The Witcher 3 Notebook Benchmarks

Heavyweight. The third part of the fantasy saga based on the sorcerer Geralt is now in front of us. The story and graphics of the game promises to eclipse the RPG competition. However, we are more interested in the game performance on notebooks. What system is needed for what settings?

Florian Glaser, ✓ Stefanie Voigt (translated by Vinay Pradhan), Published 05/27/2015 🇩🇪 🇵🇱

For the original German article, see here.

Engine

Alleged graphics downgrades aside: With maximum details, the PC version of “The Witcher 3” looks great. The draw-distance and textures look great, but the greatest strength lies in the amazing details in this 3rd person RPG. Compared to other RPGs, the objects in “The Witcher 3” come alive with intricate details. The thick vegetation is impressive, but the quality of trees and bushes fluctuates heavily due to the (slightly) exaggerated representation of the weather.

The atmospheric day and night cycle dips the environment in a dynamic light. The Polish studio, CD Project RED, has chosen a suboptimal color scheme (subjective) and we would have preferred lower saturation. However, the engine leaves little room for complaint and runs well, apart from the occasional object popping in and out of vision. According to modern standards, the game is medium-sized (~25 GB) and offers an extensive options menu. CD Project splits the graphics settings into two menus.

While the Post Processing menu contains all the options for effects and graphics improvements, like Motion Blur, Bloom and Anti-Aliasing (apparently only FXAA is used), the Graphics Menu offers options for the resolution, the picture and more detail and quality settings. The vertical synchronization and FPS limit were turned off for the test. The engine deserves praise for its presets. A single click allows the user to adjust the overall game quality in 3 or 4 steps. With the exception of the environment coverage (SSAO instead of HBAO+), all settings are turned on with the maximum preset.

Although the Nvidia HairWorks feature (hair simulation) is available on the AMD and Intel systems, we recommend only Nvidia users to enable this. In the Radeon R9 290X test, the frames dropped at maximum settings by about 40%, from 50 to a poor 29 fps. The Nvidia competitor, GeForce GTX 980, ran just 20% slower with active HairWorks (44 instead 55 fps). In general, AMD GPUs suffer a lot more (Project Cars says hello). As can be witnessed from desktop GPU, the Radeon R9 280X, is positioned below the technically slower GeForce GTX 970M.

Let us go back to the graphics menu: the user does not have to restart “The Witcher 3” as the settings are applied directly applied while fine-tuning. We truly appreciate the ability to skip the cut sequences and the relatively short load times (even on a HDD). We deduct some points for the somewhat cluttered interface for mouse and keyboard use. We used the GOG version with the Day One patch (v1.02) for our test. Steam and Origin also offer this game.

Benchmark

We picked a benchmark sequence that included dense vegetation outdoors. After Geralt finishes the tutorial and successfully wins a small fight against a few monsters, the player receives a horse. As shown in the video below, we follow our partner Vesemir through an incredible landscape bathed in afternoon light. We head to Ross following a path up a mountain and, on the way, pass the ruins of a burnt village. The benchmark sequence ends after 55 seconds when we reach the wooden bridge.

Results

The results make it clear that “The Witcher 3” has very high requirements. Even at low settings, the graphics of the game are quite good, which means that the user will require at least a powerful middle-class GPU. In fact, the GeForce GT 750M, which performs well in most games at normal to high settings, could offer a mere 27 fps at a resolution of 1024x768 pixels and the Low preset.

Cheaper models, like the GeForce GT 740M, are overburdened by “The Witcher 3”. The same is true for the Intel IGPs (Integrated Graphics Processors). Neither the HD Graphics 4600 nor the Iris Pro 5200 can run the game fluidly. Stronger GPUs, like the GeForce GTX 850M or the GTX 860M, can manage a resolution of 1366x768 pixels and the Medium preset.

High details and a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels are only possible once you have a GeForce GTX 880M or higher. The maximum settings (FHD, HairWorks On) are only somewhat possible with the top Nvidia GPU, the GeForce GTX 980M. At a 4K resolution (3840x2160 pixels), all mobile GPUs are too weak for High or Ultra presets. In fact, expensive desktop GPUs, like the Radeon R9 290X, are hard pushed to deliver a fluid fps.

“The Witcher 3” does not seem to have high CPU requirements. In our test, we found the graphics card to be the bottleneck on systems equipped with Intel processors and Hyperthreading technology. Note: CD Project will soon release additional patches to improve the graphics and performance of the game. Future results may not be directly comparable.

The Witcher 3
3840x2160 High Graphics & Postprocessing (Nvidia HairWorks Off) 1920x1080 Ultra Graphics & Postprocessing (HBAO+) 1920x1080 High Graphics & Postprocessing (Nvidia HairWorks Off) 1366x768 Medium Graphics & Postprocessing 1024x768 Low Graphics & Postprocessing
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, 3770K Desktop-PC	32.1 (27^min) fps ∼1% 44.4 (36^min) fps ∼1% 83.8 (70^min) fps ∼2% 139.8 (120^min) fps ∼3% 200.1 (167^min) fps ∼5%
AMD Radeon R9 290X, 4790K Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Tri-X OC	28.4 (22^min) fps ∼1% 29 (25^min) fps ∼1% 75 (64^min) fps ∼2% 123 (87^min) fps ∼3% 179 (160^min) fps ∼4%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	22.8 (19^min) fps ∼1% 32.6 (25^min) fps ∼1% 61.4 (43^min) fps ∼1% 102.2 (79^min) fps ∼2% 168.4 (143^min) fps ∼4%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, E3-1230 v3 MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 4G Desktop-PC	27.7 (21^min) fps ∼1% 49.8 (40^min) fps ∼1% 86.6 (74^min) fps ∼2% 142.8 (121^min) fps ∼3%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	17.6 (15^min) fps ∼0% 25.8 (19^min) fps ∼0% 47.8 (39^min) fps ∼1% 84.3 (65^min) fps ∼2% 137.7 (112^min) fps ∼3%
AMD Radeon R9 280X, 3770K Desktop-PC	20.2 (17^min) fps ∼0% 47.6 (41^min) fps ∼1% 76.4 (66^min) fps ∼2% 114.4 (101^min) fps ∼3%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	18.7 (14^min) fps ∼0% 34.2 (26^min) fps ∼1% 58.4 (51^min) fps ∼1% 94.4 (83^min) fps ∼2%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	15.4 (12^min) fps ∼0% 27.7 (23^min) fps ∼1% 47.4 (41^min) fps ∼1% 77.7 (70^min) fps ∼2%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M, 4720HQ Schenker XMG A505	9.7 (7^min) fps ∼0% 13.7 (11^min) fps ∼0% 27.1 (21^min) fps ∼1% 49 (42^min) fps ∼1% 80.6 (72^min) fps ∼2%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M, 4700MQ Schenker W504	11.7 (9^min) fps ∼0% 19.9 (15^min) fps ∼0% 35.9 (29^min) fps ∼1% 57.3 (50^min) fps ∼1%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M, 4340M Schenker M504	11.3 (9^min) fps ∼0% 20.9 (17^min) fps ∼0% 38.4 (32^min) fps ∼1% 63.9 (37^min) fps ∼1%
AMD Radeon R7 512 Cores (Kaveri Desktop), A10-7850K A10-7850K Asus A88-XM-PLUS	5.5 (4^min) fps ∼0% 10.3 (7^min) fps ∼0% 20.2 (17^min) fps ∼0% 30.9 (26^min) fps ∼1%
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M, 4702MQ Schenker M503	5.3 (3^min) fps ∼0% 9.3 (7^min) fps ∼0% 16.4 (14^min) fps ∼0% 27 (23^min) fps ∼1%
NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M, 4200M HP Envy 15-j011sg	4 (2^min) fps ∼0% 6.9 (5^min) fps ∼0% 12.1 (10^min) fps ∼0% 20.6 (18^min) fps ∼0%
Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200, 4750HQ Schenker S413	20.5 (12^min) fps ∼0%
NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M, 2637M Acer Aspire M3-581TG	19.8 (16^min) fps ∼0%
NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M, 4200M MSI CX61-i572M	5.1 (0^min) fps ∼0% 9 (0^min) fps ∼0% 14.7 (0^min) fps ∼0%
AMD Radeon HD 8650G, A10-5750M Pumori Test Platform (A10-5750M)	15.6 (12^min) fps ∼0%
Intel Iris Graphics 5100, 4258U Apple MacBook Pro Retina 13 inch 2013-10	14.1 (5^min) fps ∼0%
Intel HD Graphics 4600, 4700MQ Schenker W504	8.4 (4^min) fps ∼0% 13.1 (10^min) fps ∼0%
NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M, 3720QM Asus N56VM	12.1 (7^min) fps ∼0%

Test Systems

Four of our test models originate from Schenker Technologies (mysn.de):

W504 (Core i7-4700MQ, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 860M, GTX 870M, GTX 880M, GTX 970M, GTX 980M)
A505 (Core i7-4720HQ, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 960M)
M504 (Core i5-4340M, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 850M)
M503 (Core i7-4702MQ, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GT 750M)

We use Windows 7 64-bit on these notebooks (Win 8.1 @XMG A505).

Nvidia provides three of our test models:

HP Envy 15-j011sg (Core i5-4200M, 12 GB DDR3, GeForce GT 740M)
MSI CX61-i572M281BW7 (Core i5-4200M, 8 GB DDR3, GeForce GT 720M)
Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3-581TG (Core i7-2637M, 4GB DDR3, Geforce GT 640M)

Intel provides one test model:

Schenker S413 (Core i7-4750HQ, 8 GB DDR3, Iris Pro Graphics 5200)

The desktop PCs use CPUs/APUs from Intel and AMD, SSDs from Micron, Intel and Samsung, motherboards from Intel and Asus and graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD. The 4K monitor we use is an Asus PB287Q (our review).

GPU drivers: Nvidia 352.86, AMD 15.4 Beta, Intel 10.18.14.4170

Overview

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Editor of the original article: Florian Glaser - Managing Editor Gaming Laptops - 729 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2009

I discovered my interest in computers in my childhood, growing up with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 in the early 1990s. I was especially fascinated with computer games, even from an early age. From Monkey Island through Lands of Lore to Doom, I tried every game I could get my hands on. I have been working for Notebookcheck since 2009 with my focus mostly being on high-performance gaming laptops.

> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > Archive of our own reviews > The Witcher 3 Notebook Benchmarks

Florian Glaser, 2015-05-27 (Update: 2026-02-25)

Legend
5	Stutters – This game is very likely to stutter and have poor frame rates. Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, average frame rates are expected to fall below 25fps
	May Stutter – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, stutters and poor frame rates are expected.
30	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 25fps
40	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 35fps
60	Fluent – Based on all known benchmarks using the specified graphical settings, this game should run at or above 58fps
	May Run Fluently – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game. Based on interpolated information from surrounding graphics cards of similar performance levels, fluent frame rates are expected.
?	Uncertain – This graphics card experienced unexpected performance issues during testing for this game. A slower card may be able to achieve better and more consistent frame rates than this particular GPU running the same benchmark scene.
	Uncertain – This graphics card has not been explicitly tested on this game and no reliable interpolation can be made based on the performances of surrounding cards of the same class or family.
The value in the fields displays the average frame rate of all values in the database. Move your cursor over the value to see individual results.

Engine

Benchmark

Results

Test Systems

Overview

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