At Logical Increments, we recommend PC builds in "tiers," with each tier containing the most powerful, most reliable, and least expensive combination of parts for that price. We don't list the individual parts in this guide because they change frequently based on local prices and new releases. You can see the latest individual part choices for each tier at the main guide page, which is updated regularly. Open it in a new tab to compare: Logical Increments PC Parts Guide. You can also see a comparison between GPUs in our Graphics Card Comparison page.

 

 

 

Note: NVIDIA graphics perform about 10% better in Overwatch 2 compared to their AMD equivalents.

Frames per second (FPS) measures the number of images your computer can produce every second. Higher frame rates mean that your screen will show more images per second, which means that you will see a smoother animation. Lower frame rates cause a game to appear to stutter, which is generally not enjoyable for the player.

For the purposes of our PC build guides, we recommend computers that will achieve 60 FPS in your game of choice. Some gamers are satisfied with frame rates as low as 30, but that depends largely on the gamer and the game.

For more information and animations explaining frame rate, please check out our Frame Rate page.

Resolution refers to the number of pixels on a screen. High resolution means more pixels and generally more space and detail, while low resolution means fewer pixels, and often less space. If you are using a typical (not high-end) laptop or an old screen, you likely have a low resolution. When comparing screens with a similar aspect ratio, it is always better to get a higher resolution screen. Higher resolution will always looks better, as you have more real estate and a sharper picture. The image below shows the difference in real estate between common resolutions.

For more information on resolutions, check our Screen Resolution page.

Before we discuss how various PC components influence Overwatch 2’s performance, let’s take a look at the game’s Minimum and Recommended specifications, according to Blizzard:

Minimum System Requirements:

• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 600 Series, Radeon HD 7000 Series
• CPU: Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom X3 8650
• Memory: 6 GB RAM

Recommended System Specifications:

• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1060 or Radeon R9 380
• CPU: Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen 5
• Memory: 8 GB RAM

By modern standards, these official specifications are easily achievable. If we assume the R5 listing means that actually an i5 is roughly as good as an i7 for smooth performance on max settings, then even the humble 'Good' tier on the Logical Increments parts list roughly meets Blizzard’s official recommended specifications.

Recommended GPUs for Overwatch 2

Compared to many modern games, Overwatch 2 is not very demanding on graphics cards. That said, you’ll still want a good graphics card to get the most out of the game’s visuals and maximize your FPS.

Note: NVIDIA graphics perform about 10% better in Overwatch 2 compared to their AMD equivalents. You will get better performance for your money in Overwatch 2 with NVIDIA graphics cards.

For gaming on Ultra settings at 1080p with 60 FPS, we recommend at least a GTX 1660.

For Ultra settings at 1440p with 60 FPS, we recommend at least an RTX 3060. To get 60 FPS on Ultra at 4K resolution, or 144 FPS at 1440p, we'd recommend something around the level of the RTX 4070 Ti.

Recommended CPUs for Overwatch 2

The CPU is an important component for Overwatch 2, but the game does not have particularly high demands.

Even a lowly i3-12100F can keep your average FPS above 100.

If you want to achieve 100+ FPS in Overwatch 2, an Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 will get you there. For staying consistenly above 144 FPS at Ultra settings, consider springing for something like the i7-14700K. Extra cores will help raise the minimum FPS. These CPU options will also be more future-proof and get better performance in more demanding games.

Overwatch 2’s visual settings fall into three categories: Display Settings, Graphical Settings, and Advanced Graphical Settings.

Display Settings

Display settings include settings such as resolution, field of view, and vertical synchronization (VSync).

If you’re looking to improve performance without lowering your graphical settings, we recommend disabling Enable Triple Buffering and setting Limit FPS to None.

Graphical Settings

This section simply lets you choose a preset that auto-adjusts various graphical settings under “Advanced Graphical Settings.” The following presets are available: Low, Medium, High, Ultra, and Epic.

All of our benchmarks are based on the Ultra preset, one step down from Epic. Lowering the preset will significantly improve the game’s performance if you’re not achieving your desired framerate on Epic.

However, you can likely achieve a better balance of visual detail and performance by adjusting the Advanced Graphical Settings yourself.

Advanced Graphical Settings

This section is where you can really tune the game to perform best on your hardware. In total, there are 15 settings to adjust. Let’s take a detailed look at some of the settings that have the greatest impact on performance.

Render Scale

Render Scale downsamples or supersamples the rendering resolution of the game. For example, if you have a 1080p monitor, you can play the game at “4K resolution,” by increasing the Render Scale to 200%, which will make the visuals look more smooth, with fewer pixelated “jaggies.” Conversely, lowering the setting below 100% will make the game look more blurry, but will improve performance dramatically.

"High" (100%) matches your chosen display resolution (set under Display Settings). “Ultra” increases your rendering resolution by 150%, and “Epic” increases rendering resolution by 200% (for example, turning a 1080p monitor into 4K rendering resolution).

Out of any setting, this has the greatest impact on performance in Overwatch 2. We recommend keeping this at 100% unless your hardware surpasses your desired performance. If you’re getting better framerates than you need, feel free to crank up the Render Scale, if you feel the visual improvement is worth the performance cost.

Performance impact: ~65% between High and Epic. ~45% between Low and High.

 

Texture Quality

This affects the appearance of the game’s textures, which cover the game’s characters and environment. Higher-quality textures eat up VRAM, which can affect performance on lower-end graphics cards. Graphics cards with only 2GB of VRAM are not allowed to use the High setting.

Performance impact: ~3-4% between Low and High.

 

Texture Filtering Quality

This setting relates to how the textures are applied to 3D models. Higher settings minimize the blurring and blocking of textures on models.

Performance impact: ~3-4% between Low and Epic.

Local Fog Detail

Honestly, we’re not entirely sure what Local Fog Detail does. In our testing, we could not tell a huge visual difference between the Low and Ultra settings. What makes this especially perplexing is that Local Fog Detail has a pretty big impact on performance. If you’re looking to get better FPS, this is one of the first settings we would adjust. (And if you know more about what this setting does, let us know in the comments below!)

Performance impact: ~12-15% between Low and Ultra

Dynamic Reflections

This setting affects FPS pretty dramatically, and reflections still look relatively good when set to Low.

Performance impact: ~20% between Low and High. Another 7-8% between Off and Low.

 

Shadow Detail

As the name implies, this setting influences the level of detail in shadows. Ultra looks very defined, while the shadows look blurrier as you lower the setting.

Performance impact: ~5-6% between Low and Ultra. Another ~4-5% between Off and Low.

 

Model Detail

You guessed it: This affects the level of detail for models in the game!

Performance impact: ~3-4% between Low and Ultra.

Effect Detail

The details of certain effects in the game. The performance impact of this setting varies depending on what’s happening on screen, but it is never very performance-taxing.

Performance impact: ~5% between Low and Ultra.

Lighting Quality

This setting influences the luminosity of lights in the game. Turning it up makes the environment look brighter!

Performance impact: ~7-8% between Low and Ultra.

Anti-Aliasing:

Anti-Aliasing is another way to smooth out “jaggies” caused by pixelation. Overwatch 2 has a few different forms of AA, between Off and Ultra. It has a small performance hit, so we recommend turning this setting up as high as your PC can handle.

Performance impact: ~5-6% between Off and Ultra.

Refraction Quality

We had a hard time finding a noticeable difference between this setting turned all the way up and all the way down. Thankfully, it also causes little performance difference.

Performance impact: ~3-4% between Low and Ultra.

Local Reflections

This is an On/Off setting, and boy does it make a difference to the visuals, while barely making an impact on performance. We recommend keeping these on, unless you really hate reflections. Check the screen comparison below.

Performance impact: Less than 1%.

Ambient Occlusion

This is another On/Off setting adds more detailed shading to the game’s environment at points where two surfaces meet. While ambient occlusion can make a noticeable difference in some games, it is very subtle in Overwatch 2.

Performance impact: ~5-6%.

If your computer can achieve a steady 60 FPS with all the settings turned up at your desired resolution, then we recommend keeping things as they are.

However, if you’re not reaching 60 FPS, or if you have a specialized monitor with a higher refresh rate and want to get even better performance, there are certain settings you can lower to improve your framerate without sacrificing too much in the way of visuals. Unfortunately, lowering multiple settings will not have a cumulative effect on framerate: If a setting give 10% improvement, and another gives 10%, lowering both will not give 20%, but between 10-12%.

Improve FPS considerably with little to no impact on visuals

• Set Dynamic Reflections to Medium or Low
• Set Local Fog Detail to Low

Improve FPS by larger amounts with moderate impact to visuals

• Set Dynamic Reflections to Off
• Set Shadow Detail to Medium or Low
• Set Lighting Quality to Medium or Low

Last Resorts

If doing all of the steps above still does not achieve your desired framerate, try some of the following:

• Set all settings except Render Scale to Medium or Low
• Set Ambient Occlusion to Off
• Very last resort: Set Render Scale to 75% or even 50%. Lowering the Render Scale will make the game look pretty terrible, but it will improve your performance dramatically.

If you try all of the above and still can’t run the game, you likely need to upgrade your hardware.

To determine how your PC will perform Overwatch 2, you’ll need to consider three things:

1. The resolution you want to play at (usually your screen’s native resolution)
2. How much graphical detail you want
3. How smoothly you want the gameplay to run

For our purposes, we aim for a very smooth 60+ FPS with the graphical settings turned to ultra settings. If you’re willing to lower any graphical settings, or you’re happy with framerates lower than 60 FPS, you can get by with an even lower-tier PC.

Below, we list the the tiers on our parts list that would achieve that 60 FPS baseline on ultra graphical settings at a range of progressively more demanding screen resolutions. You can see a comparison between GPUs in our Graphics Card Comparison page. 

 

1600x900

The Fair tier will get you very smooth performance in Overwatch 2 at 1600x900.

 

1920x1080 (1080p)

The Good tier will get you very smooth performance in Overwatch 2 at 1080p.

 

2560x1440 (1440p)

The Superb tier will get very smooth performance in Overwatch 2 at 1440p.

 

3840x2160 (4K)

The Enthusiast tier will handle Overwatch 2 at 4K smoothly.

A well-balanced, moderately powerful modern PC should have no problem running Overwatch 2 and making the game look great.

We hope this guide has helped you understand the necessary PC hardware for running Overwatch 2 to your satisfaction. If you want to do further research on PC hardware, please visit our main PC parts list on our homepage.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below, or email us at contact@logicalincrements.com.

James is the content manager for Logical Increments. He’s a big fan of Blizzard games and has been building PCs for more than 15 years.

Logical Increments helps more than 2 million PC builders each year with hardware recommendations for any budget.