Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 is a competitive FPS that scales dramatically with hardware, and the combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 produces a wide range of framerates depending on how the user configures the game. The measured data provides clear guidance on which settings deliver the best experience, with the key trade-off being between raw frame rate and visual fidelity. Across all three tested resolutions, the Low preset consistently yields the highest average FPS, while the Ultra preset yields the lowest, with the Medium and High presets falling predictably in between. For a game where high refresh rates and minimal input latency are paramount, the data indicates that the Low preset is the optimal choice for maximizing competitive performance, even at 4K where it still delivers a formidable 285.5 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results show a clear hierarchy: lower settings always produce higher average frame rates. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves a remarkable 694.6 FPS, which is 320.5 FPS higher than the High preset and 320.5 FPS higher than the Ultra preset's 374.1 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p yields 643.2 FPS, which is 51.4 FPS behind Low. This pattern holds at 2560x1440, where Low produces 509.6 FPS, Medium produces 425.6 FPS, High produces 319.6 FPS, and Ultra produces 247.8 FPS. At 3840x2160, the spread is narrower in absolute terms but still significant: Low leads with 285.5 FPS, followed by Medium at 234.8 FPS, High at 180.9 FPS, and Ultra at 136.5 FPS.

For users with high-refresh-rate monitors, the data strongly favors the Low preset. Even at 4K, it maintains an average FPS above 240, which is sufficient for many high-end displays. The Ultra preset, by contrast, is only viable on 4K if the user prioritizes graphical quality over frame rate, as its 136.5 FPS average is still playable but far from the competitive ideal. The Medium preset offers a balanced middle ground, particularly at 1440p where its 425.6 FPS average exceeds what most monitors can display. The High preset is the least compelling option, as it provides a modest visual upgrade over Medium while suffering a substantial FPS penalty. The data suggests that the Low preset is the recommended choice for competitive play, while Medium serves as a sensible compromise for those who want some visual polish without sacrificing the high frame rates that Counter-Strike 2's gameplay benefits from.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this CPU and GPU combination in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 694.6 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: How does the performance at 4K Ultra compare to 1080p Low?

A: The 4K Ultra preset produces an average of 136.5 FPS, which is 558.1 FPS lower than the 1080p Low preset's 694.6 FPS average. This represents a significant performance drop of approximately 80% from the best-case scenario.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 bottlenecked by the Ryzen 9 5900X at lower resolutions?

A: The data indicates a CPU limitation at 1080p, as the frame rate scales significantly with settings. The difference between Low (694.6 FPS) and Ultra (374.1 FPS) at 1080p is 320.5 FPS, suggesting that the CPU is the limiting factor when the GPU is not fully stressed.

Q: What is the performance delta between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset averages 425.6 FPS, which is 106 FPS higher than the High preset's 319.6 FPS average. This is a substantial gap, indicating that High settings impose a notable additional load on the system.

Q: Can this combination maintain 240 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only with the Low settings preset, which achieves an average of 285.5 FPS at 3840x2160. The Medium preset falls short at 234.8 FPS average, which is below the 240 FPS threshold.

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

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination ranks 16th out of 1632 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2, placing it in the top 1% of all configurations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 plays a critical role in this combination, particularly at higher resolutions where its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth become fully utilized. The GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are substantial, but the benchmark data suggests that the GPU is not always the limiting factor. At 1080p, the frame rates are exceptionally high—694.6 FPS on Low—which indicates that the CPU, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is able to feed the GPU adequately. However, the massive differences between settings at the same resolution imply that the CPU becomes the primary bottleneck as the GPU load decreases.

The RTX 5090's clock speeds, with a base of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz, are relatively high but do not tell the full story. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is heavily utilized, producing 136.5 FPS average. This is a significant drop from the 4K Low result of 285.5 FPS, representing a 149 FPS difference. This suggests that the Ultra preset's additional shading and texture demands—leveraging the 21,760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units—push the GPU closer to its limits. The GPU's role is most evident at 4K, where the performance gap between Low and Ultra is proportionally smaller than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is increasingly the dominant constraint. The 32 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for Counter-Strike 2, even at 4K Ultra, so memory capacity is not a limiting factor in this scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination achieves a rank of 16 out of 1,632 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2, placing it in the 99th percentile of all configurations. This top-tier ranking is driven by the CPU's strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 941 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,680. The CPU's 90th percentile ranking among all CPUs and the GPU's 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs contribute to this high overall position. In comparison to the CPU's nearest rivals, the Ryzen 9 5900X outperforms the AMD EPYC 4245P by 0.2% and the Intel Core i7-13700F by 0.9%, but trails the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS by 0.7% and the Intel Core i7-13700 by 1% in average benchmark scores.

The GPU's nearest rivals show a similar pattern, with the RTX 5090 leading the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D by 0.1% and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile by 0.2%, while being 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 and 1.6% behind the NVIDIA CMP 40HX. These narrow margins in synthetic benchmarks, however, do not fully reflect the in-game performance, where the combination's 16th place ranking demonstrates that it is among the best possible configurations for this title. The high rank is notable given that the CPU was released in 2020 and the GPU in 2025, showing that the Ryzen 9 5900X remains competitive even when paired with the latest flagship GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 694.6 at 1080p to 509.6 at 1440p and further to 285.5 at 4K. This represents a 409.1 FPS reduction from 1080p to 4K, or a 58.9% decrease. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 185 FPS (26.6%), while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 224.1 FPS (44%). The larger percentage drop at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes more significant as the pixel count increases.

At the Ultra preset, the scaling is more pronounced. The average FPS falls from 374.1 at 1080p to 247.8 at 1440p and then to 136.5 at 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K is 237.6 FPS, or 63.5%. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 126.3 FPS (33.8%), and the drop from 1440p to 4K is 111.3 FPS (44.9%). The fact that the percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is larger at Ultra (33.8%) than at Low (26.6%) suggests that the GPU is more heavily taxed at higher settings even at lower resolutions. The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is the primary bottleneck, as the frame rates are extremely high and the GPU has ample headroom. As the resolution increases, the GPU's role grows, and at 4K, the system becomes more balanced, though the CPU still provides sufficient throughput to avoid severe stuttering.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset of measured average FPS provides a comprehensive view of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 694.6 FPS, the Medium preset delivers 643.2 FPS, the High preset delivers 481.6 FPS, and the Ultra preset delivers 374.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 51.4 FPS, between Medium and High is 161.6 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 107.5 FPS. This pattern shows that the most significant performance hit occurs when moving from Medium to High, suggesting that High settings introduce effects that are particularly demanding.

At 2560x1440, the results are 509.6 FPS for Low, 425.6 FPS for Medium, 319.6 FPS for High, and 247.8 FPS for Ultra. The differences are 84 FPS between Low and Medium, 106 FPS between Medium and High, and 71.8 FPS between High and Ultra. The Medium to High gap remains the largest, reinforcing the notion that High settings are a distinct threshold. At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves 285.5 FPS, Medium achieves 234.8 FPS, High achieves 180.9 FPS, and Ultra achieves 136.5 FPS. The differences are 50.7 FPS between Low and Medium, 53.9 FPS between Medium and High, and 44.4 FPS between High and Ultra. At 4K, the gaps between settings are more uniform, indicating that the GPU is the dominant constraint across all presets.

The data also shows that the performance drop from 1080p to 1440p at a given settings preset is consistent, with reductions of 185 FPS for Low, 217.6 FPS for Medium, 162 FPS for High, and 126.3 FPS for Ultra. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 224.1 FPS for Low, 190.8 FPS for Medium, 138.7 FPS for High, and 111.3 FPS for Ultra. These figures demonstrate that the lowest settings scale more steeply with resolution, as the CPU is less of a factor at higher resolutions, allowing the GPU's performance to be more directly measured.