What graphics card do I need for 60 FPS in Cities: Skylines II at 1080p?

By our estimate (±30%), the Radeon RX 7800 XT is the least powerful of our 10 reference cards to reach 60 FPS at 1080p High, at about 65 FPS. No published benchmark of Cities: Skylines II at that setting is in our data to confirm it.

Can a GTX 1650 run Cities: Skylines II?

By our estimate it gets about 28 FPS at 1080p Low (struggles) and 18 FPS at 1080p High (struggles), each ±30%.

What are the minimum system requirements for Cities: Skylines II?

Steam lists Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 970 (4 GB) | AMD® Radeon™ RX 480 (8 GB) graphics, Intel® Core™ i7-6700K | AMD® Ryzen™ 5 2600X and 8 GB of RAM as the minimum.

What GPU do I need for Cities: Skylines II at 1440p?

For 60 FPS at 1440p High, the cheapest current card is the Radeon RX 9070 XT, at ~67 FPS (launch price $599).

What GPU do I need for Cities: Skylines II at 4K?

None of the current cards we track reaches 60 FPS at 4K High; the fastest, the RTX 5080, gets ~42 FPS. Lower presets or upscaling are needed.

Measured FPS benchmarks

Cities: Skylines II FPS

2023
65/100 · 56 ratings

Strategy
Simulation

Measured · 6 results4 GPUs · gamersnexus.netestimate within ±30%: 0/6

Check FPS on your GPU

Cities: Skylines II was released in 2023. We list 6 published FPS results for it from gamersnexus.net, covering 4 graphics cards. Steam lists Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 970 (4 GB) | AMD® Radeon™ RX 480 (8 GB) as the minimum graphics card, a mid-range card by today's standards. Against those results our estimate landed within ±30% 0 of 6 times.

Frame rate cap: none on record. We have no record of an engine frame limit for Cities: Skylines II, so our estimates assume it runs uncapped. V-Sync, an in-game limiter or your monitor's refresh rate can still hold it lower.

Measured results

Published · with sources

60+ FPS 30–59 under 30 lower bound (frame cap, CPU or VRAM limit). Average FPS from published tests.

RTX 4090Low83gamersnexus.net
RTX 4090Medium67gamersnexus.net
Radeon RX 7900 XTXMedium67gamersnexus.net
RTX 3080Low61gamersnexus.net
RTX 3080Medium40gamersnexus.net
RTX 4060Medium23gamersnexus.net

At 1080p the fastest measured card, RTX 4090, averages 83 FPS; the slowest, RTX 4060, 23 FPS.

Estimate vs measured

0/6 within ±30% · median +109%

Each dot is one published result: how far our model's figure for the same card and setting was from it. The shaded band is ±30%.

All 6 comparisons

GPU	Setting	Measured	Estimate	Diff.
RTX 4090	1080p Medium	67 FPS	≈149 FPS	+122%
RTX 4090	1080p Low	83 FPS	≈186 FPS	+124%
Radeon RX 7900 XTX	1080p Medium	67 FPS	≈121 FPS	+81%
RTX 3080	1080p Medium	40 FPS	≈78 FPS	+95%
RTX 3080	1080p Low	61 FPS	≈97 FPS	+59%
RTX 4060	1080p Medium	23 FPS	≈53 FPS	+130%

Our estimate on 10 reference GPUs

Estimate ±30%

Model figures, not measurements: dashed bars with their ±30% band. How they are made.

RTX 409011983–155
RTX 5070 Ti9365–121
Radeon RX 9070 XT9365–121
RTX 40707049–91
Radeon RX 7800 XT6546–85
RTX 4060 Ti5337–69
RTX 40604229–55
RTX 30603424–44
Radeon RX 66003021–39
GTX 16501813–23

Best GPU for Cities: Skylines II

High settings · cheapest current card

The cheapest current card for 60 FPS at 1080p High in Cities: Skylines II is the Radeon RX 9070 (~82 FPS, $549 launch price). At 60 FPS: for 1440p, the Radeon RX 9070 XT (~67 FPS, $599); for 4K, none of them (fastest: RTX 5080, ~42 FPS).

Best value

Radeon RX 9070

1080p · 60 FPS

≈82 FPS$549launch price

Check price on Amazon

Radeon RX 9070 XT

1440p · 60 FPS

≈67 FPS$599launch price

Check price on Amazon

Also reach 60 FPS at 1080p High: RTX 5070 $549

See every target

Cheapest current graphics card for each resolution and frame rate target in Cities: Skylines II
Target (High)	Cheapest card	FPS	Launch price
1080p · 60 FPS	Radeon RX 9070	≈82 FPS	$549
1440p · 60 FPS	Radeon RX 9070 XT	≈67 FPS	$599
4K · 60 FPS	None reaches it (fastest: RTX 5080)	≈42 FPS	$999
1080p · 144 FPS	None reaches it (fastest: RTX 5080)	≈108 FPS	$999

Current cards, by launch price. Solid chips are measured results; dashed ones are our estimate (±30%). Radeon RX 9070 vs Radeon RX 9070 XT: measured results side by side.

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Player reports

0 reports

No player reports for Cities: Skylines II yet.

Screenshots

Steam

System requirements

Steam

Minimum

GPU: Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 970 (4 GB) | AMD® Radeon™ RX 480 (8 GB)
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-6700K | AMD® Ryzen™ 5 2600X
RAM: 8 GB