier, you’re going to need to invest in some of the best gaming RAM as Civilization 7 demands up to 32GB of memory.

Here are the Civilization 7 system requirements:

The Civ 7 minimum requirements detail the hardware you need to run the game at 1080p on the lowest graphical preset with a 30fps return. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 hadn’t even been released when Civ 7 came out, but now it’s the minimum GPU required to run the latest game.

These specs are pleasingly minimal, though, showing that most people will be able to run the game on even a basic gaming PC from the last six years. You only need a basic quad-core Intel or AMD CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an entry-level GPU from eight years ago. However, there’s a notable lack of integrated GPUs listed in the requirements meaning that, unlike Civ 6, you won’t be able to run it on an old and basic Intel laptop with integrated graphics any more.

As for the Civ 7 recommended specs, these are in line with modern games that aren’t too graphically demanding. The GeForce RTX 2060, a card that was arguably underpowered even at the time of its release, is the barrier to entry, while the RAM requirement is doubled from 8GB to 16GB. Meanwhile, a six-core Intel or AMD CPU from the last few years will be able to handle processing duties.

The Civ 7 Ultra specs are the most interesting tier because they paint the picture of a game that is very demanding to run at its highest settings in 4K. That’s despite the fact that the Civilization games are turn-based, and usually have quite cartoony graphics. However, if you want to turn on all the eye candy at 4K, you’re going to need at least an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 or a Radeon RX 7800 XT – two mid-range, current-gen GPUs that cost around $500.

What’s really interesting here, though, are the CPU requirements. You’ll need an Intel Core i7 14700F or an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, and these chips aren’t often listed in gaming system requirements. That’s because they’re absolutely stacked with cores – 20 (eight P-Cores and 12 E-Cores) on the 14700F and 16 on the 5950X. Usually, you would expect a Ryzen 5 5600X or Core i5 14600K to be listed here, as games don’t often use loads of CPU cores, but it looks as though Civ 7 may make good use of multithreading.

That’s unlikely to have much of an impact on the frame rate, which will largely be dictated by the GPU. However, Civ 7 may be able to take advantage of multiple CPU cores to reduce the time for the AI to take its turn. That’s been a problem in the past, with Civ 6 taking a long time to process turns once you get toward the end game, even on a decent CPU. If that’s the case, then a CPU with loads of cores might not just be useful for running the game at 4K, but it could also come in handy at lower graphical settings.

You’ll also need to double your RAM again to hit the Ultra requirements, with at least 32GB in your machine, a requirement that’s rarely seen for games, even in 2024.

As for the Civ 7 download size, it’s currently listed as 20GB with an SSD required. I fully expect the game to be playable on a hard drive but for the best loading times, you’re going to want one of the best gaming SSDs.

Take our Civilization 7 system requirements PC benchmark test to answer the question… Can I run Civ 7?