Once again, we’re entering the fall and winter rushes of video games, which will provide several months of AAA releases. One of the earlier entries, launching October 5th, will be Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.

Ubisoft recently published their requirements for “Minimum” at 720p, “Recommended” at 1080p, and “Recommended 4K” at, as the name suggests, 4K. Each of these levels assume 30 FPS. While 30Hz is not what a lot of PC gamers consider recommended, I am glad that Ubisoft qualified what “minimum” and “recommended” actually corresponds to. They even publish expected clock rates, which leads to a notable scenario…

Here are the specifications. Be sure to read the analysis after! It should be interesting.

Minimum:

  • 64-bit Windows 7 SP1 (or later)
  • AMD FX 6300 @ 3.8 GHz or Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.1 GHz or AMD Ryzen 3 – 1200
  • AMD R9 285 (2GB) or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 46GB of available storage

Recommended:

  • 64-bit Windows 7 SP1 (or later)
  • AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz or Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.5 GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 – 1400
  • AMD Radeon R9 290X (4GB) or NVIIDA GeForce GTX 970 (4GB)
  • 8GB of RAM
  • 46GB of available storage

Recommended 4K:

  • Windows 10 64-bit
  • AMD Ryzen 1700X @ 3.8 GHz or Intel Core i7-7700 @ 4.2 GHz
  • AMD Vega 64 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB)
  • 16GB of RAM
  • 46GB of available storage

As I look through this list, a few details pop out at me:

  1. AMD Ryzen 1700X requires a lower clock rate than the Core i7-7700 at 4K
    • Seems to suggest that Odyssey will meaningfully use more than eight threads.
    • Makes a strong case for higher core counts in consumer PCs going forward.
  2. 4K only requires a GTX 1080 (or a Vega 64)
    • Suggests that even a single GTX 1080 Ti can run 4K significantly above 30FPS maxed.
  3. 4K recommends 16GB of RAM
    • Seems to suggest that Ubisoft will keep higher level-of-detail (LOD) assets loaded at longer draw distances when the resolution is up to 4K. (I could be wrong though.)

Obviously the first point is the most interesting for me. Intel could have increased core counts for a long time now, albeit at the expense of more SKUs, larger dies, and so forth. If Assassin’s Creed is any indication, we’re beginning to see consumer software getting more comfortable with parallel code. That said, I expect that, even if Intel released bigger SKUs earlier, software would still lag until around this time anyway. The point is that AMD has an answer for it now, and, unlike their gamble with Bulldozer, it’s well-timed with software trends.

Of course, AMD probably coaxed that to happen with the Xbox One and PS4.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey launches on Friday, October 5th. Check out the system specs here.