I've got an older machine with a lower cpu (Intel penryn based architecture) which works reasonably well with the game.

I am now wondering why it is that the AMD Phenom II X4 3.0GHz is ok for this game, but an earlier intel quad-core (1st generation i7 quad-core or the older generation penryn quad-core) isn't.

From what I can see the AMD Phenom II X4 brings SSE4a instruction set to the table, however intel never utilizes this in their CPU designs, opting to go with SSE4.1 & SSE4.2 extensions.

One of the important differences between the first and second generation i7/i5 quad-cores is the addition of AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions), but otherwise they both support SSE4.1 & SSE4.2 extensions. If the game required the AVX instructions to justify an i5-2500k vs i7-860 then it wouldn't run on the AMD Phenom II X4 3.0GHz.

So if the game doesn't require AVX and it doesn't appear to require SSE4 (since AMD's SSE4a differs from Intel's SSE4.1 & SSE4.2; although they introduced these in later processors). It would seem that the intel minimum cpu requirements can ben dropped further.

This game will run on my cpu and graphics card:
-Xeon E5450 (Identical to a Q9650)
-Nvidia GTX 750 1GB RAM

My RAM is only 4GB however, and it is obvious that a lot of paging is going on, so 6GB RAM being a minimum requirement appears to be true, but I can still get some pretty good information from this.

At the first inn that you visit (outside in the small village), I get around 28-32 FPS with this setup with the following settings:
-Resolution: 1920x1080
-AA: ON
-Sharpening: ON
-Ambient occlusion: OFF
-Vignetting: ON
-Light Shafts: ON

Nvdia Hairworks: OFF
Background characters: ULTRA (Haven't hit a town yet, so this will probably change)
Shadow Quality: LOW
Terrain Quality: ULTRA
Water Quality: HIGH
Grass: ULTRA
Texture: ULTRA
Foilage Visibility: LOW
Detail Level: ULTRA

However, reducing the resolution to 1024x768 increases the framerate to about 48fps-53fps, which mean i'm more GPU limited than CPU limited in this particular case.

I have a feeling that even older CPU's may work on this game. Having 4 cores corresponded to about a 30% peformance increase over a dual-core (I disabled the additional cores within task-manager), so having 4 cores does help, but I don't see any reason why if the Phenom II X4 940 is ok for the Witcher 3, then the Q9650 isn't.

Check out this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2702/19

An old article comparing the Phenom II x4 940 to 1st generation i7's and the core 2 duo's/quad's of the previous generation. The intel processors perform better.

I think the minimum requirements are a bit too agressive. While I like the fact the minimum requirements actually do give decent performance at that level, I think they can drop the intel cpu requirements quite a bit.

Heck, I'm still running on a dual core and a 550 Ti....ouch I'm kind of ashamed to say it. They served me well for quite a long time though.

I've got to buy a new motherboard, CPU and graphics card to be able to play this. Oh well, I knew the time would come when I'd have to upgrade - again - because that's just the way this PC gaming thing works. Tech keeps improving and if you want to play new games your rig needs to improve too.
Good thing is the last time I made sure I had a great case, power supply, cooling etc so the hit wouldn't be so bad next time.

Time to start parts searching on Tiger Direct and Newegg I guess.

I think you may find a better GPU more beneficial than a new CPU/Mobo/RAM:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-huge-deal-heres/

This indicates that the GTX 750 TI which is a tiny bit faster than what I'm using is about double the speed of the GTX 550 TI.

I recommend you purchase a graphics card first, before spending a lot of money on a new machine. PCI-Express is fairly flexible, and my motherboard only supports PCI-Express 1.1 yet will work fine with the GTX 750.

If you purchase a new graphics card and you don't have as much of an improvement as you were hoping for, the GPU is going to work beautifully in a new motherboard, so you never lose on your investment.

When I reduced the resolution on my GPU my framerate nearlly doubled, so I do have CPU headroom to spare despite it being under spec.

I have a retired rig outfitted with a Q6600 @ 3Ghz, GTX 580 SSC and 4GB DDR2 800Mhz. If I get around to it I'd like to see hows she handles TW3.

Edit: I'll go install TW3 on it and try to test it out; then get back to this thread to post my results.

Yeah, it seems that the game runs pretty well on moderate hardware. My primary machine is an i5-3570k, but the GPU is a rebadged Radeon 7970 (R9 280X); 2012 technology, approximately 20-30% faster than the minimum required 7870 (well depends on the game).

I can enjoy framerates in the 40's and 50's (and hitting the 60s in some cases with very few visual sacrifices (Hairworks off, shadows med, ambient occlusion SSAO (HBAO+ is costly on AMD hardware it seems ~12%), Foilage range: High), but everything else maximized.

In any case, the game runs much better than the witcher 2 when it was first released on moderate hardware. I just find it bizzare that the CPU requirements for intel are so high, when it really isn't necessary.

Running the game on an old e8400 dual core with a HD 7850 and 4GB RAM.
Framerate is ok, there are just rare freezes every 30-60 min for a few sec and of course the inventory freeze, but this has nothing to do with my hardware as it seems.

My CPU would bottleneck even with a better graphics card so what's the point of putting it off? Besides, the toughest part about an upgrade is waiting for all of the hardware to arrive. After that? I should be good for another 4 or 5 years.

The Witcher 3 is ALMOST playable on a Q9300 quad 2.5 ghz, gtx 460 and 4 gigs of ram at like 1280x768 resolution.

It is just laggy enough to be annoying, but the combat is okay. I could probably still beat it and enjoy it if I really wanted.

Kinda funny.

I think with some more RAM that should fix some of those freezes that you are getting. Your GPU should run a bit better than my GTX750, though it is hard to justify shelling out money for old RAM when you have to chuck it away when purchasing a new machine. Very true, I'm very budget conscious, so I tend to suggest upgrades that save money. If you can purchase a new CPU/Mobo/RAM + GPU, obviously it will perform much better than a simple GPU upgrade :)

@Jamie.monro,

I get you. I hate to have to spend the money to be honest about it ( It's not like I'm rich or something) but what can ya do eh?
Actually I've been checking around and I can get by with just a new MB, CPU and RAM for now and worry about a new GPU later as plenty of people are saying that their 550 Ti handles this game very well.

TG has a combo deal of a i5-4590, Z97-HD3 MB, 8 gigs of mem and 2 case fans for $364.00. Not bad. Still way more than I - want - to pay right now but....

I don't know how I missed this earlier. The E8400 runs this?!? That's the same CPU I have and I never dreamed it could handle it.

I agree, the game seems to be fairly optimized. I tested it on an old 2.4 core 2 quad (Q6600), AMD HD 7770 1 GB vram, 8 GB system ram and it runs smooth at constant 30-45 fps, medium settings though. Playable and no lags or crashes.

EDIT : Oh and Full HD (1920x1080) if anyone cares.

May I ask what GPU you are using? You say that you are below minimum spec on GPU but still play at respectable resolution with medium settings and no noticeable issues. This gives me hope! Hope that I don't have to spend $200-$300 for a new video card so I can finally enjoy playing this masterpiece RPG.

I am only below minimum specs on the GPU with a Geforce 9800GT 1GB video card. It was a great card back in the day and I have never had a reason to upgrade it until now. I bought the game a long time ago, but I don't want to download this huge game unless I feel confident that my rig could run it.

Thanks for posting and thank you again for taking the time to reply to my query.

Cheers!

Ham08

This game runs fine at 1080p, on my test machine with everthing at maximum: Intel Core i3 4160, 2x4GB 1866, Zotac GTX 960 2GB, GT 730 1GB DDR3 for Physx, Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5, Win 7 pro 64 bit...

I have some lags, but I guess the guilty is the core i3 bottleneck .