When it comes to the Borderland series, some things never change: The cel-shaded look Gearbox settled on all those years ago, the love-it-or-hate-it humour. And on PC, there's one more thing you can throw into the mix: every major Borderlands game has run like a bag of frogs juggling bowling balls on release. Which is to say, not very well.
Post-launch patches solve most of the issues in time, but stutters, hitches, and relatively low frame rates are the norm for the series, so my expectations for Borderlands 4's launch performance weren't very high. And sure enough, it needs work.
I've tested Borderlands 4 on two gaming PCs: one that just meets the minimum system requirements (Core i7 9700K, Radeon RX 5700 XT, 16 GB DDR4-3200) and one that's a top–end gaming rig (Ryzen 7 9800X3D, GeForce RTX 5090, 32 GB DDR5-6400).
Note: Not long after Borderlands 4 launched on Steam, a 2.7 GB patch appeared. It didn't come with any patch notes, so I have no idea what it fixed or added, but I can say that it stopped most of the crash-to-desktop failures I experienced with my first few runs. Most.
Tested on: Ryzen 7 9800X3D | GeForce RTX 5090 | 32 GB DDR5-6400
4K | Badass preset
Starting at the very top-end, I ran Borderlands 4 on an MSI/CyberPower 9800X3D+5090 gaming rig. A Ryzen 9 9950X3D might garner a few more frames per second, but you're otherwise looking at the best hardware around at the moment. So if it doesn't run well on this, you know you're going to be in trouble on lower-spec systems.
The above footage was captured at 4K, using the Badass quality preset (ie, every setting on maximum). No upscaling or frame generation is being used. Yes, that long pause at the end is the game freezing; it crashed to desktop immediately afterwards.
As you can see, the overall performance isn't great. Hitting 40 fps on average in an indoor environment, with little in the way of draw distance or environment detail, is really disappointing. And I haven't even gone outdoors yet.
So far, so Borderlands, then. Well, to be fair to Gearbox, so 2025, because many games these days rely on a certain bit of performance technology to get the desired frame rate.
4K | Badass preset | DLSS Performance
Trying again with DLSS Performance helped things considerably, doubling the average frame rate and greatly reducing the number of freezes and hiccups. It looks a tad fuzzy to my eyes with that level of upscaling, and as you can see from the GPU's power draw, the game is mostly CPU-limited in this configuration.
In other words, that's as good as it gets, and only frame generation will improve the frame rate further. Given that Borderlands 4 isn't especially snappy, I'm not sure frame gen will actually make the game feel any better. I plan on exploring that further in time but for now, let's see what it's like once we venture into the open world.
4K | Badass preset | DLSS Performance
Heading outdoors doesn't hit the performance on this high-end rig as much as you might think. As you can see in the above footage, the average frame rate does dip frequently down to the low 80s but the 1% low figure is mostly fine. However, once I started to explore the open world further, hitches and stutters began to crop up and I got one crash to desktop as I traversed across an open expanse.
Overall, though, I'm pretty disappointed by how well Borderlands 4 runs on a very high-end gaming PC. Sure, I played at 4K with the highest quality settings, but I also used DLSS Performance. Oh, and an RTX 5090. Taking those into account, 80 fps doesn't seem that great after all.
Tested on: Core i7 9700K | Radeon RX 5700 XT | 16 GB DDR4-3200
1080p | Low preset
My old Core i7 9700K test rig is actually a fraction better than what Gearbox is saying is the minimum hardware needed to run Borderlands 4. It's the same in terms of RAM and GPU, but the requirements list a non-K version of the 9700, which is roughly 200 MHz (about 4%) slower than the K model.
Running the game at 1080p with the Low quality preset (which puts almost every graphics setting to the minimum value), you can see that a 'min spec' PC actually copes quite well. It's certainly not a consistent 60 fps by any means, and the above footage is indoors, but I'm a little surprised by how good it looks.
A spot of FSR Quality upscaling improves the performance, and it's more than playable like this. The graphics are a touch fuzzy, and while the frame times are quite low, Borderlands 4 does feel a tad laggy in this configuration. It's hard to quantify precisely how bad it is—I'm judging it entirely on feel—but if you love fast, twitchy gameplay, you may want to pay close attention to the feel within the refund window so that you can back out if it bugs you.
Heading outdoors with FSR enabled grinds the old eight-core CPU extremely hard: you can see that it's pegged at 100% utilisation for large portions of the above run. Don't forget that this is an average figure across all eight cores, too.
And then there's the relatively long and very noticeable stutter. It looks like a one-off in the footage, but as I explored more of the outdoor world, they increased in frequency and severity. Increasing the upscaling didn't help, nor did dropping every graphics setting to the minimum. Gearbox wasn't kidding when it said that a Core i7 9700 was the absolute minimum CPU for Borderlands 4.
Comparison with previous Borderlands games
I wanted to see how well the 'minimum spec' PC coped with the previous Borderland games. The footage below is with each game running at 1080p, using the maximum graphics settings in each case.
As you can see, the 9700K + 5700 XT combination has no problems running any of the three, though it's interesting to note just how low the GPU utilisation is in Borderlands 2 (and yes, I did kill myself with a misplaced grenade throw). It's not like the game is totally CPU-bound, either, as the central processor isn't running anywhere near its maximum load, as indicated by the power consumption (it's a 95 W chip).
The footage of Borderlands 3 is taken in a far more enclosed area than the other two, so the draw distance is much lower, but you can see that the additional detail in that game's environment takes a big toll on the old hardware.
Even so, the performance is perfectly acceptable for a CPU and GPU that are seven and six years old, respectively. Don't forget that all of this is at maximum quality settings and no upscaling or frame generation.
More importantly, the jump from Borderlands 3 to Borderlands 4 is remarkable. Where the old rig coped well enough with maximum quality settings, low details, and upscaling are the order of the day now. The new game arguably looks better but I'm not sure that Borderland games need to look super detailed, high res, and all spangly and whatnot.
Over the coming weeks, I plan to delve deeper into Borderlands 4 to see what, if anything, can be done about the game's performance, but we'll likely have to wait for more patches to see any major improvements.
Gearbox definitely knows it has work to do, as the audience is expressing its discontent with a number of negative user reviews on Steam that cite performance issues. If your PC is really struggling, though, you may just have to upgrade if you're going to get the experience you want.
"It's a big, bold, new, seamless world, and I'm sorry to say that older hardware may not provide buttery smooth performance for the latest gen AAA games, as has always been the case since the dawn of PC gaming," Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said before launch.
👉Check out our list of guides👈
1. Best CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
2. Best motherboard: MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi
3. Best RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB DDR5-7200
4. Best SSD: WD_Black SN7100
5. Best graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
