Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 is a competitive FPS that scales dramatically across resolutions when paired with the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080. The measured data reveals a system that is massively overqualified for 1080p gameplay, yet still delivers high refresh rates at 4K. The frame rate deltas between resolution steps are steep, indicating that the balance between CPU and GPU shifts significantly depending on the target resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is severe and clearly shows where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 674 FPS, while at 4K Low, it falls to 249 FPS. This represents a 63% reduction in average frame rate. The pattern holds across all settings presets. At High settings, the drop is from 418 FPS at 1080p to 155 FPS at 4K, a 63% decrease. With Ultra settings, the numbers go from 325 FPS at 1080p down to 120 FPS at 4K, a 63% decline.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is less punishing but still substantial. At Medium settings, 1440p yields 371 FPS, while 4K drops to 207 FPS, a 44% reduction. The 1080p to 1440p transition at Medium settings shows a decline from 560 FPS to 371 FPS, which is a 34% drop. This gradient suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is the primary limiting factor, as the RTX 4080 has ample headroom to render frames, but the Ryzen 7 9700X cannot feed it fast enough. At 4K, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint, as the pixel workload increases exponentially.

The data indicates that this system is CPU-bound at 1080p and GPU-bound at 4K. The 1440p results sit in a balanced middle ground. The 4K Low setting at 249 FPS is still exceptionally high for competitive play, but the 120 FPS Ultra 4K result shows the game can push the GPU hard. The consistent 63% drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets suggests that the game's engine scales predictably with resolution, and the performance ceiling at each resolution is dictated by the component that runs out of headroom first.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo?

A: The maximum average FPS measured is 674, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is followed by 560 FPS at 1080p Medium and 446 FPS at 1440p Low.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 120 FPS. This is the lowest result in the entire dataset, but it remains above the 100 FPS threshold, which is suitable for high-refresh-rate 4K monitors.

Q: Is there a significant difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: Yes, the delta is substantial. At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 446 FPS, while Ultra settings drop to 215 FPS. This is a 52% reduction in average frame rate, indicating that the visual quality presets have a major impact on performance at this resolution.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the dataset?

A: The only min FPS values provided are for Medium settings. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 176 FPS, and at 1440p Medium, it is 315 FPS. For 1080p Medium, the minimum is 476 FPS. No min FPS data is available for Low, High, or Ultra presets.

Q: How does the 1080p High result compare to the 4K High result?

A: At 1080p High, the average FPS is 418. At 4K High, it drops to 155 FPS. This is a 63% reduction, which is the same percentage drop seen across all settings when moving from 1080p to 4K.

Q: What is the 1080p Medium max FPS?

A: The maximum FPS recorded at 1080p Medium is 644 FPS. The corresponding minimum is 476 FPS, giving a range of 168 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 560 FPS average, with a minimum of 476 FPS, ensuring no drops below the refresh rate of even the fastest gaming monitors. At 1440p Medium, the average is 371 FPS with a minimum of 315 FPS, which still provides a massive cushion above 240Hz displays. At 4K Medium, the average is 207 FPS with a minimum of 176 FPS, which is playable on high-refresh-rate 4K panels.

The High preset is a viable alternative for users prioritizing image quality over raw frame rate. At 1080p High, the system produces 418 FPS, and at 1440p High, it reaches 277 FPS. The 4K High result of 155 FPS is still competitive, but the jump from Medium to High at 4K costs 52 FPS, which is a 25% reduction.

The Ultra preset is the most demanding, and the data shows it is best reserved for 1080p or 1440p displays. At 1080p Ultra, the system delivers 325 FPS, which is still excellent, and 1440p Ultra at 215 FPS is also strong. However, 4K Ultra at 120 FPS is the only scenario where the frame rate approaches the lower bounds of high-refresh-rate gaming. For competitive play, the Low preset offers the absolute highest frame rates, with 674 FPS at 1080p and 446 FPS at 1440p, but this comes at a significant visual quality cost that many players may find unacceptable for a modern title.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 237th out of 3,719 tested combos for Counter-Strike 2. This places the combo in the top 6.4% of all configurations tested. The rank reflects the high performance level of both components, but the large number of combos ahead of it suggests that there are many systems with even more powerful hardware, particularly on the GPU side.

The CPU itself sits in the 86th percentile when compared to all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37,943. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-14901E, scores 37,911, a delta of just 0.1%. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is also within 0.1%, scoring 37,904. The Intel Core 5 211E trails by 0.3% with a score of 37,829, and the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P132 is 0.4% behind at 37,804. This clustering indicates that the 9700X is in a very tight performance band with several other processors.

The GPU also achieves an 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54,247. The RTX 4080 SUPER is the closest rival at 54,209, a 0.1% difference. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% ahead at 54,828, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% behind at 55,698 and the AMD Radeon 8060S is 2.7% behind at 55,757. The RTX 4080's position in the 86th percentile for both CPU and GPU is consistent with the combo's rank of 237 out of 3,719.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and utilizes the AD103 chip. It features 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster operation units. The GPU has 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores, which are not directly exercised by Counter-Strike 2's traditional rendering pipeline but contribute to its overall processing capability.

The GPU's memory subsystem is a key factor in its performance. It has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, with a memory bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s. The memory clock is listed as 1400 MHz, with an effective data rate of 22.4 Gbps. This bandwidth is more than sufficient for Counter-Strike 2, which is not known for being memory-intensive at the resolutions tested. The base clock is 2205 MHz, with a boost clock of 2505 MHz. These clocks are moderate for the 40-series, but the sheer number of shading units compensates for the clock speed.

The GPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks shows its strengths. It scores 65,67 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 214,739 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 263,779 in Geekbench Vulkan. The Passmark G3D score is 34,457, and the GPU compute score is 20,671. These scores are consistent with a high-end GPU that excels in both rasterization and compute workloads. The pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s are important for a fast-paced FPS, as they determine how quickly the GPU can fill the screen with rendered frames.

In Counter-Strike 2, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions. The 4K results show a clear GPU limitation, as the frame rate drops significantly from 1080p. The 4K Low setting at 249 FPS shows the GPU's raw throughput, while the 4K Ultra setting at 120 FPS demonstrates the impact of increased shader complexity and texture detail.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 674 FPS. Medium settings yield 560 FPS average, with a minimum of 476 FPS and a maximum of 644 FPS. High settings achieve 418 FPS average. Ultra settings drop to 325 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 349 FPS, which shows the game's settings have a profound effect on performance at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. Low settings average 446 FPS. Medium settings average 371 FPS, with a minimum of 315 FPS and a maximum of 426 FPS. High settings average 277 FPS. Ultra settings average 215 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 231 FPS, which is still a massive range that gives players plenty of options.

At 3840x2160, the performance is lower but still impressive. Low settings average 249 FPS. Medium settings average 207 FPS, with a minimum of 176 FPS and a maximum of 238 FPS. High settings average 155 FPS. Ultra settings average 120 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 129 FPS, which is a smaller absolute range than at lower resolutions but still represents a significant performance trade-off.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data across all resolutions. At 1080p, the range is 476 to 644 FPS. At 1440p, the range is 315 to 426 FPS. At 4K, the range is 176 to 238 FPS. These ranges indicate consistent frame pacing, with no extreme dips that would cause stuttering.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a 65W TDP. The CPU features 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and a shared L3 cache of 32 MB. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, with a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s.

The CPU's synthetic benchmark scores demonstrate its strength. It achieves a single-thread score of 1,280 in 3DMark, 346 in Cinebench R15, 2,211 in Cinebench R23, and 3,023 in Geekbench. The multi-threaded scores are also strong, with 9,824 in 3DMark 16-thread, 20,485 in Cinebench R23 multicore, and 17,906 in Geekbench multicore. The Passmark single-thread score is 4,654, and the multithread score is 37,161.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's role is most visible at 1080p, where the frame rates are highest. The 674 FPS at 1080p Low indicates that the CPU can process game logic and issue draw calls at a very high rate. The 16 threads allow for efficient handling of the game's background tasks, while the high single-thread performance (5.50 GHz boost) ensures that the main game thread is not a bottleneck.

The CPU's performance relative to its rivals is tightly clustered. Its average benchmark score of 37,943 places it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i9-14901E and 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. The Intel Core 5 211E is 0.3% behind, and the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P132 is 0.4% behind. This indicates that the 9700X is not a standout performer in synthetic benchmarks, but its real-world performance in Counter-Strike 2 is clearly sufficient to drive the RTX 4080 to extreme frame rates at 1080p and 1440p.

The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are well-suited for a game like Counter-Strike 2, which benefits from high single-thread performance but can also utilize multiple threads for asset streaming and physics. The 32 MB of L3 cache helps keep frequently accessed data close to the cores, reducing latency. The 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth is ample for the game's memory access patterns, ensuring that the CPU can feed data to the GPU without stalling.