Counter-Strike 2

The Intel Core i3-12100F and Intel Arc B370 combination in Counter-Strike 2 presents a highly unusual pairing: a capable quad-core desktop processor from Intel’s 12th Gen lineup driving an integrated-class GPU that is part of the Arc Graphics-M series. The measured data shows this combo ranks at 2642 out of 2870 tested configurations, placing it in the bottom portion of the database, yet the actual frame rates tell a more nuanced story depending on resolution and settings. The CPU’s benchmark scores are solid, but the GPU’s performance percentile is very low, which explains why this system struggles at higher resolutions and settings while remaining playable at lower presets and 1080p.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo’s overall rank in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The Intel Core i3-12100F with Intel Arc B370 ranks 2642 out of 2870 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower 8% of all configurations. This rank reflects the GPU’s very low performance percentile, despite the CPU being in the 68th percentile among all processors.

Q: How does the Arc B370 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B370’s average benchmark score is 1184, which is nearly identical to the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, delta -0.2%), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, delta -0.5%), and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, delta -0.7%). It is slightly ahead of the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168, delta +1.4%). These are all very old or low-end parts, confirming the Arc B370’s position near the bottom of GPU performance.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the measured average FPS is 162, which is the highest figure recorded for this combo across all tested scenarios. This suggests the system is capable of high refresh-rate gameplay at the lowest quality preset in Counter-Strike 2.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K. At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average FPS drops to 60, while at High settings it falls to 37, and at Ultra it is just 29. These numbers align with the Arc B370’s very low GPU percentile of 5, showing that resolution scaling heavily impacts performance.

Q: How does the i3-12100F’s single-thread performance compare to its multi-thread performance?

A: The i3-12100F scores 1674 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 11860 in multi-core, yielding a multi-to-single ratio of about 7.1x. In Geekbench, it scores 1932 single-core and 7252 multi-core. The 3DMark tests show 893 for single-thread, 2859 for 4 threads, and 4023 for max threads, indicating that scaling beyond 4 threads provides minimal gains, which is typical for a 4-core/8-thread processor.

Q: What are the measured FPS figures at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the combo achieves an average of 89 FPS, with a minimum of 76 and a maximum of 102. This is a playable frame rate for most users, though it is notably lower than the 134 FPS average seen at 1080p with the same settings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is built on the Xe3-LPG architecture and operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz. It features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster operation units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. The GPU’s memory configuration is entirely system shared, with no dedicated VRAM, relying on the host system’s memory for both capacity and bandwidth. This means the memory type, bus width, and bandwidth are all marked as system dependent, which can significantly impact performance in memory-sensitive scenarios. The GPU’s pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s, while FP32 compute is rated at 6.144 TFLOPS. The TDP is just 25 W, and the slot width is listed as IGP, indicating it is an integrated graphics processor rather than a discrete card.

In Counter-Strike 2, the measured FPS data shows that the Arc B370’s performance scales dramatically with settings. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 162 at Low settings down to 78 at Ultra. At 2560x1440, the range is from 107 at Low to 52 at Ultra. At 3840x2160, the range narrows to 60 at Low and 29 at Ultra. This scalability indicates that the GPU’s compute and memory subsystems are the limiting factor, as reducing settings directly translates into higher frame rates. The system-shared memory means that the GPU competes with the CPU for memory bandwidth, which likely contributes to the steep performance drops at higher resolutions where memory pressure increases. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark score of 1184, which places the GPU in the 5th percentile among all GPUs, further confirms that this is a low-end solution not intended for demanding gaming workloads.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of Intel Core i3-12100F and Intel Arc B370 achieves a rank of 2642 out of 2870 tested combinations in Counter-Strike 2. This places it in the bottom 8% of all configurations, which is consistent with the GPU’s very low performance percentile of 5. The CPU, on the other hand, performs much better relative to its peers, with a percentile of 68 among all CPUs. This mismatch between CPU and GPU capability is a defining characteristic of this setup. The i3-12100F is a competent budget processor, but the Arc B370 severely limits overall gaming performance. In the database, the combo rank reflects the combined result, so even though the CPU can push high frame rates in less demanding scenarios, the GPU holds the system back at higher resolutions and settings.

The nearest CPU rivals for the i3-12100F include the Intel Core 3 N355 with an average score of 13492 (delta 0%), the Intel Core i5-9500 with 13452 (delta 0.3%), and the Intel Core 5 120UL with 13594 (delta -0.7%). These deltas are all within 1%, meaning the i3-12100F performs essentially on par with these other processors in synthetic benchmarks. For the GPU, the nearest rivals are all significantly older parts, such as the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, delta -0.2%) and the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, delta -0.5%). This comparison underscores that the Arc B370 is not competitive with modern discrete GPUs and is more akin to legacy integrated solutions. In Counter-Strike 2, the combo’s low rank means that most tested configurations will outperform it, but the data also shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system can still deliver high FPS, which might be sufficient for competitive play at lower quality presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160) and four settings levels (Low, Medium, High, and Ultra). At 1920x1080, the average FPS is 162 at Low, 134 at Medium, 100 at High, and 78 at Ultra. The Medium setting also reports a minimum of 114 and a maximum of 154, showing some variance but generally consistent performance. At 2560x1440, the averages are 107 at Low, 89 at Medium, 66 at High, and 52 at Ultra. The Medium setting at 1440p has a minimum of 76 and a maximum of 102. At 3840x2160, the averages drop significantly: 60 at Low, 50 at Medium, 37 at High, and 29 at Ultra. The Medium setting at 4K reports a minimum of 42 and a maximum of 57.

These numbers illustrate a clear pattern: the system is most playable at 1080p, where even Ultra settings achieve 78 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth. At 1440p, only Low and Medium settings remain above 60 FPS, with High and Ultra falling below that mark. At 4K, no setting reaches 60 FPS, with Low just hitting 60 FPS and Ultra dropping to 29 FPS. The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (162 FPS) and Ultra (78 FPS) is 84 FPS, while at 4K, the difference between Low (60 FPS) and Ultra (29 FPS) is only 31 FPS. This suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU is so heavily constrained that even lowering settings provides diminishing returns. The lack of min/max FPS data for most settings makes it difficult to assess frame time consistency, but the available Medium setting data shows reasonable stability, with minimums within 15-20% of the average.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior of this combo is telling. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at Low settings reduces the average FPS from 162 to 107, a drop of 34%. From 1440p to 4K at Low settings, the FPS falls from 107 to 60, another 44% reduction. At High settings, the drops are from 100 to 66 (34% reduction) and then from 66 to 37 (44% reduction). At Ultra settings, the FPS goes from 78 at 1080p to 52 at 1440p (33% reduction) and then to 29 at 4K (44% reduction). This consistent pattern of roughly 34% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and 44% from 1440p to 4K indicates that the GPU is the limiting component, as the frame rate scales inversely with the number of pixels rendered.

The pixel count increases by about 77% from 1080p to 1440p and by about 125% from 1440p to 4K. The fact that FPS drops by only 34% and 44% respectively, rather than proportionally, suggests that the system is not purely pixel-bound. This is likely because the CPU can still feed frames at lower resolutions, but at higher resolutions, the GPU’s limited compute and memory bandwidth become the bottleneck. The system-shared memory is particularly problematic here, as the GPU must access system memory for all data, which adds latency and reduces effective bandwidth compared to dedicated VRAM. The data shows that at 4K, even Low settings only achieve 60 FPS, which is barely playable, while Ultra settings are unplayable at 29 FPS. This confirms that the Arc B370 is not suited for 4K gaming in Counter-Strike 2, and even 1440p requires lower settings for a smooth experience.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a TDP of 58 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it uses the Intel Socket 1700. The launch MSRP is $97. In synthetic benchmarks, the i3-12100F scores 11860 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1674 in single-core, while Geekbench shows 7252 multi-core and 1932 single-core. The 3DMark tests reveal that performance scales well up to 4 threads (2859) but gains little beyond that, with 8 threads scoring 4026 and max threads scoring 4023. This indicates that the processor’s 4 physical cores are the primary asset, and hyperthreading provides minimal additional benefit in most workloads.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU’s role is evident from the FPS data at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 162 FPS, which is a high frame rate that suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough frames. However, at 4K Ultra, the FPS drops to 29, which is far below what the CPU could theoretically support. This indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU is likely the limiting factor at 1080p Low, where the GPU’s workload is lighter. The i3-12100F’s single-thread performance, as measured by its 1674 Cinebench R23 score, is adequate for most games, but Counter-Strike 2 can be CPU-intensive in certain scenarios, especially with many players or complex physics. The CPU’s percentile of 68 among all CPUs suggests it performs better than most, but it is not a high-end part. The nearest rival comparisons show that it is essentially on par with the Intel Core 3 N355 and Intel Core i5-9500, both of which are older or lower-power parts. For this combo, the CPU provides enough headroom to achieve playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p with lower settings, but the GPU ultimately limits the experience at higher resolutions and quality presets.