Best PC for Cities: Skylines (2026)

Cities: Skylines puts players in the mayor's seat of a dynamic city-building simulation, where you construct districts, balance policies for education, healthcare, police, and utilities, and tackle extensive traffic simulations for thousands of citizens and vehicles. Expansions like Mass Transit add ferries, monorails, cable cars, and blimps to ease commuter flows across sprawling maps, while Industries introduces supply chains, unique factories, and cargo airports that demand precise resource management. Day-night cycles shift citizen behaviors, traffic patterns slow at night, and modding support via Steam Workshop lets you import custom assets for even larger metropolises. This strategy simulation leans heavily on CPU prowess for real-time calculations in citizen AI, pathfinding, and economic systems, which can stutter in dense late-game builds without solid single-thread speed and multi-core capacity. Our minimum specs pair a budget AM4 Ryzen 5000-series CPU with an entry-level RX 9060 XT GPU to run core gameplay at 1080p medium settings without hitches in starter cities. For recommended specs, the value-packed Ryzen 5 7600X handles complex simulations smoothly, paired with the high-value RX 9060 XT 16GB for rendering mod-heavy skylines at high settings and 1440p resolutions, ensuring fluid performance as your metropolis expands.