Introduction

Finally! After 19 months of part heartbreak and part wait, Rockstar launched the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V, its bestselling open-world action game. In this latest addition to the smash-hit Grand Theft Auto franchise, you get to play (and actively switch between) three main characters, which adds a new dimension to the way you approach missions. You often go into big-scale missions (heists) with all three characters and get to switch between the three to handle different mission-specific tasks while the AI takes over the other two.

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto V is a 65-gigabyte monument. 19 months since the launch of the original title for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and about 6 months following its new-gen console release for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, the PC version is a technical masterpiece. Taking advantage of DirectX 11 and a boat-load of new tech from both NVIDIA and AMD, the game is 64-bit only and makes use of that address-space to cram several gigabytes of textures into the video- and system-memory for quick fetches. Switching between the three characters who are in different parts of the GTA world only takes seconds. The PC version is also the first GTA to come with no frame-rate limiters and 4K Ultra HD resolution support (which is very much possible with current high-end video setups).

In this quick-review, we put Grand Theft Auto V PC through today's performance-segment, high-end, and enthusiast-grade graphics setups. In the performance-segment (using a PC you can build for under $999), we have NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 960 and AMD's Radeon R9 285. In the high-end (a build under $1500), we have the GTX 970 and GTX 980 from NVIDIA, and the R9 290 and R9 290X from AMD. The enthusiast-segment (build under $2000) sees the GTX Titan X and R9 295X2 slug it out. The game is tested across four resolutions: 1600 x 900 (Xbox One resolution), 1920 x 1080 (PlayStation 4 resolution), 2560 x 1440, and 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160).