To be precise the official specified requirements for OpenDev was as follows (not alot specified but that was what we got to know during opendev via steam): 

• 64-bit CPU and O/S (I can add that, so far at least windows 10 64-bit worked for me, I'm guessing probably win 8.1 as well as it's still a supported o/s until Januray 10 2023, no idea about win 7 or Linux). Link: Windows lifecycle fact sheet
• CPU 3 Ghz i3 5th generation (or newer) / i5 3rd generation (or newer) / FX4170 (or newer).
• 8 GB RAM
• GPU AMD RX 580 or newer / Nvidia GTX 960 or newer.

• 64-bit CPU and Windows 10 v1909 at that time (now updated to v2004 as they finally had a patch fixing 30+ bugs and now a preview patch that fixes another 50 or so bugs, I will hold off from v20H2 to be released soon, at least until microsoft find and fix all bugs in that, probably 6 months from or so after release, just in time for the next windows 10 version, lol).
• CPU i7 6700K (not overclocked, not felt any need to do that) Skylake 6th generation.
• 32 GB RAM DDR4 3000Mhz.
• GPU Inno3D GeForce GTX 1080 8GB iChill X4
• One 500 GB SSD for for Windows and one 1 TB SSD for games and steam (two 7200rpm wd blue 1 tb harddrives for storing other stuff).

• Windows 10 v2004.
• CPU i5 6600K (not overclocked, not felt any need to do that yet) Skylake 6th generation.
• 16 GB RAM
• GPU AMD RX 480 8GB
• On this secondary PC I only have Windows 10 installed on a 500 GB SSD and acctually only a 7200 RPM WD Blue 1 TB mechanical hardrive for steam and games.

reich238 wrote:

Yes, thanks. Very insightful. I am not really experienced with hardware (probably even less with software), so I was wondering what would be better for performance of a game like this - GPU, CPU, or well SSD or RAM, etc.? I was thinking of going for some new PC to enjoy the game with best settings.   

@reich238 It depends. Partly on if You want to play in 1080p, 1440p or even 4K ??? I personally would not recommend 4K just yet. Monitors with good quality that are large enough to acctually see UI's on and such in games are still very expensive for 4K and You do need the best GPU's for it as well. Just having a 27" 4K monitor and it might behard to see anything as many ghames UI will be so msall and not all can scale well to 4K. I'd say no less than 34" monitor (or bigger) if play 4K and they are still expensive if want them with some deceent refresh rate. Know that in 1440p and 4K the CPU is not as important as the GPU, as most work will be done by the GPU. However at 1080p especially with the new 3000-series Nvidia card You can bottleneck the CPU and actually end up not getting more than a certain FPS unless You also have the fastest CPU. If not need insane high FPS and only want to play in 1080p RTX 2000-series card is more than enough, even GTX 1070's and upwards, but 1070's and maybe even 1080's will probably end up being a bit to weak for future games that will come out. You might need to lower quality settings to play like Cyberpunk 2077 when it's released if go with an older card.

I'd say 1440p is where the sweet spot is right now. Only those that are into competetive gaming with really high refresh rate monitors should stick with 1080p, as they need that to be competitive. The rest of us that just wants a pretty game to look at that doesn't stutter or lag is where 1440p is the sweet spot with the RTX 2080 Ti cards and the new RTX 3000-series card. 27" 1440p monitors won't break peoples banks and still have nice quaility and refresh rate. Then You also do not need to have the best and most expensive CPU when play in 1440p, but can put Your money into the GPU instead. The new Nvidia RTX 3080 cost half of what last generation 2080 Ti cost and still performs alot better. It's perfect for 1440p. The only problem atm is getting the hands on one, as they gets sold out faster than stock can be filled. So then getting a 2080 Ti really cheap might be an option, or wait until RTX 3080 becomes available in stock again.

What's also nice in 1440p, is that You can turn down Anti-Aliasing and such (which are very taxing on the system and lowers performance) and still games will look good. No need for 8x AA anymore. 4x AA or even 2x AA is usually enough to look good in 1440p. In 4K You can turn it off all together, in most games anyway and they will still look awesome, but as I said 4K monitors of any larger size and quality still bery expensive. So stick with 1440p for now. Unless You have unlimitied budget.

You should get DDR4 16 GB RAM (get 2x 8 stick so you can add 2 more in the future, just make sure you put them in the ricght ram slots to make use of dual channel, usually slot 1 and 3, so many people who build put them in slot 1 and 2 and that is not making good use of dual channel ram speed), 32 GB RAM if planning on doing some video recording and editing and such. 8 GB is starting to be a bit too little in 2020. Try get ram sticks that are 3200Mhz, as that seems to be the sweetspot for performance vs price atm. In fact RAM at 3200Mhz can improve FPS with a few % compared to say 2400Mhz or even 2800Mhz. Of course if You can afford it get 3600Mhz sticks.

I would say right now is a bad time to build a PC. One should wait a little bit longer until AMD release their next generation of CPU's and GPU's. That is just around the corner now in 2020. If not caring about RTX maybe the new AMD GPU's will be really good and usually alot cheaper than Nvidia. Same with AMD's new CPU's usually. Not faster than Intel, but alot cheaper and have more cores and threads. If nothing else the current generation CPU's and GPU's might come down in price as well after the new ones arrive.

Only good thing to buy right now acctually are SSD's. They have lowered alot in price. At least the gen 3 ones. You can get a 1 TB gen 3 SSD for a nice price now. Gen 4 NVMe SSD's still cost an arm and a leg if want the fastest ones like Samsung.

Also if going for AMD make sure You get a motherboard that supports 4th gen PCIe. The earlier ones did not. Intel has no motherboard that does yet, but will with their next generation of CPU's. At least with a AMD motherboards with 4th gen PCIe You will be prepared for the future a bit more. Even if I should add that it doesn't really affect gaming that much. Not even with a 4th Gen NVMe on a Mobo with 4th gen PCIe. A few seconds faster loading at the top, but hardly noticeable in gaming at all...yet... It's when You start doing heavy encoding of large videos and such that that speed can make a big difference.

Intel CPU's are still usually faster than AMD, higher clock speeds, but You get more threads and cores at a lower price with AMD. So if only playing games Intel are still fastest, since most games make little use of multiple cores and mutlithreading (but might make better use of it in the future). If want to run other tasks at the same time and record, encode, edit, stream etc then having more cores and threads is a good thing. I also think Intel CPU's are overpriced atm compared to AMD. I say that although I have intel myself, but back when I bought my CPU's (6th gen) Intel was the best choice really for gaming and almost anything. Nowdays that is not the case anymore.

I only explain all this as if You purely buy or build a PC now to play Humankind, then You might soon have an outdated PC again and need to upgrade again. Alot of pre-built PC's in my country now that the larger chain of stores are selling are really bad too. It seems they try to get rid of all their older GPUs and such at a way too high price, by putting them in pre-built PC's. Not sure if it's the same in other countries ???

Wait and see what AMD comes with and don't forget that Black Friday is coming up (at the end of november) and usually with Computer Hardware the prices can go down 30-50%. I'm sure big online retailers will dump their current generation of CPU and GPU's that they have in stock on black friday after the new ones have been released. You could buy maybe a RTX 2070 or 2080 (last generation)  for like half of what a RTX 3080 costs (even if they are pretty cheap too). Same with AMD CPU's, maybe get a Ryzen 7 or even Ryzen 9 alot cheaper then. If going for 1440p, then Ryzen 5 3600XT (maybe) or Ryzen 7 3700 to 3800 is more than enough as the GPU will carry most of the work. Also a i7 9700 (for some reason cheaper than i7 8700 here). In fact i7 10700K is just tiny bit more expensive than i7 9700 here. Go figure. As usual Intel CPU's and their Motherboards are in general are too expensive and over priced and mostly much more expensive than AMD. As I also said Intel Motherboards do not have gen 4 PCIe yet.

I know all of this might sound overwhelming to someone not into it. It's all very technical. Yet, this is barely scraping the surface.

There are many nice guides on YouTube by Tech YouTubers like JayzTwoCents, Bitwit, Paul's Hardware, Techtesters, Classical Technology, Hardware Unboxed and tons of others explaining all stuff. Build guides, what hardware is best in combo with what etc. They mostly focus on the latest and newest of course, but they have older videos showing what was new when Ryzen 7 came out or RTX 2000-series etc. Then combine that with the info about the newest stuff and You start to get a good picture of it all. Once You get more into it and learn You will be ready for the more heavy YouTube channels like Gamers Nexus who really do indepth videos with real thorough benchmarks and stuff. Although Gamers Nexus is a bit hard to follow when not knowing anything as they are very technical.