Best Gaming PCs to Play Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 is the fifth instalment in this popular sandbox racing series.

Forza Horizon 5 system requirements and the best PCs to play

Once again improving upon its predecessors, this game boasts an even larger map, photo-realistic graphics, more vehicles, new game modes, and updated features.

What is Forza Horizon 5 About?

Forza Horizon 5 takes the Horizon Festival to the diverse country of Mexico. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking, and Playground Games confirmed it to be the largest Forza Horizon made at the time. The gameplay celebrates the culture, heritage, and unique geography, with a detailed representation of the surrounding roads, cities, and landscape. There is limitless driving action in the free roam mode with a giant map to explore topped off with varied seasons and localised weather patterns. Also, for the first time, there will be a story-driven campaign with new characters, exciting experiences, and many races and missions to complete. Additionally, as part of the Horizon 5 package expect many new game modes. There will be Horizon Arcade to easily join up with friends and other players or EventLab where anyone can create their very own race or game mode with crazy jumps and point-scoring bowling pins.

Supercars

A Horizon game wouldn’t be complete without hundreds of the world’s greatest cars all recreated in incredible detail. Forza Vista allows you to get up close and personal with every model and the ray tracing compatibility ensures photo-realistic graphics. The all-important modification and customisation options have been completely redesigned with thousands more visual and performance upgrades available.

Forza Horizon 5 also has some of the most impressive car audio you’ve ever heard. The game uses hundreds of sound clips for each vehicle. Every sound has been recorded, from a real car revving to performing doughnuts and high-speed cornering. The engine and exhaust note will even change with modifications and performance upgrades. Finally, with the implementation of ray traced audio, the sound will be altered with the surrounding landscape. It can bounce off tall buildings or even be distorted by trees. Blasting through a tunnel and accelerating past a deep walled canyon has never sounded so good! It took years of meticulous work by the audio team and the video below demonstrates that it was definitely worth it.

Forza Horizon 5 Release Date and Platforms

Forza Horizon 5 has been available to play since November 9^th 2021. It can be played on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and GeForce Now. Better yet, Forza Horizon 5 has full crossplay support, so you can race against the squad regardless of which platform they use!

Since its release, there has been additional content added, such as a Hot Wheels and Rally Adventure expansion.

Forza Horizon 5 Official Specifications

Forza Horizon is a motorsport title known for expansive open landscapes and stunning visuals. Forza Horizon 5 is the best yet, with a stunning graphical overhaul that includes ray tracing support. Fortunately, the hardware requirements for Forza Horizon 5 are still reasonable. This is likely because the fifth instalment continues to use the same ForzaTech game engine as Horizon 4. There have been many upgrades and updates to the lighting, draw distance, and textures for this new game. However, this tried and tested engine is well-optimised on older PCs and hardware.

Here are the official specifications for Forza Horizon 5 as listed on Steam:

Component	Minimum	Recommended
Operating System	Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher 64-bit	Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher 64-bit
Processor	Intel Core i5-4460 AMD Ryzen 3 1200	Intel Core i5-8400 AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
Memory	8GB RAM	16GB RAM
Graphics	NVIDIA GTX 970 AMD RX 470 Intel Arc A380	NVIDIA GTX 1070 AMD RX 590 Intel Arc A750
DirectX	Version 12	Version 12
Network	Broadband Internet Connection	Broadband Internet Connection
Storage	110GB available space	110GB available space

Will My PC Run Forza Horizon 5?

The minimum specifications reveal that, for a modern title, Forza Horizon 5 will be reasonably easy to run. As expected, the graphical requirements are more demanding than the previous game. However, if you could easily play Horizon 4 you should have no problem with Horizon 5. Unfortunately, to play on an older PC you will have to reduce the resolution and graphical settings. This will greatly impact the beautiful Mexican landscape. You’ll want to aim for at least the recommended settings to get the best experience and ensure your PC can keep up with the high-performance cars.

Processor and Memory:

The minimum processor is listed as an Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200. Our recommended CPU is the i5-10400F or Ryzen 5 5600X. We’ve estimated that these processors will be ideal for playing Forza Horizon 5. This is because of their high boost clock speed, six cores, and twelve threads which are ideal for demanding gameplay.

For memory, the minimum requirement of Forza Horizon 5 is 8GB. This is in line with other recent gaming releases. For the best experience, you will need at least 16GB. This estimate is based on the requirements for Horizon 4 and other AAA games.

Graphics and Storage:

The gameplay trailer first shown at E3 revealed that Forza Horizon 5 features incredibly realistic visuals. For example, the expansive landscape, detailed vehicles, high-resolution textures, and immersive terrain. Consequently, the game will demand a powerful graphics card for the best experience of this graphical eye candy. However, if you’re happy to reduce the resolution or lower the settings, you can get away with the GTX 760 or AMD’s RX 460. This demonstrates just how well the ForzaTech engine is optimised, and you should expect around 30FPS at 1080p on low settings.

Our recommended graphics cards are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 or AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT. These are both modern GPUs with ray tracing capability, 12GB of VRAM, and powerful performance. With one of these graphics cards, you should be able to play at a high resolution, super smooth frame rate, and ultra graphical settings.

The storage requirement for Forza Horizon 5 is 110GB free space. To enjoy the Horizon 5 to its full potential and cut down on loading times, you will need to install it on a high-speed SSD. Faster storage will ensure a better gameplay experience. We also recommend a high-capacity drive, as there is plenty of add-on content to keep gameplay fresh and varied!

Best Gaming PCs to Play Forza Horizon 5

Overclockers UK is the home of PC enthusiasts, with an extensive range of gaming PCs and laptops ideal for playing the latest and greatest games. We’ve picked out a selection of our favourites for playing Forza Horizon 5, but you can explore the full collection if these don’t rev your engine. Better yet, as this is a driving game, we’ve even picked out a racing wheel for that authentic experience!

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