Wrap Up: Scalable Engine, But Still Demanding
You'll need a powerful GPU to maintain 60fps at 1080p in The Crew – ideally a GeForce GTX 780 or Radeon R9 290 given that anything faster is overkill with the frame rate cap.
Cards such as the HD 7970 (R9 280X) and GTX 770 are more than capable of delivering perfectly smooth gameplay and there are many GPUs that will offer 40fps, such as the R9 270X and GTX 760.
For a console-like 30fps you'll only need a lowly GTX 750 Ti or HD 7850, though realize that you'll recieve considerably better image quality with the ultra settings in place and 4xMSAA.
Those with triple monitor setups or high resolution monitors may require multiple GPUs as the GTX 980 was limited to 51fps at 2560x1600 while the R9 290X managed just 46fps. That said, at these higher resolutions you can probably get away with dialing the anti-aliasing down to 2xMSAA or even use FXAA.
For laptop gamers or desktop users running at low resolutions such as 1366x768, almost any modern GPU will do as we found the low-end R7 260X and GTX 650 Ti capable of delivering around 40fps.
We recommend playing with a quad-core CPU but as the Pentium G3220 proved, the game will run on a dual-core and it isn't terribly CPU-dependant so those with an AMD FX or Core i5 are probably only going to see 50% CPU utilization or less.
It was great to see AMD's processors matching and even beating Intel's with the FX-8350 being the most impressive, matching the Core i7-4960X. Again, you shouldn't read too much into that considering The Crew's predominantly GPU-bound results, but it's nice to know that folks should be fine playing with a solid GPU and a relatively weak CPU.
Until the next one, you can check out more PC gaming benchmark tests here, including GTA V, Far Cry 4, Battlefield Hardline, Evolve and more.