Famed developer Bioware announced next months long awaited Dragon Age sequels hardware requirements this week, letting gamers know when there in for if they’re planning on jumping on board come the games release on November 18th.
Being published by EA Games, the game was originally slated for release in October before being pushed back to November only few months prior. Before we delve in to how to go about building a custom gaming PC for Dragon Age Inquisition, lets take a look at the official requirements.
Recommended:
- OS: Windows 7 or 8.1 64-bit
- CPU: AMD six core CPU @ 3.2 GHz, Intel quad core CPU @ 3.0 GHz
- System RAM: 8 GB
- Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7870 or R9 270, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
- Graphics Memory: 2 GB
- Hard Drive: 26 GB
- DirectX 11
Minimum:
- OS: Windows 7 or 8.1 64-bit
- CPU: AMD quad core CPU @ 2.5 GHz, Intel quad core CPU @ 2.0 GHz
- System RAM: 4 GB
- Graphics CARD: AMD Radeon HD 4870, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
- Graphics Memory: 512 MB
- Hard Drive: 26 GB
- DirectX 10
While there will be PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One releases of the game, Bioware calls Dragon Age Inquisition a PC game built for PC gamers by PC gamers. So unless you don’t have a choice you should definitely be looking at getting the PC version.
So with all that out of the way, lets get down to configuring a PC that’s going to run Dragon Age Inquisition the way you would want to play it. For this build we are going to assume players have a standard HD 1920×1080 resolution monitor and want to play at the highest or at least very close to the highest visual quality settings, and you want to do all this on the tightest budget possible.
CPU : Intel i5 4460 3.2GHz Haswell Refresh Quad Core
Power efficient, 22nm Haswell Resfresh design with 6MB of L3 cache and 4 cores. The Intel i5 4460 is hard to pass up when it comes to gaming builds on a budget, but still more than capable of handing demanding new release games for the foreseeable future.
Memory : 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (Any Brand)
When it comes to memory, if you have enough your golden, if you don’t have enough your in trouble, but brand, frequency and latency barely impacts performance at all. According to Bioware 8GB is what they recommenced and we are inclined to believe them, so lets just grab the cheapest 8GB kit there is and move on.
Motherboard : Asus H81M-PLUS
DDR3 1600MHz Support? Yes.
Intel i5 4460 Support? Yes.
PCI-E 16x Port? Yes.
USB 3? Yes.
Cheap? Yes
What more can we say?
Video Card : Gigabyte GTX 750TI or 760 2GB OC
If you are extremely budget conscious and the extra $110 for a GTX760 over the GTX750TI is just too much of a stretch, the GTX750TI offers amazing value for money. At 1080P we predict you will get solid 30-45+ frame rates at the higher visual quality settings, maybe dialing download AA and texture filtering a little. If a solid 60 FPS is more your style and you have room in your budget, jump up a tier and grab a GTX760.
Power Supply : Cooler Master Thunder 500W
There are cheaper power supplies out there, and we know compromises are always necessary to fit a tight budget but the power supply just ins’t where they should be made. Avoid the generics like the plague and always question the ultra cheap ‘name brands’. The power supply is the heart of your PC and has the potential to cause serious problems should things go wrong. 500 watts is going to get the job done and the Thunder is great value for money, efficient and backed with a 3 year warranty.
Operating Sytstem : Windows 8.1 64bit
With the Windows 8.1 update, much of what was hated with the initial Windows 8 release has been addressed and those few lingering hold overs can easily be negated with free, easy to use, third party software mods, our favorite being Classic Shell. At this stage in the game, if your buying a new PC, it’s almost a no-brainier unless you specifically need Windows 7 for legacy support.
Hard Drive : 500GB Western Digital Blue
Assuming we’re keeping to a tight budget here we will avoid the temptation to throw in an SSD and stick to the standard 500GB mechanical drive. This shouldn’t effect in game performance at all but it may impact on game and level load times. If you have the extra money, a 120GB SSD will come in only around $25 more, but you will be sacrificing 380GB of storage capacity. With that in mind, don’t forget the beauty of PCs, you can always just throw in another in the future if you need one.
Chassis : Cooler Master K350
A budget ATX case with a sturdy build quality, aggressive design, 315mm GPU card length clearance, USB3 & HD Audio front panel inputs and room for up to 4x 120mm case fans. The K350 ticks all the boxes and keeps your build costs down.
Optional Extras : 120mm Case Fan / DVD-RW Optical Drive
The K350 comes with a single 120mm fan in the front do draw cool air in but for only a few dollars a second fan to install as an exhaust in the rear to get that hot air out of the case and avoid any ‘hot’ trapped pockets of air building up in the case.
With the majority of PC gamers getting their games online the need for a DVD drive is becoming a thing of the past but at the same time you can pick up one for only $20. You probably won’t get a lot of use out of it these days if you have a steam account and a decent internet connection but on the off chance you need one, you might wish you had one.
Total : $940 (GTX 750TI) / $1065 (GTX 760) – Fully assembled, setup & burn in tested.
Well there you have it, for around $1000 Aussie dollars your going to be all set to play the latest Dragon Age this November. Don’t forget all our custom gaming PCs are 100% customisable, so if there is anything you would change, you can do so with just a click of a button.