For the official The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered Path Tracing target, CD PROJEKT RED specifies a GeForce RTX 5080 delivering 60 frames per second at 2160p (3840×2160), with Frame Generation enabled and automatic DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling. The publisher has not published separate Path Tracing requirements for 1080p or 1440p. At those resolutions, any GPU recommendation below the RTX 5080 is an estimate rather than an official minimum, because performance changes with the upscaler, Frame Generation, Ultra+ settings, CPU, and scene.
The official Path Tracing requirements
CD PROJEKT RED’s requirements for the 29 September 2026 Remastered release separate ordinary ray tracing from full Path Tracing. Only one Path Tracing resolution tier is listed. The expected frame rates come from the publisher’s quality-assurance tests, and the company warns that higher resolution significantly lowers FPS and that scenes can produce occasional fluctuations.
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| Rendering mode | Resolution and target | Upscaling or frame-generation condition | Listed GPU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ray Tracing minimum | 1080p at 30 FPS | DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling | GeForce RTX 2060 Super |
| Ray Tracing recommended | 1440p at 60 FPS | DLSS or FSR upscaling | GeForce RTX 4080 |
| Path Tracing | 2160p (3840×2160) at 60 FPS | Frame Generation enabled; automatic DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling | GeForce RTX 5080 |
These rows are not interchangeable. The RTX 2060 Super and RTX 4080 entries describe selected ray-traced effects, not the substantially heavier full Path Tracing mode. Meeting the recommended ray-tracing row does not establish that a card will meet the Path Tracing target.
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Conventional rendering combines rasterization with selected ray-traced effects such as reflections, shadows, or global illumination. NVIDIA describes Path Tracing as a unified lighting system that traces more rays, including multiple light bounces, through the scene. That produces more consistent lighting but greatly increases ray-tracing, shader, memory, and denoising work.
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The Remastered edition also adds NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with Ray Reconstruction, AMD FSR 4 with Frame Generation and Anti-Lag 2 on supported Radeon RX 7000-series and newer cards, and Intel XeSS 2.0 with Frame Generation and Low Latency. The publisher changed the system requirements for these additions. A comparison based only on the original game’s requirements is therefore out of date.
What to use at each resolution
4K (2160p): use the RTX 5080 reference
If your goal is 4K Path Tracing at approximately 60 FPS, the RTX 5080 is the only GPU named by the publisher for that combination. The target assumes Frame Generation and reconstructed output rather than native 3840×2160 rendering. A GeForce RTX 5080 16GB graphics card is consequently the clearest local-PC match to the published specification.
Do not interpret the target as a guarantee of a perfectly locked 60 FPS. CD PROJEKT RED says its figures are QA-test expectations, and it notes that gameplay scenes can cause fluctuations. Patches, drivers, operating-system scheduling, background applications, and different image-quality presets can also alter the result.
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1440p: the RTX 5080 has headroom, but no official lower tier exists
The publisher does not state which GPU is the minimum for 1440p Path Tracing. The listed RTX 4080 is a 1440p ray-tracing recommendation, not a Path Tracing specification, so it cannot be presented as an officially supported Path Tracing solution.
Because 1440p renders fewer pixels than 4K, the RTX 5080 should have substantial performance headroom when the same Path Tracing features and reconstruction pipeline are used. A lower-tier card may also be workable if you accept a lower frame-rate target, a more aggressive upscaling mode, reduced settings, or less consistent frame times. Those are practical estimates, not figures guaranteed by CD PROJEKT RED.
For a 1440p build, decide in this order:
- Set a real target, such as a stable 60 FPS output or a lower native-render rate with Frame Generation.
- Choose whether you will use DLSS, FSR, or XeSS and which quality mode is acceptable. A lower internal resolution can raise FPS but may soften fine detail or create reconstruction artifacts.
- Test demanding locations, weather, combat, and city scenes rather than relying on a quiet outdoor area.
- Reduce Path Tracing or Ultra+ options only after confirming that the upscaler and frame-time limit are configured correctly.
1080p: GPU load falls, but the CPU matters more
There is no official 1080p Path Tracing row. Lower pixel count generally reduces GPU work, but it does not remove the cost of ray traversal, lighting bounces, NPC simulation, streaming, and draw calls. At 1080p, a fast GPU can spend more time waiting for the processor, particularly in dense settlements or scenes with many characters.
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An RTX 5080 is therefore more than many 1080p systems need if the goal is simply to display 60 FPS. It is not automatically wasteful if you want unusually high refresh rates, maximum settings, headroom for future patches, or Frame Generation with a high output target. Conversely, a less powerful card may deliver a satisfactory 1080p experience, but the exact model cannot be identified from the publisher’s table.
Check CPU utilization, GPU utilization, and frame-time graphs together. If one or more CPU threads are saturated while GPU utilization falls well below its limit, lowering resolution will not solve the bottleneck. A modestly lower preset, a frame-rate cap, or a faster processor may improve consistency more than buying a larger GPU.
Can an RTX 4080 run Path Tracing in 4K?
The official data does not answer that question with a guarantee. RTX 4080 appears in the 1440p, 60-FPS ray-tracing recommendation, while the separately published 4K, 60-FPS Path Tracing row names RTX 5080. You can run the game on an RTX 4080 and experiment with 4K Path Tracing, but you should expect to adjust the upscaling mode, Frame Generation, settings, or frame-rate target rather than assume the published 60-FPS result.
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The distinction is especially important if you compare native rendering with reconstructed output. The official Path Tracing test uses automatic upscaling and Frame Generation; a native 4K test removes those performance aids and is a different workload.
Do you need DLSS, FSR, XeSS, or Frame Generation?
Upscaling
Yes, the official Path Tracing measurement uses automatic DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling. The game renders internally below the selected output resolution, then reconstructs the image. Quality modes preserve more detail but provide less performance; Performance or Ultra Performance modes raise output FPS at the cost of image stability and clarity. Select the least aggressive mode that keeps your target frame time acceptable.
DLSS is available on compatible GeForce hardware, FSR supports the listed newer Radeon generations and other compatible GPUs, and XeSS targets supported Intel and cross-vendor hardware. Availability and exact quality options depend on the GPU, driver, and game build.
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Frame Generation
Frame Generation creates additional displayed frames from rendered frames. It can make motion appear smoother, but it does not replace the underlying rendering work and can add latency or visible artifacts when the base frame rate is low. The official 4K Path Tracing target explicitly enables it, so compare results using the same setting. If you prefer the most direct input response, test with it disabled and choose a lower output target.
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- VRAM: Path Tracing, high-resolution textures, reconstruction buffers, and Ultra+ settings increase memory pressure. The official Path Tracing row names a 16GB RTX 5080-class board, but it does not publish a universal VRAM minimum for every GPU.
- CPU: At 1080p and in crowded scenes, processor performance can cap FPS before the GPU is fully loaded.
- Drivers: Use a driver that supports the Remastered release and its selected upscaler. Driver support can change after patches.
- Power and cooling: Sustained Path Tracing loads can expose thermal or power-limit problems. Watch clock speeds and temperatures during a long play session, not just a short benchmark.
- Storage and memory: Streaming stalls or system-memory pressure can appear as hitching even when average GPU FPS looks adequate.
A practical setup procedure
- Install the Remastered edition and a current graphics driver that lists support for its ray-tracing and upscaling features.
- Start with the game’s Ultra+ preset, enable Path Tracing, select your output resolution, and enable the supported upscaler.
- For a 4K comparison with the official target, enable Frame Generation and record a demanding route through a city, combat encounter, and weather transition.
- Measure average FPS, one-percent lows, and frame-time consistency. Do not judge the result from the menu or a quiet field.
- If the base render rate is too low, use a higher-quality GPU, a less demanding upscaling mode, or a lower resolution before enabling more aggressive Frame Generation.
- If GPU utilization is low at 1080p, investigate CPU limits and background tasks instead of lowering image quality indefinitely.
- Re-test after patches or driver changes, because requirements and performance can move as the game is updated.
Choosing between a local GPU and cloud play
Players without a suitable RTX-capable PC can consider a cloud service such as GeForce NOW Ultimate where that plan is offered. Availability, data-center location, network quality, supported resolutions, and subscription terms vary by region. Cloud streaming also adds network latency and compression, so it is not equivalent to a local GPU for responsiveness or image quality.
Bottom line for buyers
Buy or plan around the RTX 5080 if you specifically want to match the publisher’s 4K Path Tracing, 60-FPS target with reconstruction and Frame Generation. For 1440p or 1080p, the RTX 5080 provides headroom, but the publisher has not named an official lower Path Tracing tier. Treat any cheaper-card recommendation as a test-based estimate tied to your chosen upscaler, frame-rate goal, CPU, and settings—not as a guaranteed requirement.
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