Modern Warfare 3 PC System Requirements: MW3 Is Surprisingly Merciful

The Modern Warfare 3 PC system requirements have been released and are only very slightly higher than Modern Warfare 2. Find out here if you need to upgrade your PC.

MW3 Ghost PC system requirements
MW3 PC System Requirements: Will MW3 kill your PC? | © Activision

Modern Warfare 3 will be released on November 10, and those who pre-order can play the campaign a whole week earlier. While we don't expect any major issues on PlayStation and Xbox since Call of Duty is usually well optimized for these platforms, some PC gamers might wonder if their gaming PC is still up to the task of playing MW3.

We can already give an all-clear on this matter. While the PC system requirements for Modern Warfare 3 have slightly increased compared to last year, anyone with a reasonably powerful computer should have no issues.

We could confirm this ourselves during the second beta weekend for PC, where the game ran smoothly on our mid-range and high-end PCs at the respective settings.

Modern Warfare 3 PC System Requirements

MW3 Beta Dummy
MW3 looks damn good and still runs on older computers. | © Activision

Here are the minimum and recommended PC system requirements for MW3:

Minimum RequirementsRecommended Requirements
Operating SystemWindows 10 64 BitWindows 10 64 Bit or Windows 11 64 Bit
CPUIntel Core i5-6600 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600Intel Core i5-6600 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 970/GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 480NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 / GeForce RTX 3050 or AMD Radeon RX Vega
RAM12 GB16 GB
VRAM3 GB6 GB
Storage Space65 GB SSD65 GB SSD

As you can see, even PCs with older CPUs and graphics cards should be able to run Modern Warfare 3 without a problem. The minimum system requirements are comparatively low, so you don't necessarily need to upgrade. An RTX 3050 is a good jump up, but it's not a high-end graphics card either and is relatively affordable by now.

Compared to Modern Warfare 2, the required RAM has increased by 4 GB each, but the recommended CPU remains the same. The most significant jump MW3 makes is in the required GPU, where for the recommended requirements, they make the leap from Nvidia's 10-series to the 30-series.

However, always keep in mind, even the recommended settings are usually aimed at smooth gameplay at Full-HD and 60 FPS. If you want to play MW3 in 4K resolution or with significantly higher FPS, you should have a much more powerful graphics card and CPU installed.

That's all for the Modern Warfare 3 PC system requirements. Is your PC still up to the task? If your PC is already powerful enough, you might be interested in the best weapons in MW3.

Lukas Ballat

Lukas has been passionate about shooters his whole life and at EarlyGame he teaches you everything about CoD, while also taking care of campaigns and partner projects. He also plays Souls-likes and doesn't shy away from the Diablo-grind either....