Publisher Activision has finally got around to publishing their minimum system requirements for the next installment in their multi-million dollar Call of Duty franchise, Advanced Warfare. While the “Recommended” system requirements are not yet published we can get a good idea of what they might be based on the minimum requirements and the requirements of previous installments in the series.
This iteration of the game has reportedly been developed on a completely rebuilt game engine with new animation, rendering, physics and audio systems according to an interview with the developer in EDGE magazine.
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 64-Bit
Processor: Intel Core i3-530 @ 2.93 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 810 @ 2.80 GHz or better
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 @ 1GB / ATI Radeon HD 5870 @ 1GB or better
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 55 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX-compatible
In terms of OS, CPU, GPU and RAM, nothing stands out as overly noteworthy. Mid-range to low end 3 generation old hardware is enough to get by according to Activision and the product’s Steam page.
A broadband internet connection will be required, this is also nothing new. The game uses Steam’s DRM system which does require players to log in to their steam account to play the game. Steam’s online mode does give players the ability to circumvent the always online DRM system but only after the game has been installed and activated via Steam.
The biggest stand out from the list is the hard drive requirements. Call of Duty Advanced Warfare apparently will hog an enormous 55GB of hard drive space. In recent years, games have been steadily climbing in file size with a decent chunk of triple A titles commonly needs 20-35 gigabytes of storage space, but 55GB is well up there with a very select few and means if your running a 120gb or even 240gb SSD, you might need to make some tough choices come the 4th of November.
For those of you considering buying a new gaming PC or upgrading your current system for Call of Duty : Advanced Warfare, what hardware should you be looking at? This is as always a tough question to answer without first nailing down exactly what type of performance your expecting to get, and what type of budget your on. For the purposes of this article we are going to assume your looking to play at a solid 40-60 frames per second on a 1920x1080p monitor on high or maximum settings.
CPU: Intel Haswell i5 4460 4-Core 3.2GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte Intel 1150 B85M-HD3
RAM: Kingston 8GB 1600MHz HyperX Fury Black
Case: Corsair Carbide Spec-03 Mid Tower
Power Supply: Cooler Master 600W Thunder 85+
Primary Storage Device: Western Digital 1TB Blue
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GTX760 2GB OC
Optical Drive: Samsung Internal DVD Writer
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64bit
Service: Full Assembly, Burn in Testing & Setup
Total: $1,165 (Customise)
At a touch under $1200 a current generation Haswell-R i5 CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a factory overclocked GTX760, we think it’s fairly safe to say this should get you that 1080P 60fps gaming experience your looking for. Remember, no real world benchmarks have been released as of the date of this post so anything is possible, but we would be extremely surprised if the above hardware fails to meet our 40-60fps @ 1080P performance goal.