Tom's Hardware's CPU testing found that Gears of War E-Day is uncharacteristically CPU-heavy for an Unreal Engine 5 game. The outlet benchmarked 25 Intel and AMD processors and looked into what the game's "low core mode" actually does, suggesting the title's thread management is an important part of its performance profile.
The GPU side of the launch is also notable. Gears of War E-Day is the first game to implement Unreal Engine's MegaLights technology, which renders scenes with hundreds of dynamic ray-traced light sources. Tom's Hardware tested 43 graphics cards spanning three generations to see what that next-gen feature demands.
The two reports don't contradict each other; they cover distinct halves of the same performance story. Together, they show a PC release that is unusually demanding on both the CPU and GPU, with MegaLights representing a significant shift in how real-time lighting is handled.