Microsoft has lifted the review embargo for Forza Horizon 6. Powered by the Forza Tech Engine, it’s time now to benchmark it and examine its performance on PC.
For our benchmarks, I used an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900XT, RX 7900XTX, RX 9070XT, as well as NVIDIA’s RTX 2080Ti, RTX 3080, RTX 4090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit, the GeForce 596.49, and the Radeon Adrenalin Edition 26.5.1 drivers.
Playground Games has added a lot of graphics settings to tweak. PC gamers can adjust the quality of Textures, Lighting, Reflections, Car Level of Detail, Environment Geometry, and more. Furthermore, PC gamers can enable RTGI and ray-traced reflections. There is also support for NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 3.1, and Intel XeSS. Surprisingly enough, there is no support for AMD FSR Frame Gen or Intel XeSS Frame Gen. The game only has DLSS 4.5 Frame Gen support, which feels kind of odd.
Forza Horizon 6 comes with a built-in benchmark tool. So, for both our CPU and GPU tests, I used that one. From what I’ve seen, it is representative of the in-game performance. As such, it should give us a pretty good idea of how the rest of the game runs.
Let’s start with some CPU benchmarks. At 1080p/Max Settings/No RT, Forza Horizon 6 was CPU-bound on our NVIDIA RTX 5090. The game can use up to 10 CPU cores/threads. However, it can also be enjoyed on lower-tier CPUs. Take, for example, our simulated quad-core CPU. With an uncapped framerate, the game had major stutters on that PC configuration. However, with a 60FPS cap, we were able to get a pretty smooth experience. As you can clearly see, though, you won’t need the latest CPU to get framerates over 144FPS.
It’s also worth noting that Forza Horizon 6 can run smoothly on a wide range of GPUs. Most of our GPUs were able to run it with over 60FPS at 1080p/Max Settings/No Ray Tracing. Even our NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti was able to push an average of 62FPS. It’s also worth noting that Forza Horizon 6 appears to favour NVIDIA’s GPUs. Neither the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX nor the RX 9070XT could come close to the performance of the NVIDIA RTX 5080. Not only that, but the AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX was significantly slower than the RX 9070XT.
Things look pretty similar at 1440p/Max Settings/No RT. With the exception of the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti, all of our GPUs were able to provide a smooth gaming experience. As for Native 4K/Max Settings/No RT, our top five GPUs were able to push framerates over 60FPS at all times.
Forza Horizon 6 supports Ray Tracing for Global Illumination and Reflections. At Native 4K, the NVIDIA RTX 5090 is able to provide a smooth and constant 60FPS experience. This is one of the few ray-traced games that can run at Native 4K on the NVIDIA RTX 5090. Here are also some comparison screenshots. On the left, we have the rasterized version. On the right, we have the ray-traced version. As you can see, the game has noticeably better GI with Ray Tracing. So, if your GPU can handle it, I highly recommend enabling at least RTGI.
As I said, the game also supports NVIDIA DLSS 4 (and you can upgrade it to 4.5 via the NVIDIA App). With DLSS 4 Quality, we were able to get to 90FPS at 4K/Max Settings/Ray Tracing. Then, with Frame Gen, we got to 160FPS. Then, DLSS 4 MFG X3 and X4 were able to get us to framerates over 200FPS.
It’s also worth noting that the DLSS 4 Frame Gen implementation in this title is excellent. All the screenshots in this article were captured with MFG X4 enabled. As you can see, the visual artifacts are minimal. During normal gameplay, most of you won’t even notice them. I also didn’t experience any latency issues, which isn’t surprising given that my base framerate hovered around 90FPS. Controls remained precise and responsive, even when exploring the world with the fastest cars.
Before wrapping up, I should note that Forza Horizon 6 is the best-looking racing game to date. Even without its Ray Tracing effects, it’s a visually stunning title. The environments and cars look incredible, and Playground Games has used high-quality textures throughout the entire game. Like Forza Horizon 5, there’s also limited environmental destructibility, which is a nice touch. Your car can even bend bushes and small plants. Seriously, this is a game that not only runs great but also looks fantastic.
All in all, Forza Horizon 6 is one of the best optimized PC games of 2026. It runs smoothly on a wide range of PC systems, and it looks amazing. I also did not experience any stutters, even when exploring its huge open world. Playground Games has, once again, delivered a really polished racing game.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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