Counter-Strike 2

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. It carries a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The processor features 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 12 MB L3 cache. Its memory interface is dual-channel DDR4 with a peak bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's role is primarily about maintaining a high frame ceiling, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the primary constraint. The processor's single-thread performance, measured at 868 in 3DMark single-thread, 850 in Cinebench R20 single-core, and 2981 in PassMark single-thread, directly influences how quickly the game can process game logic, entity updates, and input commands. At 1080p Low settings, the combo reaches 339 FPS average, a figure that suggests the CPU is far from being a bottleneck at that preset.

The 12 threads matter for background tasks and game server processing, but Counter-Strike 2 is not heavily multithreaded in its render path. The CPU's multi-thread scores — 14,340 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 5,652 in 3DMark max threads, and 16,908 in PassMark multithread — indicate solid overall throughput. However, the game's frame rate at high settings and high resolutions is more dependent on the GPU, as the measured data shows a clear drop-off when moving from Low to Ultra presets at the same resolution.

The processor sits in the 71st percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17,177. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7H12 (0.3% faster), Intel Core i5-12450H (0.4% slower), AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (0.6% slower), and Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (0.6% faster). These deltas are marginal, meaning the 11400F's compute capability is well within a tight competitive band. For a game like Counter-Strike 2, which rewards high clock speeds and responsive single-thread performance, the 4.40 GHz boost clock is the more relevant specification than the core count.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for maximizing frame rate with this combo?

A: The data shows the highest average FPS at 1920x1080. At Low settings, the combo delivers 339 FPS average; at Medium, 282 FPS; at High, 211 FPS; and at Ultra, 163 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 drops the Low preset to 225 FPS, and at 3840x2160 the Low preset yields 126 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-11400F averages 17,177 across all benchmark tests. The AMD EPYC 7H12 scores slightly higher at 17,120 (0.3% delta), while the Intel Core i5-12450H scores 17,239 (-0.4% delta). The AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G is 0.6% slower, and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U is 0.6% faster. These differences are within 1% of each other.

Q: Is the RTX 5050 a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 339 FPS, which far exceeds typical high-refresh displays. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 17,326 and its 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs suggest it has ample headroom. The bottleneck shifts to the CPU only at very high frame rates; the 1080p Medium and High presets still deliver 282 and 211 FPS, respectively, which are well above playable thresholds.

Q: What is the frame rate drop from Medium to Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset averages 187 FPS with a min of 159 and max of 215. The Ultra preset averages 108 FPS. This represents a 42% reduction in average frame rate when moving from Medium to Ultra, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a significantly heavier GPU load.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM on the RTX 5050 limit performance at 4K?

A: The measured data at 3840x2160 shows 78 FPS on High, 104 FPS on Medium, and 126 FPS on Low. The Ultra preset drops to 60 FPS. While VRAM capacity is not directly measured in the FPS data, the consistent decline across presets suggests that the GPU's compute and memory bandwidth (320.0 GB/s) are the limiting factors at 4K, not necessarily the 8 GB capacity.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested system combinations?

A: The combo ranks 1731 out of 2870 tested combinations in Counter-Strike 2. This places it in roughly the 40th percentile of all combos, indicating that while this system delivers high absolute frame rates, many other pairings achieve higher performance in this specific title.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 achieves a combo rank of 1731 out of 2870 tested system combinations for Counter-Strike 2. This rank places the pairing in the lower-middle tier of all tested configurations — not a top performer, but far from the bottom. The CPU's 71st percentile ranking and the GPU's 66th percentile ranking individually suggest both components are above average, yet the combined system does not break into the top half of all combos.

The rank reflects that Counter-Strike 2 is highly sensitive to both CPU single-thread speed and GPU rasterization throughput. The 11400F's single-thread score of 868 in 3DMark and 2024 in Cinebench R23 single-core are respectable for its generation, but newer processors in the database likely outpace it. Similarly, the RTX 5050's PassMark G3D score of 17,326 is modest compared to higher-tier GPUs, which explains why the combo sits at 1731 rather than higher.

The measured FPS data tells a more nuanced story. At 1080p, this combo delivers exceptional frame rates — 339 FPS on Low and 211 FPS on High — which are well beyond what most competitive players need. The ranking, however, is relative to all combos, many of which pair top-tier CPUs with flagship GPUs. Those systems achieve even higher frame rates at 1080p, pushing the 11400F + 5050 combo down the list. At 4K, the combo still produces playable results (60 FPS on Ultra, 78 FPS on High), but the rank indicates that a significant number of other tested systems outperform this pairing in aggregate.

The deltaPct values for the CPU's nearest rivals are all within 0.6% of the 11400F's average score, meaning that swapping in a comparable CPU would not meaningfully change the rank. The GPU's nearest rivals show slightly larger deltas — the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT is 1.6% slower, while the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL is 0.6% faster — but these differences are also minor in real-world terms. The combo's rank is therefore more a function of the absolute performance tier of its components rather than any specific pairing inefficiency.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rate data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1080p, the combo delivers its strongest results. The Low preset averages 339 FPS, Medium averages 282 FPS with a minimum of 240 and maximum of 324, High averages 211 FPS, and Ultra averages 163 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system is capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors at nearly any settings level.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a clear step down. Low settings produce 225 FPS average, Medium produces 187 FPS (min 159, max 215), High produces 139 FPS, and Ultra produces 108 FPS. The Medium preset's min of 159 FPS is still comfortably above 144 Hz, making 1440p a viable resolution for competitive play at Medium or lower settings.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor. Low settings average 126 FPS, Medium averages 104 FPS (min 89, max 120), High averages 78 FPS, and Ultra averages 60 FPS. The Ultra preset's 60 FPS average is right at the edge of playability for a competitive shooter, and the Low preset's 126 FPS is the only 4K configuration that approaches high-refresh territory. The Medium preset at 4K provides a reasonable balance with a min of 89 FPS, but the frame pacing may not be ideal for fast-paced gameplay.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently offers the best combination of frame rate and visual quality. At 1080p, the min of 240 FPS is 98% of the average of 282 FPS, indicating stable frame delivery. At 1440p, the min-to-average ratio is 85%, and at 4K it is 86%. These ratios suggest that the Medium preset maintains more consistent frame times than the higher presets, which have no min/max data but likely exhibit larger variance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals how the system's bottleneck shifts between the CPU and GPU. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 339 at 1080p to 225 at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 126 at 4K (a 44% reduction from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is 63%. This steep decline indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is being increasingly taxed as resolution rises.

At High settings, the scaling is even more pronounced. The average FPS falls from 211 at 1080p to 139 at 1440p (a 34% drop) and then to 78 at 4K (a 44% drop from 1440p). The total reduction from 1080p to 4K at High is 63%, matching the Low preset's relative decline. This consistency suggests that the GPU's rendering load scales nearly linearly with pixel count across these settings.

The Ultra preset shows a different pattern. From 1080p (163 FPS) to 1440p (108 FPS), the drop is 34%. From 1440p to 4K (60 FPS), the drop is 44%. The total decline from 1080p to 4K is 63% — the same as the other presets. This uniformity across all settings indicates that the limiting component at higher resolutions is the GPU's raw pixel throughput, not the CPU or memory bandwidth. The CPU's single-thread performance is sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but as pixel count increases, the RTX 5050's 13.17 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth become the constraining factors.

The data also shows that the gap between 1080p and 1440p is consistently smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K. For example, at Medium settings, the FPS drops from 282 to 187 (95 FPS difference) from 1080p to 1440p, but from 187 to 104 (83 FPS difference) from 1440p to 4K. The percentage drops are 34% and 44%, respectively, meaning the 4K transition is proportionally more severe. This is characteristic of a GPU that has limited memory bandwidth relative to its compute — the 128-bit bus and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth struggle to feed the shader cores at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rate data, the Medium preset offers the best overall experience for this combo in Counter-Strike 2. At 1080p, Medium delivers 282 FPS average with a minimum of 240 FPS, which is well above even the most demanding 240 Hz displays. The min-to-average ratio of 85% indicates stable performance without significant frame drops. At 1440p, Medium produces 187 FPS average with a min of 159 FPS, which is still high enough for 144 Hz monitors. At 4K, Medium averages 104 FPS with a min of 89 FPS, making it the only preset besides Low that maintains a playable frame rate at that resolution.

The Low preset is the best choice for competitive play at 1440p or 4K, where the higher frame rates (225 and 126 FPS, respectively) provide a tangible advantage in responsiveness. At 1080p, Low's 339 FPS is beyond the refresh rate of virtually all monitors, so the visual quality trade-off is not worth the extra frames. The High preset at 1080p (211 FPS) and 1440p (139 FPS) offers a better visual experience than Medium, but the frame rate at 1440p falls below 144 Hz, which may be noticeable on high-refresh displays.

The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p (163 FPS), where it still exceeds 144 Hz. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 108 FPS, and at 4K it hits exactly 60 FPS. Given that Counter-Strike 2 is a competitive FPS where frame rate consistency matters more than visual fidelity, the Ultra preset is not recommended for this combo except at 1080p. The Medium preset provides the best balance of visual quality and frame rate stability across all three resolutions, making it the default recommendation for most users.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is based on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, built on TSMC's 5 nm process. The chip, codenamed GB207, contains 16,900 million transistors on a 149 mm² die with a transistor density of 113.4 million per mm². The GPU operates at a base clock of 2317 MHz and a boost clock of 2572 MHz, with memory running at 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective). It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 320.0 GB/s.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 2560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. It has 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores. The pixel rate is 82.30 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 205.8 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is rated at 13.17 TFLOPS, with FP16 at the same 13.17 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). The card has a TDP of 130 W, requires a single 8-pin power connector, and has a suggested PSU of 300 W. It connects via PCIe 5.0 x8 and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In Counter-Strike 2, the RTX 5050's role is to rasterize the game's scenes at high frame rates. The measured data shows that the GPU performs admirably at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles at 4K, particularly at Ultra settings. The PassMark G3D score of 17,326 places the GPU in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21,035. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (0.6% faster), AMD Radeon HD 8970M (1% faster), AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (1.6% slower), and NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (1.6% faster). These deltas indicate that the RTX 5050's raw performance is closely matched with several older or mobile-oriented GPUs, which is notable for a card in the 50-series lineup.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity, combined with the 128-bit memory bus, is the likely reason for the steep performance drop at 4K. At 3840x2160, the High preset (78 FPS) and Ultra preset (60 FPS) both show significant reductions compared to 1080p. The GPU's 320.0 GB/s bandwidth may not be sufficient to feed the 2560 shading units at 4K resolutions with high texture detail. The 13.17 TFLOPS FP32 compute is adequate for the game's rendering, but the memory subsystem appears to be the bottleneck at higher resolutions. For players targeting 1080p or 1440p, the RTX 5050 provides excellent performance; for 4K, the data suggests that lowering settings to Medium or Low is necessary to maintain competitive frame rates.