Is League of Legends CPU or GPU Intensive? A Look at How LoL Uses Your Hardware

League of Legends, Riot Games’ globally popular MOBA, is known for its accessibility, smooth performance, and low system requirements. But for players tweaking their PCs or considering upgrades, one common question often arises: Is League of Legends more CPU or GPU intensive?

The answer isn’t just a matter of picking the right hardware—it reflects Riot’s deliberate design philosophy and how League has evolved over the past decade.

CPU vs. GPU: Understanding the Roles

Before diving into League specifically, let’s clarify what each component does in a PC:

• The CPU (Central Processing Unit) handles logic, calculations, physics, and game rules. In a game like League, this includes champion ability interactions, movement, collision detection, minion and jungle monster AI behavior, and maintaining the synchronized game state across all players.
• The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) renders visual elements—character models, animations, textures, shadows, and effects. It’s responsible for making the game look good and run smoothly at higher resolutions and settings.

Different games lean on one more than the other. So where does League of Legends land?

League of Legends: Primarily CPU Intensive

In short, League of Legends is primarily CPU-bound—especially when aiming for very high framerates (e.g., 144 FPS and above) and during intense gameplay scenarios like large team fights, laning, and objective control. While the GPU certainly plays a role in rendering visuals, the core performance bottlenecks often come from the CPU, not the graphics card.

This is because:

• Complex Game Logic: MOBAs like League of Legends demand a vast number of calculations per second. The CPU is tasked with managing hundreds of minions and jungle monsters, processing intricate champion ability interactions (damage, crowd control, hitboxes), determining pathing, and maintaining the real-time synchronized game state for all players.
• Engine Emphasis on Responsiveness: Riot’s custom-built, legacy engine prioritizes fast-paced interactions and minimal input latency for competitive integrity. This relies heavily on the CPU’s ability to quickly process game logic and ensure every click, movement, and spell cast is registered and synchronized precisely.
• Teamfight Stress: FPS drops are most likely to occur due to CPU stress during high-action moments, such as 5v5 team fights, when numerous champion abilities, particles, and effects are active simultaneously. The CPU struggles to keep up with the sheer volume of calculations.
• Single-Core Performance Focus: The game’s engine often benefits more from strong single-core CPU performance (high clock speed and Instructions Per Cycle) rather than just a high core count, which can be a limiting factor for older or lower-end CPUs.
• Even on high-end PCs, upgrading the CPU often leads to more noticeable and consistent FPS improvements than upgrading the GPU—especially in competitive settings where players aim for ultra-high framerates.

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The GPU Still Matters—To a Point

That said, while the game’s core performance bottleneck is often the CPU, the GPU still plays a vital supporting role, particularly as visual demands increase:

• Higher Resolutions: Playing at 1440p or 4K resolutions significantly increases the load on the GPU, as it has to render many more pixels.
• Graphical Settings: Enabling advanced graphical features like higher quality anti-aliasing, more detailed shadows, and complex visual effects (VFX) will scale with GPU power.
• Streaming and Recording: Players who stream or record their gameplay benefit from stronger GPUs that can handle video encoding tasks efficiently (especially with modern dedicated encoding hardware like NVIDIA’s NVENC or AMD’s VCE).

However, unless you’re pushing League at ultra-high resolutions with maximum settings on a very large display, even entry-level or mid-range GPUs from the last few years can easily run League at high FPS without becoming the primary bottleneck.

Riot’s Optimization Philosophy

League of Legends was built with accessibility in mind. Riot’s custom engine is designed to:

• Run well on older and low-end systems
• Ensure minimal latency for competitive integrity
• Allow a global player base to participate, including users in regions with limited hardware access

As a result, League doesn’t require the latest or most expensive components to run effectively for most players.

Recommended Specs (2025 Outlook)

As of 2025, here’s what you realistically need:

Final Verdict:

In conclusion, while both your CPU and GPU play crucial roles in running League of Legends, the game is definitively more CPU-intensive. Its legacy engine and the demands of its complex, real-time game logic mean that your processor, particularly its single-core performance, is often the primary determinant of smooth, high framerates—especially during critical team fights.

Your GPU will handle visuals efficiently, but investing in a capable CPU will generally yield more significant performance gains for a truly competitive and responsive League of Legends experience. Riot’s enduring commitment to accessibility means you don’t need cutting-edge hardware, but understanding this CPU-bound nature is key to optimizing your setup.