How to build a PC to play Warzone 2.0 on +140 FPS without selling a kidney for dummies

I really hate to admit it but the money I didn’t spend in their store I spent on upgrading my PC. I’ve built 3 PCs in the past, 1 was for videos editing and 2 to play warzone.

I’ll share with you what I learnt along the way because it’s been a fucking journey. I’m gonna say stuff I wish people had told me when I was building my PCs. I’ll keep the language bereft of any technical jargon to avoid confusion and KISS (keep it stupid simple\[weirdo\]). The mystery behind building a PC can seem a bit too frightening for people who have no experience, and building a PC to play Warzone specifically is an entirely different discussion. In this guide, I will help to dissect the different important aspects you need to consider, and you’ll be surprised to learn that it’s actually not at all that complicated.

Another important point to make before continuing, this guide is designed for people who are willing to invest $1500 minimum on building their PCs. I found out that it’s better to go big or go home when it comes to building a performing PC for Warzone. Anything below the specs I will give later will not hold well now or in the near future.

# 1.a. Warzone is CPU-intensive and the CPU you’ll get will determine the performance you’ll pull.

The game is so insanely CPU-bound. Let’s suppose we have 2 PC.

* PC 1 has a Ryzen 7 5800x3d and a 4090
* PC 2 has a Ryzen 7 5800x3d and an RX 6950 XT (3090 equivalent)

The 4090 is a substantially faster and better GPU than the 3090, about 76% faster according to this site: [https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-3090-vs-Nvidia-RTX-4090/4081vs4136](https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-3090-vs-Nvidia-RTX-4090/4081vs4136)

Yet in Warzone in Al Mazrah, they perform the same (the 4090 is insignificanly faster with a few frames). Why? Because, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS, the CPU is the one factor to how much FPS you’re generating. Here’s a video comparing an AMD 6950XT and a 4090 with 5800x3d in Al Mazrah and arriving to the same conclusion: [https://youtu.be/TqsXlhPLB8I?si=GbI31lYRJZYlrATS](https://youtu.be/TqsXlhPLB8I?si=GbI31lYRJZYlrATS)

Advice: get the best CPU your money can afford, and that my friend will be the 7800X3D. That’s one monster of a high-end CPU that will probably last forever. A very close second competitor would be the 5800X3D. Anything outside of these CPUs and you’re wasting money. 5800X3D is a more budget-friendly option and is the one I’m running. I highly recommend it.

(sorry I have no clue about Intel CPUs and can’t vouch for them. Please include your recommendations in the comments and I’ll add them here).

**1.b. High end Ryzen CPUs (a) run at very high temperatures, (b) are hungry for fast ram and (c) power**

i. Get an AIO Cooler

This is what you call “water cooling”. It may seem frightening at first but you can absolutely learn how to mount it. Here’s a tutorial on how to mount it: [https://youtu.be/BbGomv195sk?si=3Tm34vRG0GJakVaQ](https://youtu.be/BbGomv195sk?si=3Tm34vRG0GJakVaQ)

ii. Get a big computer case

The smallest you can go is a Micro ATX (ATX is a fancy term for computer cases \[aka chassis)), preferably get the biggest ATX case sizes or at least a mid tower. Ryzen CPUs will still run hot even with an AIO cooler in place if there’s no airflow. How do I know? I had this exact same issue.

iii. The ram speed you want get is 3200mhz. Lower than this and you’re defeating the purpose of buying a fast CPU. Higher than this, and there will be no significant improvement that’s worth the extra $$$. CMV.

iv. Get two ram sticks, not 3, not 4, not 1, TWO, ONE AND TWO. This activates their dual ram channel, a fancy concept for saying that 2 rams work better than alone.

v. Find out the optimal RAM speeds for your CPU, but in most cases, 3200mhz is the sweet spot for everything in the market. But for higher end CPUs, you might want to invest more for them to pull the performance you expect them to pull. Not so much information on this as I haven’t looked past the 5800X3D.

vi. Make sure to get a motherboard that’s compatible with the CPU, can hold an nvme SSD and is compatible with DDR4 ram memory

vii. HDD will give you hard times, stutters, and freezes, get an SSD, any SSD will do. NVME is a fancy term for the fastest SSD available. It has its own special mount and some motherboards have it others don’t. The great majority have it if they can run a Ryzen CPU.

# 2. If the game is CPU-bound, then what the hell is the GPU for?

And here is the tricky question of bottlenecking. I know it seems like a complicated word, but hear me out.

Imagine you’re a professional cyclist who won the Tour De France twice consecutively. You have your own professional and well designed racing bike that comes with gears shifting, thin wheels for less friction for a faster traverse on the terrain, you know, the whole shebang. With that thing you’re able to cycle easily 60 km/h at full speed.

One day your friend invites you to visit his city and hands you a normal average city bike without all the extra drip. You hop on it and you start cycling and for the life of you, no matter how hard you cycled, you ain’t cycling faster than 20km/h, 30km/h at best. The city bike is preventing you from going faster. In other fancy words, the city bike is BOTTLENECKING you. You can and are able to cycle faster, physically you’re fit, but the bike is just too slow for you.

That’s the exact dynamics going on with CPUs and GPUs.

Remember in my previous example I mentioned the 5800X3D? Switch that to the 7800X3D, and suddenly the 4090 is back on top. The 7800x3d is a faster CPU than the 5800x3d.

Conversely, let’s suppose that we get a 3070 TI and we couple it first with the 5800X3D and then with the 7800X3D. Your FPS in both cases will be capped but this time it’s due to the GPU. The GPU is just slow and the CPU still has some legroom to pull more performance.

Here is a chart for better illustration.

[Green FPS is what you’ll get, Red FPS is what your hardware is capable of but won’t deliver due to bottlenecking. The FPS values are approximate to illustrate the point](https://preview.redd.it/tbpfzjti7zob1.png?width=962&format=png&auto=webp&s=76f2e70f5617d6671fd24734ea1a73e73e1059a6)

This question is quite complex and we could go on forever explaining the intricate interactions between the CPU and GPU, but if we were to dumb it down, then this is all you need to know:

High end CPUs (5800X3D equivalent and higher) are able to handle any GPU no matter how performing they are. However, doesn’t matter how performing the GPU is, the FPS will always be limited to your CPU. The CPU is the be-all end-all determiner of FPS.

Don’t believe me? Watch these 2 videos. Exact same settings, different resolutions (one is 1080p, the other 1440p). No significant change in FPS. Compare the Akhdhar Village segment in both videos.

* [https://youtu.be/vhOCF72GKQE?si=5fLYcoysO3kYHGt5](https://youtu.be/vhOCF72GKQE?si=5fLYcoysO3kYHGt5)
* [https://youtu.be/wJd76HZq-TQ?si=WgkcotInUlx8LZ0R](https://youtu.be/wJd76HZq-TQ?si=WgkcotInUlx8LZ0R)

I hope this drives home the information that choosing the CPU is more important than choosing the GPU. The GPU in the peculiar case of Warzone 2.0 becomes an auxiliary. Because the CPU is working hard to process the FPS and the game information (map rendering, bullets connecting and damage values, movement, latency, synching… etc), your GPU will be effectively chilling, and you are able to put it to work by upgrading the graphics or the resolution. The GPU will allow you to play the game in higher quality while the CPU will be maintaining the same FPS.

**Recommendation**: get the 5800X3D and a 3090 (6950XT equivalent in AMD). This will pull average 170 FPS on 1440p across all maps.

**N.B: FPS in Warzone 2 fluctuates HARD. The game is so poorly optimized that in some sections of the map you’d pull +200 FPS, other sections you’ll be pulling 130 FPS. Don’t get shocked when you drop into Vondel and the FPS is at a measly 130 FPS. That’s because the map is full of polygons and more intense details than in Al Maz.**

# 3. Power supply

The least you should go with PSU is a ln 850W one. 1000W is preferable, but 850W is just about enough.

Apparently, there are purchasing tiers to power supplies I didn’t know about. Get something in the A tier. Don’t even think of research it. They literally did that for you. Here is the list: [https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/](https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/)

Gold-Silver-Platinum…etc refer to how efficient a PSU is in handling power. Gold is the recommended minimum. Below this, and you start experiencing constant crashes and black screens all over.

This guide is based on my experience and experience only. Feel free to correct any inconsistencies you see or clarify something that’s not clear. Cheers.

My PC build: [https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PDW3t7](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbDZzblNJc2d4WHhja0hPWEtDeWpnMXpkMXFsd3xBQ3Jtc0tsTzJJRWRTTklLM1h0N3g1VUlkcEIzbHpNblZfWDYzUkk5NEE1ZldpWmRRX2oxeFQzcXlZQ0xONzJab2lHVjFfUzRNNXBxUWRrREx6UERvUlAzZlVZLXp1R2hiN21OTk5DQkdUTkhJakNTbk9tUXhONA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fpcpartpicker.com%2Flist%2FPDW3t7&v=HEusiGPeric)

# Final thoughts and recommendations

* When it comes to CPUs, for a budget friendly yet monstrous piece of hardware, I highly recommend the 5800X3D. For the value for money and the performance you’re getting, it’s just way too good.
* For GPUs, the 3090 or the 6950XT will set you free to upgrade your monitor to 1440p. You’ll be pulling on average 170fps on both 1440p and 1080p as explained above, and you’ll have more legroom GPU-wise to play on higher graphics and textures which helps with visibility.
* For SSDs, get a 250gb nvme and a 1TB SSD. Install Windows on the nvme and Warzone on the SSD. I quite literally got the cheapest of both.
* For RAM, get 2 ram sticks 8gb each that have 3200mhz. This will be just enough to run the game as the gods intended.
* For AIO, any AIO almost will do the trick, as long as it is 240mm in length (i.e it has 2 fans on top). 1 fan in the radiator (the part of the AIO that cools down the water being pumped into the CPU cooler) will not be cool enough to keep the CPU at performing temperatures.
* Any case will do, micro ATX being the smallest you could go.
* Make sure to have at least 1 fan in the front to draw cool air in, and one fan in the back (usually comes with the ATX case) to breathe the air out. Additional fans are bonus.
* Get an 850W gold A-tier PSU, and forget about crashes.
* Any motherboard will do, as long as it supports the CPU and RAM DDR4. If not sure, check the bios update notes (bios is the operating system of a motherboard, sometimes, they update motherboard to be compatible with newer CPUs, especially if the motherboard is ancient like mine)

# AVOID AT ALL TIMEs THE RGB LED COLORFUL LIGHTING EQUIPMENT ON ANY OF THESE PIECES OF HARDWARRE. LGB LEDS SHOOT UP THE PRICE SIGNIFICANTLY AND ARE NOT WORTH THE MONEY.