Best GPUs for Alan Wake 2: Budget, mid-range & high-end

Looking for a new GPU to run Alan Wake 2? We’ve listed three of our top picks for the card you should consider if you’re looking to play the game on PC.

It’s not every day that a game comes out that really pushes the limits of PC hardware. Alan Wake 2’s PC system requirements might have you quaking in your boots. But, if your PC doesn’t meet the minimum or recommended requirement, then it might be time to pick up a brand-new graphics card.

Since Alan Wake 2 uses complex techniques like ray reconstruction, DLSS 3’s frame-generation, and more, we think that your best option for running the title will be with Nvidia, rather than AMD. While Team Red’s RX 7800 XT is an accomplished GPU, it just can’t keep up with heavy ray-traced workloads. Luckily for you, we’ve checked out every Nvidia RTX 40-series graphics card.

Also thanks to Nvidia’s released performance benchmarks, we can tell you exactly which GPU will be best for your wallet, and your setup.

1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070

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Nvidia’s RTX 4070 sits as a mid to high-end option for those shopping for a new GPU. At an MSRP $599, it offers great performance for 1440p workloads, and according to Nvidia’s benchmarks, will be able to handle Alan Wake 2 with all of the bells and whistles turned on, at 91 FPS. This happens to include DLSS Supersampling set to performance, and frame-generation turned on, with full path tracing, too.

Of course, you will need a good CPU to match up to those framerates, but sitting pretty at 90 FPS at 1440p makes the RTX 4070 the best option for most PC gamers, as it’s one of the most common resolutions, and you won’t have to break the bank just to upgrade your GPU.

The RTX 4070 also performed admirably in our review, and right now, we’d say it’s one of the best GPUs that you can pick up right now.

2. Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090

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If you’re not strapped for cash and are looking for the best performance that money can buy, then you should look no further than Nvidia’s RTX 4090. This beastly graphics card can muster up to 134 FPS in Alan Wake 2 at 4K according to official benchmarks, meaning that you won’t just get excellent performance at 4K, but blisteringly-fast framerates if you choose to tweak your DLSS settings to Quality, too.

Of course, a $2000 graphics card isn’t going to be attainable for everyone, and the RTX 4080 also manages to achieve 103 FPS at the same settings. But, given that the 4090 just has so much more raw power, it’s difficult to refute how good this GPU really is.

Thanks to additional robust support for modern rendering techniques like DLSS 3 frame generation, the RTX 4090 isn’t just one of the best GPUs for Alan Wake 2, it’s the fastest consumer graphics card on the planet, according to our review.

3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060

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Nvidia’s RTX 4060 might be the “weakest” graphics card in the RTX 40-series lineup, but it can still pack a punch when it comes to delivering frames when you most need it, thanks to DLSS 3 frame generation being enabled on the card. This allows the GPU to punch much higher than it would. Paired with the rest of Nvidia’s technologies, the RTX 4060 becomes ideal for those looking to play Alan Wake 2 at 1080p.

Nvidia’s official benchmarks pop the RTX 4060 at a steady 82 FPS at 1080p, meaning that there could also be possible wiggle-room to get the game running at 60 FPS at 1440p. Given the price of the RTX 4060 here, this is an admirable effort, and it also means that you won’t have to rethink your entire PC just to modernize your graphics card, as we state in our review.

Again, just note that all of the FPS quotes that we are using here are from Nvidia’s official benchmarks, and have DLSS 2, 3, and 3.5 running concurrently, with “Full” ray tracing. We assume they mean path tracing here.

Do you need frame generation for Alan Wake 2?

Alan Wake 2 stands to be one of the most technically demanding PC games ever created. Remedy’s inclusion of path-traced lighting means that it’s incredibly taxing, even on modern graphics cards. To combat this, your GPU will need to use AI tools in order to get the game running at a steady framerate. Sure, rasterization performance is important, but specifically for Alan Wake 2, you need to consider how much of an advantage being able to use DLSS 3 frame generation really is.

Is FSR 3 coming to Alan Wake 2?

Remedy has not announced whether FSR 3 will come to Alan Wake 2 or not. Though it seems to not be launching with the feature, we hope that the developer includes the tech in a future update, in order to aid performance for AMD graphics cards.

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