Grand Theft Auto V System Requirements

Can I Run Grand Theft Auto V?

Whether you can run Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V all depends on what hardware your current gaming rig boasts, so you’ll need to know exactly what components you have as a first step. 

Once you’ve done this, compare them to the minimum and recommended system requirements listed below. Sadly, if they fall short, your experience might be defined by low settings and even lower FPS counts. On the other hand, if they exceed them, then you should be good to dive into Grand Theft Auto V.

If you are having trouble finding your system specifications, check out our simple guide right here.

In the future, we hope to have a bespoke tool to do the heavy lifting for you. It’s currently still being worked on, but things are moving along well and we’ll be sure to post an update once it’s ready to be unleashed into the world.

Grand Theft Auto V Game Details

• Release Date: 17th September 2017 (PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3,)
• System Requirements: Low-Medium
• Genre: Action-adventure
• Developer: Rockstar North
• Publisher: Rockstar Games

The fifth entry in Rockstar Games long-running franchise, Grand Theft Auto V is a third-person action-adventure game that crash lands the player in an immersive 81km2 open-world playground set in the festering cesspit of depravity that is Los Santos, loosely based on real-world Los Angeles. From car theft to murder by way of pretty much any criminal shinanigans you can conjure up, Grand Theft Auto V provides a sandbox to live out your most perverse fantasies.

Infused with snarky humor and scathing critics of much of the modern western world, Grand Theft Auto V is as much a commentary on the excesses of capitalism as a study of the seedy underbelly that defines most modern metropolises.

It marries a riveting single-player mode that follows three protagonists with drastically different pasts and socio-economic status as their worlds collide in a thrilling narrative of heists, double-crossing, police corruption, high-octane pursuits, and a good dose of the otherworldly as Rockstar is known for.

Alongside is Grand Theft Auto Online, Rockstar’s multiplayer component that is still updated to this day where players can vie for dominance against hordes of other real-world players to become Los Santos’ top dog by any means necessary.

Grand Theft Auto V is very much an institution at this point and a must-play for anyone who has yet to sample its delights. Case in point is the fact that it systematically features among the top-selling games for each successive month with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Grand Theft Auto V: Minimum Requirements

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 | AMD Phenom 9850
• RAM: 4 GB RAM
• HDD: 65 GB available space
• GPU: NVIDIA 9800 GT 1GB | AMD HD 4870 1GB
• OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
• Screen Resolution: 800×600 or better
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

Grand Theft Auto V: Recommended Requirements

• CPU: Intel Core i5 3470 | AMD X8 FX-8350
• RAM: 8 GB RAM
• HDD: 65 GB available space
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB | AMD HD7870 2GB
• OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit, Windows 8 64 Bit, Windows 7 64 Bit Service Pack 1
• Screen Resolution: 800×600 or better
• Network: Broadband Internet connection

Optimal Hardware Suggestions

The minimum specifications are a source of confusion due to the game’s age. Since releasing Grand Theft Auto V six-years ago, Rockstar has pushed out countless updates to both the single-player portion as well as Grand Theft Auto Online affecting quite drastically what’s needed to get the game running a decent state. 

As such, the current minimum specifications will struggle to hit anything higher than 20 FPS even at the lowest settings and lower resolutions. It isn’t conducive to a pleasant gaming experience and one we strongly urge against to witness Grand Theft Auto V in all its violent glory.

As such we recommend using the recommended requirements as the entry point for Grand Theft Auto V. With these, you can comfortably hit between 50 and 60 FPS at high settings running the game at 1080p. Of course, you can improve things by dropping certain settings like anti-aliasing and texture levels. If you bump them north to ultra, then the FPS drops off drastically, and the game will struggle to hit above 25 FPS. As for 4K, the situation is very similar with an even more pronounced drop in FPS count.

Overall, the recommended specifications aren’t exactly demanding by today’s standards, and you can improve performance quite drastically by upgrading to a slightly better GPU. Grand Theft Auto V is GPU dependent due to long draw distances, so even with a lesser CPU and a decent GPU, you can hit comfortable frame rates.

As a side note, Grand Theft Auto V may be six-years-old, but it still requires a whopping 65 GB of storage space so make the necessary arrangements before installation.

What Gaming PC Do We Recommend?

As above, the Intel Core i5 is more than adequate to handle Grand Theft Auto V, but ideally, we’d want to bump up the GPU a little to hit those higher resolutions and settings. We would, therefore, recommend an NVIDIA GTX 1660 6GB or equivalent graphics card just to be on the safe side. 8 GB of RAM is more than enough and should already feature among the specifications for most gaming PCs around today. If you’ve got some cash spare, a PC always benefits from more RAM, so jump to 16 GB if you can.

• CPU: Intel Core i5 3470
• RAM: 8 GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6 GB

If you need pointing in the right direction for a good foundation, we recommend our $500 or $600 builds. They use AMD components so you’ll save in that sense already and the system is more than sufficient to run Grand Theft Auto V on ultra settings at 1080p with a solid 50-60 FPS even in heated car chases or gunfights.