Roughly two months ago we got our first look at the system requirements for Borderlands 4, a process that involved many of us on the hardware team scrunching up our noses. Listed on the Steam page was the insistence that the game would require eight CPU cores as a minimum, which seemed highly unlikely given how many speedy six core processors there are on the market.
So much so, in fact, that our Jeremy theorised that what the devs likely meant is it would require a CPU with a minimum of eight software threads, which even an ancient four-core CPU with multi-threading support would technically cover. Well, the specs have now been updated on the community page, and they look identical—save for one note.
Next to the same eight-core minimum CPU requirement is an asterisk, and that asterisk points to the phrase "or equivalent." Which means... I'm not entirely sure. Again, the temptation is to think that we're likely talking about thread requirements again here, although an eight-thread CPU is not equivalent to an eight-core model. In fact, not even close.
Taking a look at those CPU minimums once more, we've got the Intel Core i7 9700 and the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X listed as example chips, which are indeed both eight-core processors—although both are definitely showing their age in 2025. Still, what would be the equivalent to a full-fat eight-core CPU, in terms of spreading out the multi-core load of what looks to be a fairly CPU-demanding game?
Well, if it weren't for those eight-core chips listed as the minimum, I'd say that something like a six-core, 12-thread CPU (like the brilliant Ryzen 5 9600X) would likely do the job very well. It's a great little gaming chip, and one that's unlikely to struggle in just about any other game you could throw at it. But again, that "equivalent" phrasing has me scratching my head, because it's a bit of an apples-to-bowling-balls comparison.
If pushed, I'd say this is likely a case of poorly-phrased communication with the playerbase, and that plenty of six-core, muti-threaded CPUs will run it just fine. Still, if I had less than an eight physical core chip right now and I was considering buying Borderlands 4, I'd definitely be putting off my purchase until I'd seen some performance testing. Which is probably not what you want when you're trying to maximise your pre-release sales figures.
Anyway, the rest of the community post lists all the graphics settings you'll be able to adjust should you take the plunge, which is actually pretty nice to see. BL4 will come with a bounty of upscalers to choose from—DLSS, FSR, TSR and XeSS, specifically—along with Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, Frame Generation, and a host of environment and post-processing settings that should help you take some of the load off your graphics card, at the very least.
As for the CPU, though? It's still something of a mystery. I'll be very curious to see how this runs on less-than-eight-core chips, and whether this was all a fuss about nothing—or whether Borderlands 4 really is a CPU-core-cruncher extraordinaire.
1. Best overall:
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
2. Best budget:
Intel Core i5 13400F
3. Best mid-range:
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
4. Best high-end:
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
5. Best AM4 upgrade:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D
6. Best CPU graphics:
AMD Ryzen 7 8700G
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