Is Ark: Survival Evolved More CPU or GPU Intensive?

Ark: Survival Evolved has gained huge popularity as a dinosaur survival game, but it’s also notorious for being very demanding on gaming hardware. A common question many players have is whether Ark taxes your CPU or GPU more. After looking at benchmarks and hardware usage data, it’s clear that Ark is primarily GPU-bound, especially if you want to run the game at high resolutions and settings.

Why Ark Pushes GPUs to Their Limits

When running Ark with maxed out graphics settings at 1080p or higher, even high-end GPUs like the RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT are pushed to 99% utilization. Meanwhile, the CPU usage tends to hover between 10-20%, even on 6 or 8 core processors.

This huge mismatch comes down to unoptimized code and graphics effects that aren’t efficient for the level of visual quality they provide. Compared to other good looking modern games, Ark has a disproportionately high load on your graphics card.

Overclocking your GPU can help squeeze out more performance in Ark. Since the game is so graphics-limited, any extra MHz you can get out of your video card will directly translate to higher frame rates. Overclocking your CPU likely won’t have much impact unless you’re running lots of programs in the background.

Quad Core CPUs Are Sufficient for Ark

Ark can take advantage of multiple CPU cores and threads, which helps prevent severe bottlenecks on today’s CPUs. But in actual gameplay, most systems will be held back by the GPU long before the CPU becomes an issue.

Gamers report smooth gameplay in Ark even with older quad core chips like the Intel Core i5-6500 or Ryzen 5 1500X. The engine doesn’t require the latest 6 or 8 core processors. For example, the Core i3-10100 with 4 cores and 8 threads performs nearly the same as the 8 core i7-10700K because the GPU is almost always maxed out first.

As long as you don’t have a really weak dual core CPU, upgrading your processor likely won’t help much with Ark frame rates or smoothness. Focus your budget on the best GPU possible, along with sufficient RAM and SSD storage.

Recommended GPUs for Popular Resolutions

Here are some examples of powerful enough video cards for different resolutions in Ark:

• 1080p at High Settings – GTX 1060, GTX 1660 Ti, RX 590
• 1440p at High Settings – GTX 1070, GTX 1660 Super, RX 5700
• 4K at Medium Settings – GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2070 Super, RX 6700 XT

To maintain a smooth 60 FPS at 1080p with maxed settings, you’ll need at least an RTX 2060 or RX 5700 XT. For 1440p Epic settings, step up to an RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT. And running Ark at 4K with all the settings turned up requires brute force cards like the RTX 3080 Ti.

Faster RAM and SSDs also Help

Although Ark revolves around the GPU, you can optimize other components to further enhance performance:

• RAM – Ark recommends at least 8GB, but 16GB is better if you run any background apps. Faster RAM kits around 3000+ MHz can provide a couple extra FPS.
• Storage – An SSD is highly recommended over a mechanical hard drive. This prevents texture pop-in and improves load times.

Upgrading to 32GB RAM or a Gen4 SSD likely won’t impact gameplay noticeably. But moving from 8GB RAM or a hard drive to 16GB and an SSD makes a big difference. Prioritize these after you pick your GPU.

Conclusion

In summary, Ark: Survival Evolved is a very graphics-intensive game that tends to be GPU bottlenecked, especially if you use high quality settings. The engine and optimization still has room for improvement.

When building or upgrading your system, choose the strongest GPU you can reasonably afford, rather than overspending on your CPU or other components that won’t impact frame rates as much. With the right setup, you can enjoy smooth Ark gameplay and get fully immersed in the dinosaur survival experience.