Counter-Strike 2

# Counter-Strike 2 with AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

This combination of an AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 produces exceptional frame rates in Counter-Strike 2 across all tested resolutions and settings. The measured data shows this pairing ranks 147th out of 3719 tested combinations, placing it in the top 4% of all systems evaluated for this title. The combination of a strong 8-core Zen 3 processor with a flagship Ada Lovelace GPU results in frame rates that range from 133 FPS at 4K Ultra to 707 FPS at 1080p Low, demonstrating headroom for even the most demanding competitive scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the overall ranking of this CPU/GPU combination in Counter-Strike 2?

A: This combination ranks 147th out of 3,719 tested combinations, placing it in the top 4% of all systems benchmarked for Counter-Strike 2.

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combination?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 707 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings, indicating the system's ability to push far beyond typical display refresh rates at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded?

A: The lowest average FPS is 133 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, which still provides a smooth competitive experience for most players.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 5800XT compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 5800XT has an average benchmark score of 29,879, which is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H at 29,868 (0% difference) and the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS at 29,955 (-0.3% difference).

Q: What is the VRAM capacity of the RTX 4090 in this configuration?

A: The RTX 4090 features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of memory bandwidth, which is far more than required for Counter-Strike 2's engine.

Q: Is there a significant FPS difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: Yes, the difference is 104 FPS on average. Medium settings deliver 410 FPS while High settings deliver 306 FPS at 2560x1440, indicating the Low and Medium presets are substantially less demanding.

How This Combo Ranks

The data shows this combination ranks 147th out of 3,719 tested combinations in Counter-Strike 2. This top-4% placement reflects the synergy between the two components. The Ryzen 7 5800XT, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, achieves a single-thread score of 959 in 3DMark and 3,359 in Cinebench R23 single-core, which are the workloads that matter most for Counter-Strike 2's engine. The RTX 4090 ranks in the 88th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 60,347.

When considering the broader context, the CPU's percentile versus all CPUs is 81, meaning it outperforms 81% of processors. The GPU's percentile versus all GPUs is 88. Both components sit in the upper tier of their respective categories, but the combination's 147th rank of 3,719 suggests that only 146 other combinations produce higher frame rates in this specific title. The measured data confirms that the system delivers average FPS above 130 even in the most demanding tested configuration (4K Ultra), which is a strong result for a competitive FPS title.

The nearest rival CPUs include the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H with an average score of 29,868 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS at 29,955 (-0.3% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X at 29,713 (0.6% delta). These differences are within noise margins, suggesting that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios. The RTX 4090's nearest rivals include the Intel Arc Pro A60 at 60,326 (0% delta), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 at 60,140 (0.3% delta), and AMD Radeon Pro W6600M at 61,896 (-2.5% delta), which shows the RTX 4090 is clearly in a different performance class from these workstation-oriented cards.

Settings Recommendations

For competitive play at 1920x1080, the data shows that Low settings deliver the highest average FPS at 707, while Medium settings still produce a very high 619 FPS. The High preset yields 462 FPS and Ultra drops to 359 FPS. Given the extremely high frame rates available, the best experience depends on the refresh rate of the display. For a 360 Hz or 500 Hz monitor, the Low preset at 1080p provides enough headroom to maintain maximum refresh in most scenarios. However, the Medium preset at 619 FPS average still exceeds even the highest consumer display refresh rates while offering better visual fidelity.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset delivers 410 FPS average, which is a balanced choice for high-refresh 1440p monitors. The High preset at 306 FPS still comfortably drives 240 Hz displays, while Low at 493 FPS pushes beyond any current display capability. The Ultra preset at 238 FPS is the only configuration at 1440p that falls below 300 FPS, but it remains viable for 240 Hz panels.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset provides 229 FPS, which is suitable for high-refresh 4K displays. The High preset at 171 FPS works well for 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors, while Low at 276 FPS is still very competitive. The Ultra preset at 133 FPS is playable but may not fully saturate a 144 Hz display. For most users, the Medium preset at 1080p and 1440p offers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate headroom, while at 4K the High preset delivers a smooth experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values span a wide range across presets. Low settings produce the highest average at 707 FPS. Medium settings yield 619 FPS, with a minimum of 526 FPS and a maximum of 712 FPS. High settings average 462 FPS. Ultra settings average 359 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 348 FPS, indicating a substantial visual settings impact on frame output.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are 493 FPS on Low, 410 FPS on Medium (with a minimum of 348 and maximum of 471), 306 FPS on High, and 238 FPS on Ultra. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 255 FPS. The Medium setting shows the largest min-max spread of 123 FPS, which suggests some scene complexity variance at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops significantly. Low settings average 276 FPS, Medium averages 229 FPS (with a min of 195 and max of 263), High averages 171 FPS, and Ultra averages 133 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 143 FPS. Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently provides the most stable frame delivery when considering the min-max range: at 1080p it spans 186 FPS, at 1440p it spans 178 FPS, and at 4K it spans 68 FPS.

The data reveals that Counter-Strike 2 scales FPS strongly with both resolution and settings. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 88 FPS, from Medium to High costs 157 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 103 FPS. At 4K, the corresponding drops are 47 FPS, 58 FPS, and 38 FPS. This shows that the game becomes more settings-sensitive as resolution decreases, which is typical of a CPU-bound title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process at TSMC. It contains 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die and features 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs. The GPU has 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores, enabling 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The memory subsystem includes 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, yielding 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock is listed at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective, while the base clock is 2235 MHz and the boost clock is 2520 MHz.

In Counter-Strike 2, the GPU's role is significant, but the measured FPS patterns indicate that the CPU becomes a limiting factor at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is 348 FPS, which is larger than the difference at 4K (153 FPS). This suggests that at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom that the CPU's frame generation capability becomes the constraint. At 4K, the GPU's rendering workload increases, and the FPS gap between settings narrows as the GPU becomes more stressed.

The RTX 4090's VRAM capacity of 24 GB is far beyond the requirements of Counter-Strike 2, which is not a VRAM-intensive title. The memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s is also more than sufficient, as the game does not require large texture sets or high-bandwidth operations. The GPU's performance percentile of 88 and average benchmark score of 60,347 indicate that it is a top-tier component, and its measured performance in this game reflects that. However, the fact that the 4K Ultra setting drops to 133 FPS suggests that the GPU is not completely idle at higher resolutions, and the game's engine can still stress even a flagship card when settings are maxed out.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT is a desktop processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture with the codename Vermeer. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. The CPU is manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process and contains 4,150 million transistors on a 74 mm² die. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 512 KB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus and 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's single-thread performance is crucial. The 3DMark single-thread score of 959 and the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,359 indicate strong per-core performance. The multi-thread results are also strong: Cinebench R23 multi-core of 23,794, and a 3DMark 16-thread score of 7,683. These numbers show that the 5800XT can handle the game's engine efficiently, especially when frame rates exceed 400 FPS at lower resolutions.

The measured FPS data confirms that the CPU is a significant factor in this game. At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 359 to 707, which are extremely high values. The fact that the system can achieve 707 FPS at Low settings at 1080p suggests that the CPU is capable of producing frame rates far above typical display refresh rates. At 4K, the FPS drops to 171 at High settings, which indicates that the GPU is now more of a limiting factor. The CPU's 32 MB of L3 cache is also relevant, as Counter-Strike 2 benefits from having large amounts of cache for the game's data structures.

The Ryzen 7 5800XT has an average benchmark score of 29,879 and ranks in the 81st percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H, has a nearly identical score of 29,868, showing that the 5800XT is competitive with modern laptop chips. The 8-core, 16-thread configuration is well-suited for a game like Counter-Strike 2, which benefits from a few high-frequency cores rather than many lower-frequency cores.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS across resolutions reveals how the system scales from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 707 at 1080p to 493 at 1440p to 276 at 4K. This represents a 30% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 44% drop from 1440p to 4K. At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 619 at 1080p to 410 at 1440p to 229 at 4K, a 34% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 44% drop from 1440p to 4K. At High settings, the FPS goes from 462 at 1080p to 306 at 1440p to 171 at 4K, a 34% drop then a 44% drop. At Ultra settings, the FPS drops from 359 at 1080p to 238 at 1440p to 133 at 4K, a 34% drop then a 44% drop.

The consistent 34% drop from 1080p to 1440p and 44% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the game's performance is heavily dependent on resolution scaling. This pattern suggests that the GPU is becoming a limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the pixel workload increases quadratically. At 1080p, the CPU is likely the bottleneck because the GPU can produce frames faster than the CPU can feed it. At 4K, the GPU's rendering workload becomes the primary constraint.

The ratio of 4K to 1080p FPS is 0.39 for Low settings, 0.37 for Medium, 0.37 for High, and 0.37 for Ultra. This means that moving from 1080p to 4K roughly halves the frame rate, which is a typical scaling factor for a game that is not heavily GPU-bound. The fact that the scaling is nearly identical across settings confirms that the game's engine has a fixed resolution scaling behavior, and the limiting component shifts from the CPU at 1080p to the GPU at 4K. The data indicates that the Ryzen 7 5800XT has sufficient headroom to drive the RTX 4090 at lower resolutions, but the 4K Ultra setting at 133 FPS shows that even this combination has limits.