Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 runs surprisingly well on almost-decade-old RX 580 and GTX 1060

Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 has caused quite a stir. Developed by a small team at Sandfall Interactive, many are already placing the game in the “Game of the Year” conversation, and rightfully so. From the gorgeous visuals and the dynamic turn-based combat to an intriguing plot, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 has been a hit on almost all fronts. So, it is no wonder that the game is standing at an incredible 92 on Metacritic with a 9.7 user score.

Sadly, with the current state of the PC market in general and the abysmal state of desktop GPUs in particular, many people who are excited about the title might not have the “Recommended” hardware to smoothly run the game. Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 system requirements list a GTX 1060 6 GB/ RX 5600 XT 6 GB and the RTX 3060 Ti/RX 6800 XT as the “Minimum” and “Recommended” GPUs, respectively. Unfortunately, modern RX 6800 XT-class GPUs like the RTX 5070 and the RX 9070 are next-to-impossible to buy at their respective MSRPs.

So, the question now becomes: If you don’t have the budget for a new GPU, how does Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 play on the “Minimum” required GPUs? Fortunately, AMD APU Gaming has now tested the game on a budget gaming PC equipped with an RX 580 and a GTX 1060 6 GB.

Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 on RX 580 and GTX 1060 6 GB

AMD APU Gaming tested Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on a PC equipped with a:

• A Ryzen 5 5600G
• 16 GB of DDR4-3600 memory
• An Asus Prime B550M-A motherboard

The GPUs used in the comparison were the XFX AMD Radeon RX 580 8 GB and the Palit GTX 1060 6 GB Storm X.

Unsurprisingly, both GPUs struggled to hold a steady 30 FPS at 1080p resolution with medium quality settings. However, this means that dropping the settings down to low should push the frame rate to above 30 FPS, maybe even reaching a solid 40 FPS. The frame time graph is also not smooth, which is to be expected for GPUs that are almost a decade old.

An interesting thing to note here is the lack of any FSR support in the game. While the GTX 1060 doesn’t support any version of DLSS, the RX 580 does support FSR but not any form of Frame Generation. Independent testing has confirmed that the RX 580 does see a notable performance bump with FSR enabled. So, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 not supporting FSR is a bummer for RX 580 users, which comprises more than 960,000 Steam gamers per the Steam Hardware Survey.

In short, if you own a GTX 1060 or an RX 580, you can play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 at more than 30 FPS at 1080p. However, we’d recommend shelling out around $220 for a GPU like the RX 6600 to ensure a smoother and more visually pleasing gameplay.