A highly anticipated game with loads of gamers enjoying it right from the get-go, we now see what it takes to enjoy a good experience as we find the best GPU for Black Myth: Wukong. With quite the high graphics requirements it’s not exactly the easiest although at least the minimum is a bit more achievable, but for enjoying it at its best it certainly takes some horsepower.
That’s also probably why they released a demo for it seeing if you can even run Black Myth: Wukong so you could at least get a taster of your gaming PC’s capabilities of performing well. This might lead you to consider having to upgrade your hardware or look for something new, and that’s where we come in to help you decide. So you can get to playing the game with a bit more ease, as long as you can fix the crashing too.
The RTX 4080 Super
- GPU: AD103
- CUDA Cores: 10,240
- VRAM: 16GB GDDR6X
- Bandwidth: 736.3 GB/s
- Memory bus width: 256-bit
- Base clock speed: 2295 MHz
Our top choice for Black Myth is the RTX 4080 Super. It is basically the top-spec Nvidia GPU available without having to opt for the 4090 which has its own own drawbacks and issues as most models are way overpriced now. But the Super is plenty powerful in its own right, and kind of the requirement to get the full ray tracing and cinematic experience out of the game.
The card features the AD103 processor on board with 10,240 CUDA cores from the Ada generation. With such a grand 16GB of GDDR6X memory totaling 736GB/s of bandwidth, making it a strong choice for 4K gaming and that’s where it excels in being a good choice for Black Myth. As it still requires quite a bit of tinkering with the settings and some assistance to get a high framerate.
RTX 4080 Super Black Myth Wukong, Image by PC Guide
RTX 4080 Super Black Myth Wukong performance, Image by PC Guide
Black Myth Wukong Stream and bridge, Image by PC Guide
As putting the 4080 Super to the test in Wukong, even at 4K and pure settings, it runs just over 30 FPS. That’s with very high graphic settings, and scaling at 100 without DLSS or upscaling but with frame generation on. So you still have to opt for the recommended settings and turn up DLSS to get a 4K experience and at least 60 FPS. That’s without even considering running ray tracing at the same time.
For that, we just looked at 1080p, which doesn’t drop a lot of performance for just running on low. But very high ray tracing does kick it down to under 60 FPS and could do with a boost with DLSS and the sorts. But going up to 4k you certainly would have to and getting a cinematic and beautiful experience still needs a lot of help even to get that 60 FPS even on the 4080 Super that’s so high up in tiers. But it’s your best chance to combine that high quality from the game.
Below are the specs of the test rig we used for benchmarking the game. You can also read our RTX 4080 Super review to see how we like it in general, although not the same model we used for this test, it should have virtually the same performance.
- Ryzen 9 7950X CPU
- ASUS ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI
- Phanteks 1000W PSU
- ROG Ryujin II 360 AIO CPU cooler
- Corsair Vengeance 32GB 6400
GPU requirements for Black Myth: Wukong
The graphics card requirements for Wukong do ramp up quite quickly. Especially if you want to go for ray tracing where it’s down to Nvidia GPUs from the past two generations to do any of the hard work. AMDs can’t quite achieve the same performance and it is more hard-hitting, which we also found in our preliminary tests for the game. So if you’re planning on getting a card for the game here’s what the developers recommend for different tiers.
- Minimum: GTX 1060/RX 580
- Recommended: RTX 2060/RX 5700 XT
- Ultra: RTX 4070/RX 7800 XT
- Minimum ray tracing: RTX 3060
- Recommended RT: RTX 4060
- Ultra RT: RTX 4080 Super
It’s worth noting the rest of the system specs as well. Needing 16GB of RAM at a minimum does eliminate plenty of older systems. But on the higher end needing 32GB as well as 130GB of SSD storage space, it does make the load and needs of your PC quite heavy so might need some adjusting and looking to that upgrade sooner.
Alternative choices
Realistically, not everyone can and should opt for the RTX 4080 Super, so there are alternatives listed below to go for as well. With a variety of choices that span budgets and performance, you can find the right one for your needs. As well as being able to read our in-depth reviews for each as we have seen how they do in general as well.
Starting off with the RX 7800 XT, which does fall behind what the 4080 Super can do specifically ray tracing, but also does not cost a fortune. It is still the recommended option for playing at Ultra and reaching very high at 4K. Which is still quite a high need but a bit more achievable.
Then there’s the RTX 4070 Super, on par with the AMD card and still a strong contender for getting the most out of the game. But again, for a lot less than our top pick, as long as you don’t mind not being able to play on max settings. But it’s still in general a good performing card to go for, especially for ray tracing.
Lastly, something a bit more budget-oriented, the RTX 4060 is the option to go for. The entry-level Nvidia Ada card is the cheapest available and grants access to all the improvements and features of the generation while targeting just 1080p performance. Whilst also being a recommendation for ray tracing performance making it a good all-around cheaper card just might need a bit more settings tinkering too.
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AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
- GPU: Navi 32
- Stream Processors: 3,840
- VRAM: 16 GDDR6
- Memory bus width: 256-bit
- Bandwidth: 624.1 GB/sec
- Base clock speed: 1,295 MHz
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ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4070 Super OC Edition
- GPU: AD104
- CUDA cores: 7,168
- VRAM: 12GB GDDR6X
- Bandwidth: 504 GB/s
- Memory bus width: 192-bit
- Boost clock speed: 2595 MHz
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Final word
There you have our selection of graphics cards for Black Myth: Wukong. The top choice is the 4080 Super as the game is rather demanding, and wanting 4K and good graphics does require plenty of horsepower so it’s the best to get the most out of it. But if you’re looking for lower resolutions or settings then there are easily some other options to go for. The RX 7800 XT and RTX 4070 Super do a good middle job of a lower price and performance, whilst the RTX 4060 is a cheap option to go for.
