GoldWave has an array of features bundled which define the program.

Starting with version 5, the minimum supported operating system is changed to Windows ME.

However, the requirements listed in the software package's HTML documentation was not updated.

[3] Starting with version 5.03, minimum hardware requirements were increased to Pentium III of 700 (500 in FAQ[4])MHz and DirectX 8 are now part of the minimum system requirements compared to the Pentium II of 300 MHz and DirectX 5 required by previous versions.

[10] Beginning with 6.00, minimum supported operating system is Windows 7 64-bit.