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Elite Dangerous PC Performance: Odyssey FPS and Specs

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C:\GAMEHAUS> HWCHECK ELITE-DANGEROUS
How Elite Dangerous runs on PC hardware, from the official requirements, Frontier's own patch notes, and what players report on Steam and Reddit. Every number links to where it came from. Nobody has published a proper lab benchmark of this game on modern graphics cards, so the gaps are listed in one place instead of guessed at. Bottom line: we found that Elite runs well on a wide range of modern hardware, so if you bought your rig in the last few years, chances are it will run this game fine, though Odyssey's on-foot settlements are the toughest test. If you're landing on planets and raiding settlements, you're already off the deep end of Elite, and if it's choppy, it's time to consider an upgrade.

Elite Dangerous key art
Elite Dangerous. Official Steam store art, copyright Frontier Developments.

> Elite Dangerous: what you need for 60 fps

There is no lab data for this game at any resolution, so this is what the official specs, players and our own capture say.

Official
Odyssey recommends a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 8GB, with no resolution or fps target stated. [2]
Players
An RTX 3060 Ti with a Core i7-8700K held 60 fps everywhere in Odyssey (resolution not stated, Steam, Dec 13, 2023). [6]
Ultrawide 3440x1440
Measured by us: our RTX 4070 SUPER averaged 63.8 fps on Ultra (1% low 29.7).

Settings that cost the most fps

No sourced data yet on which settings cost the most fps in this game.

> Elite Dangerous PC verdict

Best price today: $18.19 at Fanatical, checked Nov 10, 2026. All stores. Some store links may earn gamehaus.net a commission at no cost to you. Prices change; check the store.

  • There are really two games here. The base game (flying, trading, combat in space) asks for a GTX 770 class card and 8GB of RAM. The Odyssey expansion, which adds walking on planets and in settlements, asks for a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 8GB, a Core i5-8600 or Ryzen 5 2600, 12GB of RAM and 75GB of storage. [1][2]
  • In space, modern PCs run it well. The weak spot is Odyssey on foot, in settlements and ground conflict zones, where players with strong PCs still report frame rates swinging between about 40 and 60 fps with neither the CPU nor the GPU fully loaded. [7][6]
  • CPU: Odyssey recommends a Core i5-8600 or Ryzen 5 2600. Players report on-foot settlements and stations are where frame rates drop, even when neither the CPU nor the GPU is fully loaded; Frontier's Update 7 (Sep 22, 2021) and Update 14 (Nov 29, 2022) targeted exactly those drops. [2][7][3][5]
  • Frontier shipped a run of Odyssey optimisation patches in 2021 and 2022, including a fix for settlement stutter and, in Update 14, changes to reduce sudden performance drops when nearing a settlement. A player in a December 2023 Steam thread said it had run much better since around Update 5. [3][4][5][6]

Overall Steam user reviews for the base game are Mostly Positive: 76% positive of 53,942 English reviews, and 74% positive of 344 in the last 30 days, as checked Nov 10, 2026. These reviews cover the whole game, not just performance. [1]

> Elite Dangerous and Odyssey system requirements

Base game minBase game recOdyssey minOdyssey rec
Nvidia GPUGTX 470GTX 770GTX 780 (3GB)GTX 1060 (6GB)
AMD GPURadeon R7 240Radeon R9 280XRadeon R9 280X (3GB)Radeon RX 580 (8GB)
CPUQuad core, 4 x 2 GHzCore i7-3770K / AMD FX 4350Core i5-4590 / AMD FX 8350Core i5-8600 / Ryzen 5 2600
RAM6GB8GB8GB12GB
OSWindows 8/10 64-bitWindows 8/10 64-bitWindows 7 SP1, 8.1 or 10 64-bitWindows 10 64-bit
Storage25GB25GB75GB75GB
APIDirectX 11DirectX 11DirectX 11DirectX 11

Odyssey is a paid expansion that needs the base game. Neither Steam page lists Windows 11, though the game runs on it on our desktop. Source: [1][2]

> Elite Dangerous player reports by graphics card

Below are player reports grouped by card generation. They are single players' setups and settings, so they vary a lot. Sites that show per card fps tables for this game (for example pcgamebenchmarks.com) say their figures are model estimates, not measurements, so we leave them out.

Send us your experience playing this game with your hardware to [email protected]

What we could not find yet:

  • No current lab benchmarks by GPU generation (RTX 20, 30, 40, 50 or Radeon)
  • No Ryzen CPU comparison (Ryzen 3000, 5000, 7000, 9000 or X3D)
  • No dated player reports for RTX 20 or RTX 50 cards
  • No verified numbers on whether X3D cache chips help on foot in Odyssey
  • No lab benchmark of the RTX 4070 SUPER to compare with our own result

Nvidia RTX 30 series (Ampere, 2020 to 2022)

What reviewers and players report:

  • A player with a Core i7-8700K and RTX 3060 Ti said it runs at 60 fps everywhere in Odyssey, and that the game has been much better optimised since about Update 5 (Steam, Dec 13, 2023). [6]

Nvidia RTX 40 series (Ada Lovelace, 2022 to 2024)

What reviewers and players report:

  • A player who upgraded from an RTX 2060 to an RTX 4070 Super was happy in space but saw 40 to 60 fps in an on-foot combat zone, swinging inconsistently, with CPU and GPU use never above 50% (Reddit, about 3 years ago). [7]
  • A player with a Core i7-14700K, 64GB DDR4 and RTX 4070 on Ultra said the game runs fine with default settings (Steam, Dec 16, 2023). [6]

AMD Radeon, for reference

What reviewers and players report:

  • A player with a Ryzen 5 4600G, Radeon RX 6600 8GB and 16GB of RAM could not reach 60 fps on foot even with everything at minimum, while the base game ran fine (Reddit, about 1 year ago). [8]

Player reports only; see the sources for each setup.

> Elite Dangerous on our two PCs

Our two PCs: an RTX 2070 Max-Q laptop, which gets a spec check against the official requirements, and an RTX 4070 SUPER desktop, which we measured ourselves.

Lenovo laptop (Lenovo 81UH)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 with Max-Q, 8GB

Spec comparison, not measured: Exceeds recommended (base game)

Why this rating

Exceeds the base game's recommended spec on paper: the RTX 2070 Max-Q scores 11,400 on PassMark G3D vs 5,963 for the recommended GTX 770 (about 191%), and the Core i7-9750H scores 10,533 vs 6,524 for the recommended Core i7-3770K (about 161%). 32GB RAM is four times the 8GB asked for. Against Odyssey's higher bar it only meets recommended: the GPU is about 114% of a GTX 1060 (10,010) and the CPU about 105% of a Core i5-8600 (9,990), short of our 15% margin for exceeds. Steam lists Windows 8 and 10, not the Windows 11 installed here. [1][2][9][10][15]

CPU
Intel Core i7-9750H, 6 cores / 12 threads (45 W laptop part)
RAM
32GB DDR4, 2 x 16GB, running at 2667 MT/s
Driver version
NVIDIA 621.01
OS
Windows 11 Home 26H2

What the published data suggests: The Max-Q 2070 is a power limited laptop chip: 885 to 1185 MHz vs 1410 to 1620 MHz on the desktop RTX 2070, and 80 to 90 W vs 115 W for the full laptop RTX 2070. Players report that on-foot Odyssey is the hard part even on much faster desktops, so expect space flight to be fine and settlements to be the test. [13][14][7]

MSI Aegis (RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, 12GB

Spec comparison: Exceeds recommended

Why this rating

Exceeds recommended on paper, for the base game and Odyssey. The GPU scores 29,938 on PassMark G3D, about 502% of the base game's GTX 770 (5,963) and about 299% of Odyssey's GTX 1060 (10,010). The Ryzen 9 7900X (PassMark 51,206) is about 390% of Odyssey's recommended Ryzen 5 2600 (13,117). 32GB of DDR5 is well above the 12GB Odyssey asks for. Steam does not list Windows 11, but the game is installed and runs here. [1][2][9][11][12]

[Measured by us] Our own frame time capture, Nov 9, 2026

CPU
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, 12 cores / 24 threads
RAM
32GB DDR5, 2 x 16GB, running at 4800 MT/s
Driver version
NVIDIA 616.92
OS
Windows 11 Home 26H2
Resolution
3440x1440 (ultrawide)
Preset
Ultra
Upscaler and mode
Normal, supersampling 1.0x (no upscaling)
Frame generation
Not in this game
VSync
Not recorded
Map and mode
Not recorded (in space or on foot not noted)
Average fps
63.8
1% low fps
29.7
0.1% low fps
7.1
Frames over 50 ms
3 (longest frame 825.9 ms)
Frames sampled
7,653 over 120 s
Date tested
Nov 9, 2026
Notes
PresentMon 2.6.0, Windows power plan Balanced, RAM kit rated DDR5-5600 running at 4800, NVIDIA 616.92
How we measured

A 120 second PresentMon capture while playing, not a repeatable benchmark pass. Where in the game we were (space, station, planet or on foot) was not recorded. Our 3440x1440 ultrawide has about 34% more pixels than 2560x1440. The single 825.9 ms frame was likely a loading or jump transition, though we have not confirmed that; it and two other frames over 50 ms pull the 0.1% low down to 7.1 fps. RAM kit rated DDR5-5600, running at 4800; Windows power plan Balanced.

What the published data suggests: The nearest player report is an RTX 4070 Super at 40 to 60 fps in an on-foot combat zone at an unstated resolution. [7]

> Where to buy Elite Dangerous

Some store links may earn gamehaus.net a commission at no cost to you. Prices change; check the store.

The game (PC)

  • Fanatical: Base game, Steam key; Odyssey expansion $13.49 (10% off $14.99), $18.19 (9% off $19.99) (price checked Nov 10, 2026)
  • Steam: Elite Dangerous base game (PC); Deluxe Edition $24.99; Odyssey expansion $14.99, $19.99 (price checked Nov 10, 2026; official store)
  • Frontier Store: Elite Dangerous base game; Deluxe Edition $24.99; Odyssey expansion $14.99, $19.99 (price checked Nov 10, 2026; official store)
  • Epic Games Store: Elite Dangerous base game; Odyssey and Deluxe Edition also listed, $19.99 (price checked Nov 10, 2026; authorized store)
  • Humble Store: Base game, Steam key; Odyssey expansion $14.99, $19.99 (price checked Nov 10, 2026)
  • Green Man Gaming: Base game, Steam key; Odyssey expansion $14.99, $19.99 (price checked Nov 10, 2026)

Hardware

Hardware links open an Amazon search so you can compare current listings; we do not quote hardware prices because they move daily. Links checked Nov 10, 2026.

> More from our machines

The same two PCs, the same method, other games:

  • Battlefield 6: measured by us at 109.5 fps average on the RTX 4070 SUPER at 3440x1440, plus GPU and Ryzen lab data.
  • Hell Let Loose: Vietnam: measured by us at 71.8 fps average at 3440x1440 with TSR at 100%, plus ComputerBase's GPU results.

> Sources

  1. Elite Dangerous on Steam: system requirements, price and user reviews, Steam. Official. Published Nov 10, 2026. Date checked.
  2. Elite Dangerous: Odyssey on Steam: system requirements and price, Steam. Official. Published Nov 10, 2026. Date checked.
  3. Elite Dangerous Odyssey Update 7 Patch Notes, UpdateCrazy, reposting Frontier's notes. Patch notes. Published Sep 22, 2021.
  4. Elite Dangerous puts out a small Odyssey patch to fix on-foot stuttering at outposts, Massively Overpowered. News. Published Nov 5, 2021.
  5. Elite Dangerous Update 14 Release Notes, Frontier Developments. Official patch notes. Published Nov 29, 2022.
  6. Odyssey spec requirements? (Steam discussion), Steam Community, Elite Dangerous General Discussions. Players. Published Dec 13, 2023. Replies dated Dec 13 to 18, 2023.
  7. Can we talk about performance of on foot Combat Zones?, Reddit, r/EliteDangerous. Players. Reddit shows it as about 3 years old. No publish date shown.
  8. I have everything set to minimum and I can't get to 60fps on foot gameplay, Reddit, r/EliteDangerous. Players. Reddit shows it as about 1 year old. No publish date shown.
  9. PassMark Videocard Benchmarks: GPU list (G3D Mark), PassMark Software. Relative performance. Scores as listed Nov 9, 2026. No publish date shown.
  10. Intel Core i7-9750H @ 2.60GHz benchmark, PassMark Software. Relative performance. Scores as listed Nov 9, 2026. No publish date shown.
  11. AMD Ryzen 9 7900X benchmark, PassMark Software. Relative performance. Scores as listed Nov 9, 2026. No publish date shown.
  12. PassMark CPU Benchmarks: high end CPU chart, PassMark Software. Relative performance. Scores as listed Nov 9, 2026. No publish date shown.
  13. NVIDIA TU106 GPU Specs, TechPowerUp GPU Database. Specs. Checked Nov 9, 2026. No publish date shown.
  14. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q, Notebookcheck. Specs. Checked Nov 9, 2026. No publish date shown.
  15. PassMark CPU Benchmarks: mid range CPU chart, PassMark Software. Relative performance. Scores as listed Nov 10, 2026. No publish date shown.

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