What are the Doom: The Dark Ages system requirements? A new era of Doom is finally here, but you may need some crucial gaming PC upgrades if you're aiming for super smooth performance at high graphical settings.
As befits a stalwart of the PC gaming world, the best gaming U you can afford, might be required.
Here are the Doom: The Dark Ages system requirements:
| Minimum | Recommended | Ultra 4K | |
| Player experience | 1080p/60fps/low video settings | 1440p/60fps/high video settings | 2160p/60fps/ultra video settings |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit / Windows 11 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit / Windows 11 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit / Windows 11 64-bit |
| U | AMD Zen 2 or Intel 10th gen @ 3.2GHz with 8 cores / 16 threads or better | AMD Zen 3 or Intel 12th gen @ 3.2GHz with 8 cores / 16 threads or better | AMD Zen 3 or Intel 12th gen @ 3.2GHz with 8 cores / 16 threads or better |
| RAM | 16GB | 32GB | 32GB |
| GPU | AMD or Nvidia ray tracing-capable GPU with 8GB dedicated VRAM or better | AMD or Nvidia ray tracing-capable GPU with 10GB dedicated VRAM or better | AMD or Nvidia ray tracing-capable GPU with 16GB dedicated VRAM or better |
| VRAM | 8GB or better | 10GB or better | 16GB or better |
| Storage | 100GB SSD | 100GB SSD | 100GB SSD |
If you're concerned whether or not your gaming PC has the mettle to take on id's latest FPS game, you can take our Doom: The Dark Ages system requirements PC benchmark test to answer… Can I run Doom: The Dark Ages?
The Doom: The Dark Ages minimum system requirements are a step above what we've come to expect from many new games recently, even as we move into 2025. Crucially, this game stipulates that a ray tracing-capable graphics card is required for all levels of play. Yes, we're sad to report that a classic performance-oriented FPS like Doom has gone the way of forcing performance-killing ray tracing upon you.
As such, the examples id provides of GPUs you'll need to run this game, even at minimum settings, are the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 and AMD Radeon RX 6600. Those are both relatively old and modest GPUs anyway but ray tracing performance on both isn't stellar, and the latest Steam hardware survey still reports the GTX 1060 as being the 12th most popular card on the platform. That's why id states this is the level of hardware needed to achieve just 60fps at 1080p with low settings in this new Doom game.
As for Us, it's a similar story, with a chip packing at least eight cores being a requirement even for minimum specs. The U must also be at least younger than AMD Zen 2 or Intel 10th gen, which means those with Us older than six years will struggle to run this title smoothly.
More reasonable is the requirement for 16GB of RAM, as this has moved to being essentially the minimum we'd recommend for a gaming PC anyway. Plus, it's easy and cheap to 16GB of the how to build a gaming PC guide.
Stepping up to the Doom The Dark Ages recommended system requirements, we again see a far higher level of gear than with the vast majority of new games. You'll get to play at 1440p at 60fps with medium detail settings, but some powerful hardware is required to do so.
Just how powerful? Well, the required level of graphics card is one with at least 10GB, with id suggesting the mighty Nvidia RTX 3080 or more modest AMD RX 6800 as options to choose. The RTX 3080 was a $650 card at launch, and of course, it's only five years old. The fact that a card such as the RTX 3070 isn't deemed to have enough power to hit the recommended system requirements to play at 1440p is, frankly, shocking.
On the U front, the situation is less dramatic, as the requirement is still only for an eight-core U, which is what we'd reasonably consider a mid-range U option these days – yes, the 9800X3D is the best gaming U in the world and has only eight cores while costing over $450, but far cheaper eight-core chips are available. A recommended option is the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, while for Intel, the devs suggest the Intel Core i7-12700K.
A move up to 32GB of RAM may seem like another higher-end requirement than you might expect, but again, RAM upgrades are cheap right now, so whether you're running DDR4 or DDR5, an upgrade should be an easy option that will benefit everything you do on your PC.
Finally, we come to the Doom The Dark Ages Ultra/4K system requirements, and as you might expect, these require some really serious hardware. To hit a 2160p resolution at 60fps with ultra video settings, you'll need a high-end PC that's under four years old.
Leading the charge for ultra settings is a graphics card with 16GB of VRAM or more, with id suggesting the Nvidia RTX 4080 or AMD RX 7900 XT – both cards that launched just over two years ago for over $900. At least the U requirements for these settings aren't any tougher, as they're exactly the same as those for the recommended tier. It's the same story for RAM.
Whatever settings you're hoping to enable in this game, you'll need a decent size SSD. The Doom The Dark Ages size is 100GB, with id recommending a 512GB drive and that an SSD is required.
The game may still work loading from a hard drive but to give yourself plenty of space and to avoid slow loading times, you should grab one of the WD Black SN850X, which offers great performance at a reasonable cost as a modest PC upgrade.
Without a doubt, these system requirements are slightly alarming news regarding the future of PC gaming. With the likes of Nvidia having been pushing ray tracing so hard in recent years, and Indiana Jones: The Great Circle having just set a new record by being the first PC game to require ray tracing hardware, but the fact that a Doom game is pushing the specs this hard too is unsurprising, however, given that they share the same game engine.
You might want to check out our best gaming PC guide next, if you've ultimately decided your system is in need of a complete upgrade.
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