Star Citizen is still one of the heaviest CPU-bound games in new PCGH test
Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 leads Star Citizen CPU benchmark, but stutters remain
© Hasqaha Guys over at PC Games Hardware sent me a link to their latest review involving a game known as Star Citizen, and my first reaction is why are we even talking about this game in 2026? Shouldn’t it have come out like 10 years ago?
Apparently I wasn’t well informed, but the game is still being developed and the latest version of the game, called Alpha 4.7.2 (it’s not even beta yet), was a good starting point for a CPU review. This game is considered one of the most CPU-bound games. So PCGH tested it with 30 processors, focusing on CPU performance rather than GPU scaling. The site says the game can place a heavy load on modern CPUs, including AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K.
The benchmark was run in the Grand Barter Market on Levski (won’t even pretend to know where this is), a populated area selected because it produces a repeatable CPU-heavy scenario. PCGH used low resolution with maximum details to reduce GPU limits. Our friends note that Star Citizen can remain CPU-bound even at Ultra HD with DLAA when paired with a GeForce RTX 5090, which is something out of ordinary for sure.
Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 (the non-gaming CPU) leads the Star Citizen gaming chart
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition was the fastest CPU in five out of six tested cases. PCGH says the 16-core Zen 5 chip was ahead of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D by a large margin, showing that Star Citizen can use more than eight cores on modern processors. Older CPUs did not scale the same way. The Ryzen 9 5950X was only slightly ahead of the Ryzen 7 5800X and still behind the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
Source: PC Games Hardware
The results also show why Star Citizen remains difficult to benchmark. PCGH says the same processor can be 25% faster in one run or 15% slower in another, depending on server state, location and other variables. In one example, a Ryzen 7 9800X3D run was faster than both Ryzen 7 9850X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D. I’m surprised that 8 years after I looked at this game, it is still only online play. By the way, the game was announced in 2012, so that makes it 13 years old now.
Stutter even with top desktop CPUs
PCGH recorded examples from 101 FPS in the hangar to 46 FPS a few steps later, all while remaining CPU-limited. The site also saw a Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 run with P0.2 lows at 7 FPS, showing that even the fastest tested desktop CPU cannot remove loading stutters.
The good news is that by the time Star Citizen is released, 16-core X3D CPUs may be old enough to appear in the minimum requirements.
Source: PC Games Hardware , Hasqaha (Star Citizen 4.0 Alpha screenshot)
