Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 presents an interesting scalability puzzle for the Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the Intel Arc B570. The measured FPS data reveals a configuration that shifts its bottleneck character dramatically depending on the resolution and quality preset selected. At 1080p, the combo produces remarkably high frame rates that suggest a CPU-leaning workload, while the transition to 4K paints a very different picture of GPU limitation. The data shows a system that is versatile, but the shape of its performance curve tells a specific story about where each component’s headroom begins and ends.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, which points to the GPU becoming the dominant constraint as pixel count rises. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 275 FPS at 1920x1080 to 182 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 93 FPS, and then further down to 102 FPS at 3840x2160. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p represents a 33.8% decrease in performance, while the jump from 1440p to 4K incurs another 44% drop. This pattern indicates that the Arc B570’s rendering throughput is being taxed heavily by the increase in resolution, with the CPU having less influence on the final output at higher pixel densities.

Looking at High settings, the trend is similar but with a less dramatic absolute decline. The average FPS goes from 171 at 1080p to 113 at 1440p (a 33.9% reduction) and then to 63 at 4K (a 44.2% reduction from 1440p). The percentage drops are nearly identical between Low and High presets, which suggests that the GPU is scaling linearly with resolution regardless of the visual complexity. The Ultra preset shows the most severe absolute numbers, with 133 FPS at 1080p collapsing to 88 FPS at 1440p and finally 49 FPS at 4K. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 53 FPS, whereas at 1080p it is 142 FPS, indicating that the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor before the quality settings can fully express their cost.

The data implies that at 1080p, the Core i5-10400F is likely keeping the GPU well-fed, as evidenced by the 275 FPS Low result. However, the fact that the frame rate still scales down with resolution even at Low settings suggests that the GPU is never completely idle; rather, the CPU’s six cores and twelve threads are sufficient to drive the Arc B570 to its limits at lower resolutions, but those limits are still dictated by the GPU’s fill rate. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the FPS values cluster in a range that reflects the pixel workload rather than any CPU constraint. The medium preset at 4K shows a minimum FPS of 72 and a maximum of 97, which brackets the average of 85, indicating frame time consistency that is typical of a GPU-bound scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and Intel Arc B570 ranks 2286 out of 2870 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2, placing it in the lower-mid portion of the database. This percentile position, roughly in the 20th percentile from the bottom, is interesting because the individual components have respectable average benchmark scores. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 14185, which places it at the 68th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU’s average score is 20556, placing it at the 65th percentile among all GPUs. The fact that the combo rank is much lower than either component’s individual percentile suggests that this pairing is not achieving its full potential in this specific game, possibly due to the game’s engine favoring different hardware characteristics.

The combo rank of 2286 out of 2870 means that 584 other combinations perform worse, but it also implies that a significant number of pairings outperform this one. The nearest rivals for the CPU include the Intel Xeon 6756E with an average score of 14163 (a 0.2% delta) and the AMD EPYC 7552 with a score of 14115 (a 0.5% delta), while the GPU’s nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile with a score of 20534 (a 0.1% delta) and the Intel Arc A750 with a score of 20582 (a -0.1% delta). These deltas are minuscule, indicating that the individual components are well-matched to their immediate competitors, yet the overall combo still lands in the lower third of the ranking. This disconnect suggests that Counter-Strike 2’s specific workload does not scale favorably with the combination of a 10th-gen Intel CPU and a Battlemage GPU, perhaps due to driver overhead or engine-level scheduling.

The rank becomes more meaningful when compared to the measured FPS data. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 275 FPS, which is far beyond playable, but the rank suggests that many other combos can push even higher. The data does not provide scores for other combos, so the exact gap is unknown, but the percentile position implies that this setup is not optimized for maximum competitive frame rates. The fact that the CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core 7 160UL, has a delta of -0.3% and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C has a delta of -0.6% means the CPU is essentially average for its class, which may explain why the combo does not climb higher in the rankings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is the primary driver of resolution scaling, and its specifications align with the observed FPS drops. The GPU has 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but at 4K, the demand for memory bandwidth and capacity increases. The 4K Medium preset shows an average of 85 FPS with a minimum of 72 and a maximum of 97, which suggests that the GPU is handling the workload without severe memory pressure, as the frame times are relatively stable. However, the 4K Ultra preset drops to 49 FPS, indicating that the GPU’s shading units and ROPs are being saturated by the higher-quality effects.

The GPU’s clock speed is fixed at 2500 MHz for both base and boost, which is a constant that does not vary with load. This means the Arc B570 does not rely on dynamic boosting to deliver performance, and the 150 W TDP is the power envelope that sustains that clock. The pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s, which are the raw throughput numbers that dictate how quickly the GPU can fill the screen with pixels and sample textures. At 4K, the pixel rate becomes the limiting factor, as the 3840x2160 resolution requires over 8 million pixels per frame, and at 49 FPS, the GPU is producing roughly 400 million pixels per second, which is well below its theoretical maximum, but the Ultra settings likely introduce additional fragment shading work that reduces efficiency.

The GPU’s FP32 performance of 11.52 TFLOPS is the compute capacity available for shader instructions, and the 80 ROPs handle final pixel output. The data shows that the GPU is capable of 275 FPS at 1080p Low, which translates to a pixel throughput of about 570 million pixels per second, far exceeding the 4K Ultra output. This indicates that at lower resolutions, the GPU is not pixel-bound but rather shader-bound or geometry-bound, and the CPU is able to feed instructions fast enough to keep the GPU busy. The VRAM capacity of 10 GB is not likely a limiting factor in Counter-Strike 2, as the game is not known for high VRAM usage, but the bandwidth of 380 GB/s is sufficient for the frame rates observed.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Counter-Strike 2 with this combo for a balance of visual quality and frame rate?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 at High settings produces an average of 113 FPS, which is a solid frame rate for competitive play while maintaining better image quality than 1080p. The 4K High setting drops to 63 FPS, which is below the threshold many players prefer for a fast-paced FPS.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 275 FPS, and the frame rate scales down significantly as resolution increases (to 182 FPS at 1440p and 102 FPS at 4K). This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary limiter even at 1080p, as the CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to drive the Arc B570 to its maximum output.

Q: How does the combo rank compare to other tested combinations in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The combo ranks 2286 out of 2870 total combinations, placing it in the lower 20th percentile. This is lower than the individual component percentiles (CPU at 68th, GPU at 65th), suggesting that the pairing is not optimally utilized in this game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 182 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 88 FPS. This represents a 94 FPS difference, or a 51.6% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset.

Q: Is the 10 GB VRAM on the Arc B570 sufficient for 4K gaming in this title?

A: The measured data shows that 4K Medium averages 85 FPS with a minimum of 72 FPS, indicating that the 10 GB GDDR6 memory is not causing a severe bottleneck. The 4K Ultra preset drops to 49 FPS, but this is more likely due to the GPU’s compute and pixel throughput rather than memory capacity.

Q: Which preset provides the highest minimum FPS at 4K?

A: The only 4K preset with a recorded minimum FPS is Medium, which shows a minimum of 72 FPS. The Low, High, and Ultra presets do not have minimum FPS data available in the measured results.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls, which are tasks that benefit from higher single-thread performance. The CPU’s single-thread benchmark scores are 688 in 3dMark single-thread, 146 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 609 in Cinebench R20 single-core, and 1451 in Cinebench R23 single-core, which are modest numbers compared to newer processors. The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is able to keep up with the GPU, as evidenced by the 275 FPS Low result, but the frame rate does not exceed that threshold, implying that either the CPU or the GPU’s API driver is capping the output.

The CPU’s multi-thread performance is stronger, with a 3dMark max-thread score of 4735 and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10283. However, Counter-Strike 2 is not heavily multi-threaded, so the 12 threads may not be fully utilized. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache is a critical resource for gaming, as it reduces the latency of memory accesses for frequently used game assets. The CPU’s memory bandwidth is 42.7 GB/s with dual-channel DDR4 support, which is a potential bottleneck when the GPU is waiting for data from system memory, but the measured FPS data does not show signs of severe stuttering. The nearest CPU rivals, such as the Intel Core 7 160UL with a delta of -0.3% and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C with a delta of -0.6%, have similar average benchmark scores, indicating that the i5-10400F is not an outlier in its performance class.

The CPU’s boost clock of 4.30 GHz is the key to its gaming performance, as it provides the single-thread speed needed for high FPS. The fact that the combo ranks 2286 out of 2870 suggests that the CPU’s age is showing in this title, as newer architectures with higher IPC and faster memory support would likely push the frame rates higher. The CPU’s percentile of 68 among all CPUs is respectable, but within the context of Counter-Strike 2, the game’s engine may favor processors with better single-core performance, which limits this combo’s overall ranking.

Settings Recommendations

For players who prioritize competitive performance, the 1080p Low preset offers the highest average FPS at 275, which is far above the refresh rate of most monitors. This preset eliminates unnecessary visual effects, reducing GPU load and allowing the CPU to push as many frames as possible. The 1080p Medium preset still delivers 229 FPS, which is a good compromise for those who want slightly better visuals without sacrificing much speed. The data shows that the jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 46 FPS, which is a significant drop, but the Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 194 ensures that frame drops are still above 144 Hz.

At 1440p, the Low preset delivers 182 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, while the Medium preset at 151 FPS with a minimum of 129 FPS is also viable. The High preset at 113 FPS is playable but starts to approach the 100 FPS threshold that some players consider the minimum for a competitive FPS. The Ultra preset at 88 FPS is not recommended for serious play, as the visual improvements are not worth the loss of smoothness. For 4K, the Low preset at 102 FPS is the only setting that provides a comfortable frame rate, while Medium at 85 FPS is acceptable for casual play, and High at 63 FPS or Ultra at 49 FPS are too slow for a game like Counter-Strike 2.

The best experience for most players would be 1440p Medium, as it balances a 151 FPS average with a minimum of 129 FPS, ensuring that the frame rate stays high even during intense firefights. The data indicates that the combo is most efficient at this resolution and setting, as it leverages the GPU’s capabilities without overburdening the CPU. If a player has a 240 Hz monitor, the 1080p Low preset is the only one that can consistently feed that refresh rate, but the 1440p Medium preset offers a better visual experience for a 144 Hz display.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the combo’s performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 275 FPS, which is the highest recorded score for this combo. The Medium preset averages 229 FPS with a minimum of 194 FPS and a maximum of 263 FPS, showing a tight frame time distribution. The High preset averages 171 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 133 FPS, meaning that the full range from Low to Ultra spans 142 FPS at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 182 FPS, a drop of 93 FPS from 1080p. The Medium preset averages 151 FPS with a minimum of 129 FPS and a maximum of 174 FPS, which is a 78 FPS reduction from the 1080p Medium score. The High preset averages 113 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 88 FPS. At 1440p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 94 FPS. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 102 FPS, the Medium preset averages 85 FPS with a minimum of 72 FPS and a maximum of 97 FPS, the High preset averages 63 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 49 FPS. The 4K Ultra score of 49 FPS is only 17.8% of the 1080p Low score, illustrating the massive performance cost of maxing out settings at high resolution.

The Medium preset is the only one with minimum and maximum FPS data for all three resolutions, which allows for a comparison of frame time consistency. At 1080p, the Medium preset’s minimum of 194 FPS is 84.7% of its average, while at 1440p, the minimum of 129 FPS is 85.4% of the average, and at 4K, the minimum of 72 FPS is 84.7% of the average. This consistency suggests that the combo maintains stable frame delivery across resolutions, with no major stuttering or hitches. The lack of minimum FPS data for the other presets prevents a full analysis, but the available numbers indicate that the Medium preset is the most stable option.