Borderlands 4 benchmarks show you'll need a powerful PC to play at 1440p or 4K

NVIDIA has released DLSS 4 benchmark results for Borderlands 4, and for those wanting to play with 'Max Settings' you'll need some serious hardware.

Borderlands 4 benchmarks show you'll need a powerful PC to play at 1440p or 4K
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TL;DR: Borderlands 4, powered by Unreal Engine 5, demands high-end hardware, with a recommended GeForce RTX 3080 GPU for smooth gameplay. NVIDIA benchmarks reveal significant performance boosts using DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation, but even top GPUs require these technologies to maintain stable 60+ FPS at max settings.

Okay, so Borderlands 4 is out this weekend, and early word from those who have played the PC version is that it's a pretty demanding game, hardware-wise. This makes yet another potential Unreal Engine 5-powered game that is set to arrive with day-one performance issues. According to Gearbox's Randy Pitchford, a day-one patch will enhance the game's performance; however, PC players should note the hardware requirements before jumping in.

Borderlands 4 4K benchmark results, image credit: NVIDIA
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Borderlands 4 4K benchmark results, image credit: NVIDIA

With the recommended GPU being a GeForce RTX 3080, there will likely be Borderlands fans who struggle to achieve smooth performance. Today, as part of NVIDIA's weekly DLSS roundup, we've got some of the first in-game Borderlands 4 benchmark results. However, as it's part of a DLSS 4 write-up, the performance numbers include both DLSS 4's new Super Resolution upscaling and Multi Frame Generation.

And yes, even though the GeForce RTX 5090 can achieve 256 FPS in 4K, and the GeForce RTX 5080 can reach 166 FPS, this represents a 5.5X increase in performance compared to running the game in native 4K without DLSS or Frame Generation. This indicates that the RTX 5090, the most powerful gaming GPU on the market, is running the game at around 50 FPS.

Borderlands 4 1440p benchmark results, image credit: NVIDIA
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Borderlands 4 1440p benchmark results, image credit: NVIDIA

It's worth noting that NVIDIA's Borderlands 4 benchmarks cover the game running with 'Max Settings,' so optimizing settings should lead to better performance across the board with minimal changes to the overall visual presentation. That said, with Borderlands 4 running with 'Max Settings' on an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D rig with 64GB of system memory, the 1440p benchmarks for the game only include the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 - indicating that the game will require 16GB of VRAM at this resolution and quality setting.

Borderlands 4 1080p benchmark results, image credit: NVIDIA
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Borderlands 4 1080p benchmark results, image credit: NVIDIA

Dropping the resolution down to 1080p, every GeForce RTX 50 Series GPU can hit 160+ FPS with DLSS 4 Super Resolution and Multi Frame Generation. With NVIDIA adding that at 1080p DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation increases performance, on average, by a factor of 4.2X, this implies that the GeForce RTX 5070's raw 1080p performance playing Borderlands 4 is sitting at around 50-60 FPS. For those out there that aren't a fan of technologies like DLSS, this will be disappointing to hear, as ultimately these benchmark results from NVIDIA show that at the very least you'll need to enable DLSS 4's Super Resolution if you want to play Borderlands 4 at a steady 60 FPS.