Rainbow Six Siege X delivers over 60 FPS on most midrange PCs at 1080p. A quad-core CPU (Ryzen 3 3100 or Core i3-8100) is enough for running the game at 60 FPS using low-quality settings. High requires a Ryzen 5 3600 or a Core i5-10400, while Ultra runs best on a newer hex-core or octa-core processor (Ryzen 5 5600X or Core i5-11600K).
| Quality | FPS | CPU | GPU | RAM | Storage (SSD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p Low | 60 | Ryzen 3 3100 | Core i3-8100 | NVIDIA GTX 1650 | AMD RX 5500XT | 8 GB | 65 GB |
| 1080p High | 60-120 | Ryzen 5 3600 | Core i5-10400 | NVIDIA RTX 2060 | AMD RX 6600 | 16 GB | 65 GB |
| 1440p High | 60-120 | Ryzen 5 3600 | Core i5-10400 | NVIDIA RTX 3070 | AMD RX 6700 XT | 16 GB | 65 GB |
| 4K High | 60-120 | Ryzen 7 3700X | Core i5-11600K | NVIDIA RTX 3080 | AMD RX 6800 XT | 16 GB | 65 GB |
| 4K Ultra | 120 | Ryzen 5 5600X | Core i5-11600K | NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti Super | AMD RX 7900 XT | 16 GB | 110 GB |
- Reflection Quality is the most taxing graphics setting in Six Siege, granting a 17% performance boost when set to low.
- Ambient Occlusion is second, improving framerates by 12% when turned off.
- Avoid the ultra quality textures unless you have a flagship GPU, and set texture filtering to 8x.
- Shading and Shadow Quality is best set to high quality.
- VFX Quality should be set to anything less than Ultra+.
- Lens flare and depth of field don’t add much and should be turned off.
Resolution & Graphics Presets
Rainbow Six Siege X scales well on multi-core CPUs. Our Core i7-14700KF and GeForce RTX 4090 setup averaged 211 FPS at 4K, 361 FPS at 1440p, and ~400 FPS at 1080p. This indicates a moderate CPU bottleneck at 1080p.
The graphics presets yield mixed performance scaling. The low quality preset is 17% faster than medium, which itself is 12% faster than high. The high quality is 9% faster than very high, which is only 5% faster than the ultra quality preset:
- 4K Low: 320 FPS.
- 4K Medium: 272 FPS.
- 4K High: 242 FPS.
- 4K Very High: 222 FPS.
- 4K Ultra: 211 FPS.
Windows/System Settings to Optimize
- Enable Resizable BAR.
- Turn on Game Mode.
- Enable Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) and Windowed Optimizations.
- Use the Windows “High Performance” power profile and set your GPU power management mode to the same.
- Disable Memory Integrity. Windows Menu->VBS->Device Security.
- Ensure you use the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile (if available).
- Overclock your GPU if you’re narrowly missing the 60 FPS mark.
- Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.
Texture Quality & VRAM Limit
Texture quality determines the surface detail of the scene by adjusting the asset resolution. Unless your GPU fails to meet the VRAM requirements (which can cause stutters), it doesn’t notably impact the game’s performance. At 4K, VRAM usage varied as follows:
- 8 GB at Ultra
- 7 GB at Very High
- 6 GB at High
- 5-6 GB at Medium and Low.
The low-quality textures are 4% faster, while the ultra textures are 5% slower than the intermediate quality settings. We see similar deficits in the 1% lows, too.
Texture Filtering & LOD Quality
Texture filtering improves texture detail by continuously sampling the mipmaps. It’s most evident with textures directly facing the screen and minimally impacts frame rates. 16x performs 3% worse than 8x mode. The higher quality settings perform about the same with minimal quality reduction.
LOD or level of detail adjusts the amount of geometric detail with respect to the distance from the player. Higher quality options retain most detail, while lower values gradually cull distant object geometry. Unless you have a top-of-the-line CPU, the LOD quality doesn’t impact performance.
Shading & Shadow Quality
Shading quality impacts the lighting of a scene. This includes the tone of different surfaces, reflection quality, shadow range and softness, and luminance. There is barely a performance difference (2-3%), and it’s best left at the high or ultra quality.
Shadow Quality adjusts the shadow map resolution, which impacts the frame rates and the VRAM usage. Ultra is mildly slower than high and medium, with low being the fastest while minimizing shadow detail.
Reflection & VFX Quality
Reflection Quality adjusts the reflection detail and accuracy (excluding player reflections). Low only renders pre-baked cubemapped reflections, while medium and high enable half and full-resolution screen-space reflections.
- Low is nearly 20% faster than high, but you lose dynamic reflections.
- Medium is 11% faster, and only reduces reflection detail. The sweet spot.
VFX quality controls the density of onscreen particle effects, including lighting, decals, debris, and dust. The highest quality option is 3-4% slower than the rest, so anything lower than Ultra+ is fine.
Ambient Occlusion & Lens Effects
Ambient occlusion enables contact shadows along object edges, boundaries, intersections, corners, and crevices. While it can dramatically improve the scene realism, it comes at a cost. Screen Space Bent Cone Occlusion (SSBC) reduces the frame rates by over 10% in Six Siege X.
Lens effects simulate real-world optical lenses. Off has none, bloom consists of a glow around lights and other bright areas, while lens flare simulates camera lens artifacts. We noticed a 4.5% increase in FPS at “Off.”
Zoom-in depth of field blurs parts of the screen while aiming down the sights. However, it comes with a 3-4% frame rate drop, and is best disabled.
Anti-Aliasing & Upscaling
Rainbow Six Siege X features FXAA, TAA, and multi-sampled TAA. However, upscaling is a much better option, drastically improving performance and minimizing aliasing. DLSS “quality” improves frame rates by ~40%, balanced by ~50%, while performance is ~60% faster than native 4K.
Rainbow Six Siege X: VRAM Usage
Rainbow Six Siege X uses up to 8 GB of graphics memory at 4K “Ultra.” Stepping down to “Very High” reduces the VRAM usage to 7 GB, while “High” uses over 5 GB. The lower presets use 5-6 GB at 4K.
Lower resolutions like 1080p and 1440p use 6-7 GB of graphics memory at the “Ultra” quality graphics preset, regardless of the upscaling method.
Rainbow Six Siege X: CPU Bottlenecks
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is well-optimized for multi-core CPUs. The game is moderately CPU-bound at 1080p with an average GPU-Busy deviation of 14% at the highest quality preset. QHD and 4K are GPU-bound.
Rainbow Six Siege X PC: Optimized Settings
| Settings | High-end | High-end (Competitive) | Low-end PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K (3840×2160) | 1440p (2560×1440) | 1080p (1920×1080) |
| Target FPS | 200 FPS | 240 FPS | 144 FPS |
| Texture Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Very High |
| VRAM Limit | Max | Max | Max |
| Texture Filtering | AF 16x | AF 16x | AF 8x |
| LOD Quality | Ultra+ | Ultra+ | Ultra |
| Shading Quality | Ultra | Ultra | High |
| Shadow Quality | Ultra | Ultra | High |
| Reflection Quality | High | Low | Low |
| VFX Quality | Ultra+ | Ultra+ | Very High |
| Ambient Occlusion | SSBC+ | SSBC | Off |
| Lens Effects | Bloom+Lens Flare | Off | Off |
| Zoom-In DOF | On | Off | Off |
| Upscaling (DLSS/FSR) | Performance | Balanced | Balanced |
| Anti-Aliasing | – | – | – |
| CPU | Core i7-14700K/Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Core i5-13600K/Ryzen 5 7700X | Core i5-12400/ AMD Ryzen 5 3600 |
| GPU | NVIDIA RTX 4080 Super | NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super | RTX 3060/RTX 4060 |
| Memory | 32GB (dual-channel) | 16GB (dual-channel) | 8 GB (dual-channel) |
| High-end | Midrange | Low-end PC |
Rainbow Six Siege X Settings for the RTX 3060 & RTX 4060
Rainbow Six Siege X averages 80-90 FPS on the GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU using the “Ultra+” quality settings at 1440p. It’s certainly playable, but we’ll aim for 144-160 FPS, which is more apt for competitive gaming. More here.
| Settings | RTX 3060 | RTX 4060 Laptop | RTX 4060 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p | 1440p | 1440p |
| Target FPS | 165 FPS | 144 FPS | 165 FPS |
| Texture Quality | Very High | Very High | Very High |
| VRAM Limit | Max | Max | Max |
| Texture Filtering | AF 8x | AF 8x | AF 8x |
| LOD Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Shading Quality | High | High | High |
| Shadow Quality | High | High | High |
| Reflection Quality | Low | Low | Low |
| VFX Quality | High | High | High |
| Ambient Occlusion | Off | Off | Off |
| Lens Effects | Off | Off | Off |
| Zoom-In DOF | Off | Off | Off |
| Upscaling (DLSS/FSR) | Balanced | Balanced | Balanced |
| Anti-Aliasing | – | – | – |
