Counter-Strike 2

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a highly playable Counter-Strike 2 experience across the board, but the data reveals a clear shift in system behavior as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080, the combo is heavily CPU-bound. Average frame rates scale from 296 FPS at Low settings down to 143.4 FPS at Ultra, with High settings delivering 185.3 FPS and Medium hitting 246 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is roughly 153 FPS, indicating that the processor has ample headroom to feed frames, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor only when settings are pushed to their highest extremes.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but the scaling pattern shifts. Low settings produce 196 FPS, Medium 161.7 FPS, High 119.4 FPS, and Ultra 92.4 FPS. The drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is about 100 FPS, which is a substantial reduction driven by the increased pixel workload on the GPU. At 4K, the trend becomes more pronounced. The RTX 2060 still manages 110.3 FPS at Low settings, but High drops to 69.4 FPS, Medium to 91.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 51.9 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at each preset shows that the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s influence diminishes as resolution increases.

The data suggests that at 1080p, the i5-11400F is the bottleneck, as the GPU is not being pushed hard enough to reach its limits. At 1440p, the balance shifts toward the GPU, and at 4K, the RTX 2060 becomes the dominant limiting factor. This is typical for a competitive FPS title where frame rates are high and the CPU must process game logic and player positions quickly, but the GPU must render increasingly complex scenes at higher pixel counts.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 lands at rank 1305 out of 1632 total combos for Counter-Strike 2. That places it in the lower-middle portion of the field, which is surprising given the high average frame rates measured. The rank reflects not just raw performance, but how this combo compares to every other tested CPU-GPU pairing in the database for this game. A rank of 1305 out of 1632 means that roughly 80% of tested combos outperform it in aggregate scoring, despite the fact that this setup can push well over 200 FPS at lower settings.

The ranking is influenced by the fact that many other combos use higher-end CPUs or GPUs that can sustain even higher frame rates, particularly at 1080p where the CPU matters most. The i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake generation, and the RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. While this combo is far from the top of the rankings, it is also far from the bottom, and the measured FPS data shows it is more than capable of running the game smoothly. The percentileVsAllCpus field for the CPU is 75, meaning it outperforms 75% of all CPUs in the database on average, while the GPU’s percentileVsAllGpus is 58, placing it just above the median for GPUs.

The discrepancy between the high percentile scores of the individual components and the lower combo rank highlights that Counter-Strike 2 is particularly demanding on both CPU and GPU in ways that other benchmarks may not capture. The combo rank is a holistic measure, and even a solid CPU and mid-range GPU can land in the lower half when paired against more powerful hardware.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture with a 12 nm process node and contains 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die. It features 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, along with 30 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1680 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) across a 192-bit bus. This configuration provides 336.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is crucial for feeding data to the shading units at high resolutions.

The GPU has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is sufficient for Counter-Strike 2 at the measured settings. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 51.9, which suggests that the memory capacity is not the primary constraint; rather, the compute throughput of the GPU is being taxed. The FP32 performance is 6.451 TFLOPS, and the texture rate is 201.6 GTexel/s, which are moderate figures for a GPU in this class. The pixel rate is 80.64 GPixel/s, which is a limiting factor at 4K where the GPU must fill over 8 million pixels per frame.

The RTX 2060’s performance relative to its closest rivals is close. In the database, it posts an average benchmark score of 16074, with the AMD Radeon RX 7600S scoring 15996 (a delta of 0.5% higher for the RTX 2060), the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M scoring 16351 (1.7% higher), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 scoring 15786 (1.8% lower). These small deltas indicate that the RTX 2060 sits in a tight performance band, and in Counter-Strike 2, the measured FPS at 1080p High of 185.3 FPS is strong but not exceptional for a card that is near the 58th percentile of all GPUs.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on which settings preset to use based on your display resolution and performance targets. At 1920x1080, all presets are playable, but the differences are significant. Low settings deliver 296 FPS, which is ideal for competitive play where maximum frame rates are prioritized. Medium settings drop to 246 FPS, still well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on gaming monitors. High settings produce 185.3 FPS, which is also smooth, and Ultra settings yield 143.4 FPS, which is still above 60 FPS but may be a compromise for those seeking higher refresh rates.

For 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts. Low settings give 196 FPS, Medium gives 161.7 FPS, and High gives 119.4 FPS. Ultra drops to 92.4 FPS, which is still playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The sweet spot at 1440p is Medium, as it offers a substantial frame rate boost over High while maintaining visual quality that is noticeably better than Low. At 4K, the situation is more constrained. Low settings produce 110.3 FPS, which is the only preset that comfortably exceeds 100 FPS. Medium gives 91.1 FPS, High gives 69.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 51.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay.

Given this data, the best experience per the measured rows is to use Low settings at 1080p for maximum frame rates, or Medium settings at 1440p for a balance of visual fidelity and performance. At 4K, Low settings are the only viable option for high frame rates, and even then, the 110.3 FPS average is respectable for a GPU in this class. The data shows that the RTX 2060 is not a 4K Ultra card for this game, but it can handle 4K at lower presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the measured average FPS is 185.3. This is a strong result that exceeds the refresh rate of most standard monitors, ensuring smooth gameplay.

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

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 51.9. This is below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the RTX 2060 is not sufficient for maxed-out 4K in Counter-Strike 2.

Q: Which resolution and settings combination yields the highest frame rate?

A: The highest measured frame rate is 296 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the maximum performance available from this combo in the data.

Q: Is the RTX 2060 better than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500?

A: Yes, based on average benchmark scores, the RTX 2060 scores 16074, which is 1.8% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500’s score of 15786. The GPU is also 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600S.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 1305 out of 1632 tested combinations for Counter-Strike 2. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the field, despite the high frame rates measured.

Q: Does the CPU become a bottleneck at higher resolutions?

A: The data suggests the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, where frame rates are highest. As resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, as evidenced by the larger FPS drops from resolution scaling.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process node. It has a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, and it has a 12 MB shared L3 cache. Individual cores have 80 KB of L1 cache and 512 KB of L2 cache. This processor was released in March 2021 and is now end-of-life, but it remains a capable gaming CPU.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-11400F scores 14372 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2029 in single-core. The single-core performance is particularly important for Counter-Strike 2, as the game’s engine relies heavily on a few fast cores for game logic and player positioning. The CPU’s 3DMark scores are 5619 for 16 threads and 868 for single-thread, which indicate strong multi-threaded performance relative to its class. The PassMark single-thread score is 2981, which is above average.

The CPU’s percentileVsAllCpus is 75, meaning it outperforms three-quarters of all CPUs in the database. This is a strong showing for a mid-range processor. Its nearest rivals in average benchmark score are the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (17189, delta 0%), the Intel Core i7-1260P (17212, delta -0.2%), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17215, delta -0.2%). The i5-11400F’s average benchmark score is 17181, which is nearly identical to these rivals, indicating that it sits at a performance parity point with several newer mobile and low-power processors.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU’s role is evident from the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU is the primary driver of performance, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at Low settings. The 296 FPS at 1080p Low is a direct result of the CPU’s ability to process game simulation quickly. As resolution increases, the GPU takes over as the bottleneck. The CPU’s 12 threads and high boost clock of 4.40 GHz are sufficient to avoid stalling the GPU at 1440p, but at 4K, the GPU’s rendering workload dominates. The data shows that this CPU is well-matched to the RTX 2060, as neither component is severely underpowered relative to the other in this game, though the combo rank suggests that more powerful hardware can achieve even higher frame rates.