Call of Duty: Vanguard PC specs, features, and pre-load times revealed

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Check out the minimum, recommended, "competitive", and ultra 4K specs

Call of Duty: Vanguard PC specs have arrived along with a suite of HD features and the last of the shooter's pre-load periods. 

We'll start with the Vanguard PC specs, because they're mighty interesting. A Call of Duty blog post broke things down by component and by the performance you can expect at each tier, and the standout here is the "competitive" tier. Presumably, this represents the components you'd need so that your system doesn't hinder your performance in-game, which is actually pretty useful.

Here's the full list of specs:

Call of Duty: Vanguard - CPU 

  • Minimum: Intel Core i3-4340 or AMD FX-6300
  • Recommended: Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X
  • Competitive: Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
  • Ultra 4K: Intel Core i9-9900K or AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

Call of Duty: Vanguard - GPU 

  • Minimum (2GB VRAM): Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon RX 470 
  • Recommended (4GB VRAM): Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580
  • Competitive (8GB VRAM): Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070/RTX 3060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 5700XT
  • Ultra 4K (10GB VRAM): Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

Call of Duty: Vanguard - RAM

  • Minimum: 8 GB
  • Recommended: 12 GB
  • Competitive/Ultra 4K: 16 GB

A separate section sheds some light on Vanguard's modular storage solution. Its standard file size clocks in at 61GB, with the bare minimum being 36GB for just the multiplayer and Zombies modes, but you can add in ultra HD assets to add on 32GB or even 64GB. This is totally optional, obviously, and you should really only spring for the hi-res stuff if you've got the power to make use of it without tanking your frame rate. 

Call of Duty: Vanguard pre-loading is already available on console, and PC players will get access tomorrow, November 2, at 10am PT via the Battle.net launcher. It's unclear whether the hi-rez assets will be available as part of the pre-load process. 

The newly detailed Call of Duty: Vanguard PlayStation exclusives notably don't include a whole game mode this time.

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Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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