In this article, we’re going to take a look at the recommendations for Battlefield 4 and concentrate specifically on the graphics side. How much do you need to spend and where do you need to look to find your GPU upgrade to play the game?

Battlefield 4 introduces a lot of new elements into gameplay such as near-fully destructible environments, map-changing events, incredible visual fidelity, and new particle effects. All of these effects will rely heavily on GPU capabilities.

But which graphics cards should you be looking at, and at what settings can you expect the game to be playable? Our recommendations today will hopefully help players in that regard.

Battlefield 4 PC specs

The table below shows the prices of various graphics cards available from local retailers. The lowest prices are highlighted in Bold. For the purposes of this roundup, products listed as “Sold Out”, “Contact for availability” or “Out of stock” will not be included in the table.

Prices are listed in South African Rands (R). In addition, we will not be noting specific GPU versions, only listing the prices of the cheapest GPU model available on each website.

Across the board, Rebeltech has the lowest pricing once again, followed by Wootware, with the remaining three not far behind. Although the various prices here could be attributed to different brands being on offer, it’s a good sign to see such healthy competition.

There are some noticeable omissions from the table. The GTX670 is replaced by the GTX760 Ti, which should also replace the GTX660 Ti, but current pricing doesn’t reflect its position in the market. The GTX680 is also excluded, but for all intents and purposes can be considered equal to the HD7970 in most scenarios.

The Radeon HD7730 replaces the HD6670 at a slightly higher price point, while dwindling availability on the Radeon HD7870 XT/LE means that I can’t reliably recommend it if finding one will be so difficult. The Radeon HD7970 GHz edition is also omitted, but only to avoid confusion as it is identical to the HD7970 in all but default clock speeds.

Battlefield 4 GPU recommended settings

The table below represents the graphics cards and the quality settings that should be playable. Note that I don’t include multi-monitor resolutions or 720p. Any card here will excel at 720p, while multi-monitor setups and 3D are still a niche application.

For those of you who are looking for that information, any card from the Radeon HD7950 and up will be fine for both applications, although settings may have to be lowered to medium details to maintain a competitive and playable frame rate.

Most of the low-end cards up to the Radeon HD7770 should have playable performance using FXAA to solve the problem of the low memory on those cards. The GTX650 Ti and the Radeon HD7790 should be able to run High settings and 1080p well enough to remain playable.

The only recommendations which do need explaining are the Radeon HD7990 and the Geforce GTX690. Both cards are dual-GPU solutions and will excel at any of the lower resolutions. Therefore, recommending settings for a UltraHD 4K monitor is more pertinent, as these cards aren’t expected to drive lowly 1080p monitors.

Battlefield 4 Paracel Storm screenshot

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