Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 presents an unusual scaling pattern with the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination, where the CPU becomes the primary constraint at lower resolutions while the GPU takes over at 4K. This pairing ranks 119th out of 2870 tested combos, placing it in the top 4.1% of all configurations, a strong result driven by the RTX 4090's raw throughput. The data shows that the choice of settings preset dramatically alters the performance ceiling, with Low presets delivering nearly double the frame rate of Ultra at every resolution, indicating that the game's visual fidelity options have a profound impact on the workload.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 619 FPS average, which is 84% of the Low preset's 736 FPS but 72% higher than Ultra's 359 FPS. The Medium preset also provides the only complete FPS data with minimum and maximum values, showing a range from 526 to 712 FPS at 1080p, 348 to 471 FPS at 1440p, and 195 to 263 FPS at 4K. This consistency suggests that Medium is the most stable configuration, avoiding the extreme swings seen when dropping to Low or pushing to Ultra.

For competitive play at 1920x1080, the Low preset's 736 FPS average provides the highest headroom above high-refresh monitors, though the difference from Medium's 619 FPS is unlikely to be perceptible on most displays. The High preset at 1080p still achieves 462 FPS, which remains well above the refresh rate of any mainstream gaming monitor. At 2560x1440, High delivers 306 FPS, making it a sensible choice for users with 144Hz or 240Hz panels, while Medium's 410 FPS offers additional margin for those with 360Hz displays.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes fundamentally. The High preset drops to 171 FPS, while Medium maintains 229 FPS, and Low reaches 276 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 133 FPS, which is still playable but approaches the threshold where frame-time consistency becomes a concern. For 4K gaming, the Medium preset at 229 FPS represents the optimal balance between visual quality and performance, as it stays comfortably above the 144Hz mark while providing better image quality than Low. The data suggests that Ultra settings are not recommended at any resolution, as they consistently reduce performance by 42-47% compared to High, without a proportional visual benefit that would justify such a steep cost.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. Its AD102 chip contains 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, with base and boost clocks of 2235 MHz and 2520 MHz respectively. These specifications place the GPU in the 88th percentile of all GPUs tested, with an average benchmark score of 60,347, though its nearest rivals in the database include workstation-oriented cards like the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M, which trails by 2.5%, and the AMD Radeon PRO V710, which is 2.9% slower.

In Counter-Strike 2, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution scales upward. At 1080p, the RTX 4090 is largely underutilized, as evidenced by the relatively modest frame rate differences between presets compared to the CPU-bound behavior. The transition from Low to High at 1080p costs 274 FPS (from 736 to 462), while at 4K the same preset change costs 105 FPS (from 276 to 171). This pattern indicates that at 4K, the GPU's rendering workload becomes the limiting factor, with the 24 GB VRAM buffer proving ample for even Ultra settings, though the architecture's raw compute throughput is what drives the 133 FPS Ultra result.

The RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are the key enablers for the high frame rates observed. The memory clock of 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective) combined with the 384-bit bus provides the bandwidth necessary to feed the 176 ROPs at 4K resolution. The GPU's pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s becomes the theoretical ceiling at 4K, where the Ultra preset's 133 FPS average suggests the card is approaching its fill-rate limits with the game's most demanding settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves rank 119 out of 2870 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2, placing it in the 96th percentile of all configurations. This is a remarkable result given that the CPU is a 65W part, ranking in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 88th percentile. The combination outperforms what either component's individual percentile might suggest, indicating that the RTX 4090's massive compute resources compensate for the CPU's mid-range positioning in this specific game.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the Intel Core i5-14600T (0.1% faster), AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H (0.2% faster), and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (0.3% slower), showing that the 7400F sits in a tightly competitive group. However, in Counter-Strike 2, the combination's strong ranking suggests that the game's engine scales well with the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU takes precedence. The fact that this combo ranks in the top 4.1% of all tested pairs indicates that the RTX 4090 boosts the entire system's gaming performance well beyond what the CPU's synthetic scores alone would predict.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates show a clear hierarchy across presets. The Low preset achieves 736 FPS average, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 619 FPS with a minimum of 526 and maximum of 712, providing the only complete frame-time data. High drops to 462 FPS, while Ultra bottoms out at 359 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 51.2% reduction in performance, demonstrating that the game's Ultra settings impose a substantial rendering burden even at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales predictably with resolution. Low delivers 493 FPS, Medium achieves 410 FPS (min 348, max 471), High reaches 306 FPS, and Ultra settles at 238 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium at 1440p is 83 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 68 FPS, showing that the preset penalties are consistent across these two resolution steps. The Medium preset's minimum of 348 FPS remains well above the refresh rate of 300Hz monitors, making it a viable choice for esports displays.

At 3840x2160, the performance drop becomes more pronounced. Low still delivers 276 FPS, which is remarkable for 4K gaming. Medium achieves 229 FPS (min 195, max 263), High drops to 171 FPS, and Ultra falls to 133 FPS. The 4K Medium result of 229 FPS represents a 63% reduction from the 1080p Medium score of 619 FPS, while the 4K Low result of 276 FPS is only 62.5% of the 1080p Low score. This indicates that the GPU's workload scales nearly linearly with pixel count, confirming that the RTX 4090 is the primary driver of performance at 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for competitive play with this combo?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 with Low settings achieves 736 FPS, which is the highest measured result. For a balance of visual quality and competitive performance, 2560x1440 with Medium settings provides 410 FPS with a minimum of 348 FPS, ensuring consistent frame delivery above 300Hz.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Ultra delivers 133 FPS compared to High's 171 FPS, a difference of 38 FPS or 28.6%. This is the smallest relative gap between Ultra and High across all resolutions, suggesting that at 4K, the GPU's rendering pipeline becomes the bottleneck, diminishing the impact of preset changes.

Q: Is the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM sufficient for Counter-Strike 2?

A: The measured data shows no VRAM-related limitations, as all presets at all resolutions produce playable frame rates. The 24 GB GDDR6X memory with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is more than adequate for this game, even at 4K Ultra where the average FPS remains at 133.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This combination ranks 119th out of 2870 tested combos, placing it in the top 4.1% of all configurations. This is a strong result that reflects the RTX 4090's excellence, given that the CPU alone sits in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at Medium settings?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data. At 1080p, the range is 526 to 712 FPS (average 619), at 1440p it is 348 to 471 FPS (average 410), and at 4K it is 195 to 263 FPS (average 229). These ranges indicate stable performance with no severe frame drops.

Q: Should I use Low settings for maximum frame rate?

A: Low settings provide the highest frame rates at every resolution, with 736 FPS at 1080p, 493 FPS at 1440p, and 276 FPS at 4K. However, the difference from Medium is 15.9% at 1080p, 16.8% at 1440p, and 17.0% at 4K, which may not justify the visual quality reduction for most users.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 6,570 million transistors in a 71 mm² die. It operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts to 4.70 GHz, with a 65W TDP that makes it an efficient choice for gaming systems. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3, providing 83.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth through its dual-channel DDR5 interface.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates exceed 700 FPS on Low settings. These numbers are far beyond what the RTX 4090 would be expected to deliver at this resolution, indicating that the CPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3072 and PassMark single-thread score of 3689, is crucial for the game's main thread, which handles input processing and game state updates. The 12 threads allow for efficient distribution of background tasks, but the game's primary workload is heavily single-threaded.

The CPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32,750, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14600T (0.1% faster) and AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H (0.2% faster), showing that the 7400F is within a narrow performance band of several other processors. However, in Counter-Strike 2 specifically, the combination's 119th rank out of 2870 suggests that the CPU's performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4090 at higher resolutions, where the GPU's workload dominates.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data reveals a consistent pattern of frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K, with the performance drop being most pronounced at Medium settings. At Medium, the transition from 1920x1080 (619 FPS) to 2560x1440 (410 FPS) represents a 33.8% reduction, while moving from 1440p to 3840x2160 (229 FPS) costs another 44.1%. The cumulative drop from 1080p to 4K at Medium is 63.0%, which closely matches the pixel count increase from 2.07 million to 8.29 million (a 4x increase), suggesting that the GPU scales nearly linearly with resolution.

For Low settings, the scaling is slightly better. The 1080p result of 736 FPS drops to 493 FPS at 1440p (33.0% reduction) and then to 276 FPS at 4K (44.0% reduction from 1440p), with a cumulative drop of 62.5%. This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU has more headroom, allowing the GPU to work at higher efficiency. In contrast, the High preset shows a cumulative drop of 63.0% from 462 FPS at 1080p to 306 FPS at 1440p to 171 FPS at 4K, matching the Medium preset's scaling pattern.

The Ultra preset exhibits the steepest scaling curve, with 359 FPS at 1080p, 238 FPS at 1440p (33.7% reduction), and 133 FPS at 4K (44.1% reduction from 1440p), totaling a 63.0% drop. This consistency across presets reveals that the limiting component at higher resolutions is the GPU's fill rate and shading capacity, not the CPU. The fact that the 4K results at all presets remain above 133 FPS demonstrates that the RTX 4090 is powerful enough to maintain playable frame rates even at the highest settings, though the CPU's influence diminishes as resolution increases, with the GPU becoming the sole bottleneck.