One of the most hotly anticipated games set to release this year is Turtle Rock’s cooperative zombie shooter, Back 4 Blood. It’s the spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead 2 that fans have been hoping and begging for Valve to make, but it’s apt that Turtle Rock is the one behind it; it made the original Left 4 Dead, after all.
Unlike Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, though, Back 4 Blood is a brand new game on the latest Unreal Engine 4. That means it’s a gorgeous looking contemporary game, but that it places much higher demands on your gaming PC than either of those previous titles.
Although the game is still undergoing a final polish and optimization and should become easier to play on lower-end systems before release, early beta results suggest that the game can really chug when it gets intense. That means that even meeting the recommended requirements might keep you restricted to lower resolutions if you want a smoother, 60FPS+ experience.
Still, if you’re interested in whether your existing PC can run Back 4 Blood, or whether you might want to upgrade to play it when it launches officially in October, here’s what you need to run Back 4 Blood.
The bare minimum
Getting any game running is the first big hurdle with PC gaming and fortunately, even mid-range gaming PCs from a few years ago can play Back 4 Blood. Although Turtle Rock hasn’t finalised the minimum system requirements for Back 4 Blood, it did release some for the beta. This gives us a good idea of what we can expect from the final game release in just a couple of months time.
The following should get the game running at 1080p with most settings on low or medium, with a 30-60 FPS frame rate. As much as you can play the game with weaker hardware, the visuals and responsiveness of the game will really suffer, especially when the action picks up.
Back 4 Blood Minimum System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i5-8500 /AMD Ryzen 5 1600
RAM: 8 GB RAM
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 / AMD Radeon RX 480
Storage: 25GB SSD
Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
These minimum specs are exceedingly generous, with Core i5-8500 and Ryzen 5 1600 CPUs both being far behind the capabilities of even entry-level modern gaming PCs, and have been around long enough to show up in all sorts of affordable systems over the years. If your current gaming PC was bought at any time in the past four years, you can almost certainly meet these specifications.
The graphics demands are similarly gentle, demanding only what were relatively high-end GPUs five years ago. Again, if your graphics card is from any recent generation, you should be able to meet this.
However, due to ongoing global graphics card shortages, this is the hardest minimum requirement to upgrade to if you can’t currently match it.
Beat the GPU shortage with a pre-built PC
The best way to get a new, compatible graphics card in 2021, is with a new custom or pre-built gaming PC. Chillblast offers a number of affordable solutions that can easily outstrip these Back 4 Blood minimum specifications.
The Chillblast Fusion Sentinel combines a six-core Intel Core i5-10400F CPU, with an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super graphics card, which will absolutely crush the basic demands of Back 4 Blood and guarantee high frame rates and even higher detail settings, too.
The amount of RAM and storage is easily attainable too. Almost all laptops (even most non-gaming laptops) sport at least that much space and memory now, so it should be a breeze for anyone buying new to match these specs at the very least.
All Chillblast gaming PCs come with a minimum of 8GB of high-speed memory, and a 256GB NVMe SSD, usually alongside an additional storage SSD or hard drive for extra space.
A good looking 1080p Back 4 Blood experience
Back 4 BloodRecommended System Requirements
CPU: Intel Core i5-8500 / AMD Ryzen 7 1800X
RAM: 12 GB RAM
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 970 / Radeon RX 590
Storage: 25GB SSD
Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Getting any new game running is the first step to enjoying it, but there’s certainly something to be said for playing a game with the settings turned up much higher, and even at higher resolutions. Back 4 Blood is a game with heaps of gore, scary zombie “Ridden” and fantastic-looking explosion effects and they all really come (un)alive when you can play at higher detail settings.
For that, you’ll need to meet or exceed the recommended specifications Turtle Rock put out there. They are certainly more demanding than the minimum specs, especially on the graphics card front.
GPU
The GTX 970 and RX 590 are two excellent graphics cards that hold up well today, though it shows the optimizations for Nvidia hardware in Back 4 Blood, as the RX 590 in general gaming is a far more capable card.
If you find that your graphics card doesn’t measure up to the recommended system requirements, however, you’ll find it a lot harder to upgrade to it.
Both the 970 and RX 590 are no longer being sold new and are priced way above what they should be on the second-hand market. Fortunately, many modern graphics cards are available that can supplant them, offering much more bang for buck and far greater overall performance.
CPU and RAM
The CPU demands are much the same, though the Ryzen 7 1800X is a little bit more so than the Ryzen 5 1600. Memory sees more of a jump, though 12 and 16GB kits are pretty affordable in 2021, and if you already have 8GB, upgrading with a second stick or pair of sticks, will be even more attainable at a low cost.
Upgrading to a new pre-built is best
You’ll still struggle to buy those cards new, though, which is why upgrading to a new custom gaming PC is the best option if you want to upgrade your graphics card for Back 4 Blood in 2021.
Chillblast offers a range of excellently affordable gaming PCs which can easily match or outstrip the recommended specs for Back 4 Blood. PCs like the Chillblast Fusion Sentinel are excellent, or Chillblast Wraith Advanced, if you want a super quiet gaming PC.
Both pack an Nvidia GTX 1660 Super under the hood, with a much more modern CPU, 16GB of RAM, and up to half a terabyte of high-speed SSD storage, making sure Back 4 Blood not only looks great but loads fast too.
Higher resolutions with higher demands
Back 4 Blood 1440p System Requirements (estimated)
CPU: Intel Core i5-10600K / AMD Ryzen 5 3700X
RAM: 16 GB RAM
Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3070 / Radeon RX 6700 XT
Storage: 25GB SSD
Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Turtle Rock hasn’t released information about the kind of PC you’ll need for a high-end gaming experience, but we can make some pretty solid educated guesses looking at typical Unreal Engine 4 demands, and the experiences of gamers who have participated in the beta.
You’ll certainly need a more powerful graphics card to play at 1440P resolution while keeping all the detail settings on high, but with reports of slowdowns when the zombie hordes start to mob you, you’ll need a powerful processor to handle all of the calculations that go along with that.
To that end, we’ve put together the above configuration which goes well above and beyond the recommended specifications for Back 4 Blood, giving you all the hardware you’ll need to run the game at 1440p with all the settings on high and at a decent frame rate.
The CPU and RAM
The first important component in this configuration is the processor. Both the Intel Core i5-10600K and Ryzen 5 3700X are fantastically powerful processors, with high single-core performance.
Since Turtle Rock recommends the Ryzen 1800 X for its lower settings option, we know the game can take advantage of a good number of cores. The 10600K packs six, and the 3700X eight, with both supporting simultaneous multithreading (called Hyperthreading on the Intel CPU), for 12 and 16 threads, respectively. That should give your PC all the processing power it needs to handle the massed ridden when they run in for the attack.
16GB of RAM should still be more than enough, and the install size isn’t going to go up – unless Turtle Rock releases some kind of higher resolution texture pack as an optional download.
The GPU
But if you want to play at 1440p, you’re going to need a higher-powered GPU. That’s where the new-generation Nvidia RTX 3000 and AMD RX 6000 cards come into play.
In just about every game out there, the RTX 3070 is as fast, or faster than the last-generation kingpin, the RTX 2080 Ti, and that’s true again with Back 4 Blood. It is massively powerful and can easily handle all of the highest detail settings at a great frame rate. The RX 6700 XT sticks with it, neck and neck in most cases, and it’s an important card to consider – especially if you plan to play other games which are better optimized for AMD hardware, too.
One reason you may want to opt for the RTX 3070 instead, though, is its support for deep learning super sampling (DLSS).
Its onboard Tensor cores allow it to use the clever upscaling algorithm to massively improve performance in Back 4 Blood without making any large impact on visual quality. That all-but-guarantees that a gaming PC running an Nvidia RTX 2000 or 3000 graphics card will play Back 4 Blood better than one using an equivalent AMD graphics card.
Our Top Choices for a 1440p Back 4 Blood Experience
If you want to buy a new gaming PC that’s ready and willing to handle Back 4 Blood at 1440P and more, the Chillblast Next Day RTX 3070 Gaming PC is your best choice. It’s both affordable and exceedingly well-specced, combining an RTX 3070 with an Intel Core i7 11700K for monstrous performance.
If you plan to play other better-optimised games for AMD Radeon graphics, the Chillblast Fusion Diablo is an amazing alternative system. Its AMD Ryzen 5600X and RX 6700XT deliver fantastic frame rates in Back 4 Blood at high detail settings, and it’s all built inside a gorgeously compact chassis for micro, high-powered gaming.
The ultimate Back 4 Blood gaming experience
Back 4 Blood 4K System Requirements (estimated)
CPU: Intel Core i7-11700K / AMD Ryzen 5800X
RAM: 32 GB RAM
Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3080 / Radeon RX 6800 XT
Storage: 25GB SSD
Operating System: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Gaming at high detail settings at 4K resolution at high frame rates, is about as demanding an experience as you can place on a modern gaming PC.
Although Back 4 Blood isn’t the most taxing game out there and doesn’t offer ray-traced lighting, playing at 4K with all the settings on maximum still demands a lot from any PC that tries it. Turtle Rock hasn’t released any kind of recommended spec for such a system, but if you want to try it and have a consistent 60 FPS+ experience, you’ll need something like the system we’ve recommended above.
A 4K CPU
The eight-core Intel Core i7-11700K and AMD Ryzen 5800X are both super powerful and though likely slightly overkill, guarantee that you’ll avoid any kind of bottlenecking that could inhibit your high-end graphics card. Plus, it’ll ensure you can hit super-high frame rates in games that are a little less demanding than Back 4 Blood.
RAM
The same could be said for the RAM, which is a little excessive, but future proofs an already amazing gaming PC and guarantees that no matter what you’re doing in the background, it won’t inhibit your performance. Super handy if you want to stream and game at the same time on the same PC.
Graphics Card
The graphics card is the real linchpin in this gaming PC. The RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT are two of the most powerful graphics cards ever made, and though expensive, guarantee fantastic performance at 4K resolution with every visual feature enabled in every game available today; Back 4 Blood included.
If you want the absolute maximum performance, the RTX 3080’s support for DLSS will give you a real edge in frame rate, though it’s not strictly necessary for a great 4K gaming experience.
The best Chillblast PCs to play Back 4 Blood at 4K include the Chillblast Fusion Yogsblast Ultimate gaming PC, or the gorgeous Chillblast Fusion Crystal, with all of its superpowered hardware inside an amazingly tiny case.
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