God of War Ragnarok PC Performance Review: A Smooth Adventure in the Norse Lands

After two years of waiting, God of War Ragnarok PC is finally available worldwide. Originally a PlayStation exclusive, GOW Ragnarok was made available with a PC port by Jetpack Interactive. This is the same studio that made the PC port of God of War (2018), and it ran perfectly well before. Well, after receiving a copy from Sony, we were curious about it too. So I was able to evaluate the game’s performance in depth. Let’s talk about all of this in our God of War Ragnarok PC performance review.

God of War Ragnarok: A Brief Overview

As everyone knows, God of War Ragnarök is a direct sequel to the game God of War (2018). Therefore, the story of the father-son duo, Kratos and Atreus continues their journey through the realms of Norse mythology as they face the consequences of their past actions. Alongside this, they must navigate the prophesied apocalypse, Ragnaröktogether.

So grab your Leviathan Axe and Chaos Blades, because we’re all set to embark on a longer and more exhilarating journey than the prequel. So whether you’re a long-time fan of the God of War franchise or a newcomer, you’re guaranteed an epic Norse saga.

God of War Ragnarok PC Performance (Tested)

Before we discuss the performance of each resolution, here are the specifications of the PC we used to test the game:

Test Setup:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D @ 4.20 GHz
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti SUPER
RAM: 32 GB
SSD disk: Samsung 990 PRO 1TB

An important thing to remember here is that I am using a double-chamber PC cabinet with reversed fans. So the CPU and GPU temperatures may be a bit higher than what you can find. Also, the area I live in has a warm climate, so that may also be a factor.

We tested God of War Ragnarok’s PC performance on all resolutions available to us, such as 1080p, 1440p, and 2160pWe ran the game at the highest possible settings, which is the Ultra setting natively, as well as with DLSS and Frame Gen enabled to show you the best of both worlds. That said, here are the full results of our benchmark:

God of War Ragnarok PC: Ultra 1080p Settings (FHD)

We have a solid setup here, so God of War Ragnarok ran flawlessly at 1080p on ultra settings as expected. In our testing, we got a 130-140 FPS running in native mode. During this run, the GPU temperature remained around 60-64 degrees Celsius and the usage was about 83-90%As the game is GPU bound, the CPU temperature was around 60 degrees Celsius and 28% utilization.

As you can see, the game ran pretty well and I didn’t encounter any issues while running in FHD.

Although it already works without any issues, I enabled DLSS in Quality mode and also Frame Generation to see how much I can improve the performance. To my surprise, the frames per second skyrocketed. touch 200 FPSAs a result, you can feel the real fluidity of the fight and the GPU temperature remained the same below 65 degrees Celsius, but the utilization jumped to 99% in this case.

God of War Ragnarok PC: Ultra 1440p Settings (QHD)

I started my first playthrough in native 2K resolution with ultra settings and was happy to see the game running with an Average FPS of 144. However, as soon as I finished the prologue and entered Svartalfheim (a graphically intensive region), the FPS dropped to 95-100 This is not a big problem in itself, and the GPU temperature increased to 69-70 degrees Celsius, and GPU usage was 99-100% all the time.

Luckily, we have DLSS and Frame Generation on our side to improve performance in this case. When I enabled them, I started to feel the huge difference in performance with a slight drop in quality. I was now getting 150 FPS constantly with the GPU temperature at 65-67 and GPU usage was still at 99%.

Additionally, during QHD testing with and without DLSS, CPU usage remained below 30% while temperatures were stable at 67-70 degrees Celsius.

God of War Ragnarok PC: Ultra 2160p Settings (UHD)

Next, we cranked the settings up to 4K resolution in ultra settings. Going to 4K took us backward in terms of performance. At native 2160p resolution without scaling, we were getting on average about 75 FPS. However, GPU temperature and usage remained at the same level as before, with 68 degrees Celsius And 99-100% use.

This is great for taking advantage of the highest resolution, but I wanted to increase performance even further with DLSS and Frame Generation. When I set DLSS to Quality and also enabled FG, I was back to a constant resolution of 115-120 FPS on average. The GPU temperature was around 65-66 degrees Celsius, and the use remained at 99%.

In native tests as well as with DLSS + FG enabled, CPU temperatures were at 57-62 degrees Celsius and the use was in 16-25%.

God of War Ragnarok PC: Playable Settings

As you can see from the data above, the game runs perfectly at its native resolution, and that’s with the highest possible settings. So, if you’re looking for visually rich gameplay, you can play at your native resolution and enable Frame Gen to smooth out the performance even more. I didn’t notice any input lag or lack of responsiveness during my run.

Fortunately, you don’t need to reboot every time after changing settings. So, you can easily play around with each setting to get the performance you want.

While I was averaging 100 FPS In 1440p and ultra settings, I enabled Nvidia’s Frame Gen alone to improve the game’s smoothness. As a result, I got an average of 120 FPS with a GPU temperature of 67 degrees Celsius and used at 100%. CPU usage remained below 25% and since I have a fairly power-hungry and hot CPU it was below 65 degrees Celsius.

God of War Ragnarok PC Verdict: Should You Pick Up the Axe?

Without a doubt, God of War Ragnarok is a near-flawless PC port like its predecessor. While I didn’t encounter any performance issues, I did encounter a few visual issues. For example, the leaves on the trees turned all black in Midgard at the end of the prologue.

Additionally, the QTE HUD buttons seemed blurry at times. Thankfully, after rebooting once, things went back to normal and they didn’t detract from my experience. So, minor glitches and bugs can be annoying, but as we speak, the developers are releasing patches simultaneously to iron out these minor flaws.

Other than these minor issues, I haven’t encountered any serious problems. Jetpack Interactive has done a fantastic job with the PC port and you can experience Kratos and Atreus’ journey without any obstacles.

The improved combat is as fluid as ever and the revamped graphics are a feast for the eyes. So you can play the game smoothly in a stable FPS (with occasional drops, rarely).

I have already completed the game twice on my PS5, but I have to admit that the game feels even smoother, especially the combat, thanks to the AI ​​upscaling technology. This game is a masterpiece and an 11/10 in my eyes, so I highly recommend it to all players to experience this wholesome and badass adventure.

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