Is Sons of the Forest CPU or GPU intensive?

Is Sons of the Forest CPU or GPU intensive?
Amaar Chowdhury Updated on by

Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more

Before early access kicks off, you might be wondering if Sons of the Forest is CPU or GPU intensive.

Sons of the Forest is the sequel to The Forest, an extremely popular survival game released in 2014. The game quickly became extremely popular, though it’s been nine years since the original. Hardcore fans have likely seen their hardware age throughout the years, and what once might have powered through the game, might now quiver at the sequel.

In light of that, let’s cover if Sons of the Forest is a CPU or GPU intensive game.

Is Sons of the Forest CPU intensive?

In order to answer this, you’re going to have to take a look at the Sons of the Forest system requirements first. These are the minimum Sons of the Forest requirements, and they notate an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 3 3300X as the minimum required CPU.

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 10
  • Processor: INTEL CORE I5-8400 or AMD RYZEN 3 3300X
  • Memory: 12 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB or AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 20 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: SSD (Preferred)

Then, if we take a look at the recommended Sons of the Forest requirements, they state the following:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: 64-bit Windows 10
  • Processor: INTEL CORE I7-8700K or AMD RYZEN 5 3600X
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1080Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 20 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: SSD (Preferred)

The recommended CPU requirements are an Intel Core i7-8700K and an AMD Ryzen 5 3600X. These are slightly more powerful CPUs than the minimum recommendations, though realistically they’re quite old and don’t have the highest specs.

Is Sons of the Forest GPU intensive?

Sons of the Forest has a GTX 1060 3GB or AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB graphics card listed as the minimum, and for the recommended they would suggest a GTX 1080 Ti or Radeon RX 5700 XT. These are both slightly older graphics cards, though they’re still actually top of the range for the time they were released.

All of the components listed on the Sons of the Forest system requirements are quite aged, though luckily it seems as though the game isn’t particularly demanding. However, in light of this, it seems as though the game is going to be heavily dependant on the graphics card. In light of this, we might suggest that you check out our best GPU for 1080p guide, which will definitely be able to run Sons of the Forest effectively.

Similarly, if you’re considering if your CPU is up for the task of running the game, you might want to check out our best CPU for RTX 4070 Ti, which will contain a range of the some of the best CPUs available right now.

Ultimately, it seems as though Sons of the Forest leans more on the arm of being GPU intensive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Sons of the Forest have ray tracing?

There is no confirmation that Sons of the Forest will have ray-tracing, we’ll only know after the release.

Does Sons of the Forest have DLSS?

As with ray tracing, we don’t know for certain if Sons of the Forest will have DLSS.