Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 is a competitive FPS that scales unusually well across a wide range of hardware, and the data for the Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 shows a combo that is heavily front-end limited at lower resolutions while still delivering extreme frame rates. At 1080p Low, the system produces 729 FPS average, which is a figure that far exceeds the refresh rate of virtually any display, yet the scaling pattern across settings and resolutions reveals where the bottleneck truly lies. This analysis uses only the measured data provided for this specific combination.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all quality presets, indicating that the RTX 4090 is being progressively fed more work as pixel count rises, but the CPU still exerts a strong influence at every step. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 465.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 309 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 33.6%, and then to 173.4 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 43.9% drop from the 1440p figure. This pattern is not linear with pixel count—going from 1080p to 4K represents a 4x increase in pixels, but the frame rate only declines by about 63%—which suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is the limiting component, and the GPU has ample headroom.

Looking at Low settings, the trend is even more pronounced. The system hits 729 FPS at 1080p, which is the highest number in the entire dataset, but that drops to 493.1 FPS at 1440p and then to 275.4 FPS at 4K. The 1080p Low result is 34% higher than the 1080p High result, showing that reducing graphical load frees up the GPU to push even more frames, but the CPU still caps the ceiling. At 4K Low, the 275.4 FPS is still exceptionally high, but the gap between Low and High at 4K is only 102 FPS, compared to a 263.3 FPS gap at 1080p. This narrowing gap as resolution increases is a classic sign of the GPU becoming the primary bottleneck at 4K, while at 1080p the CPU dominates the equation.

The Ultra preset tells a similar story with lower absolute numbers. At 1080p Ultra, the system averages 360.6 FPS, which falls to 241 FPS at 1440p and 134.5 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest in the dataset, yet it remains competitive for high-refresh-rate 4K gaming. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 368.4 FPS, while at 4K it is 140.9 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions reinforces that the RTX 4090’s raw throughput is the deciding factor at 4K, whereas the i5-13400F’s single-thread performance dictates the upper boundary at 1080p. The data shows that for players targeting 1080p or 1440p, the CPU is the limiting component, but at 4K, the GPU begins to take over, albeit with frame rates that remain far above what most titles can deliver.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The highest average FPS is 729, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the peak frame rate in the entire measured dataset for this CPU-GPU combination.

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

A: At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 134.5, while at 1080p Low it is 729. This represents a 594.5 FPS difference, or roughly 5.4x higher frame rates at the lower resolution and settings, highlighting the massive impact of resolution and preset on GPU load.

Q: At which resolution does the GPU become the primary bottleneck?

A: The data suggests the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 3840x2160. The FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is only 140.9 FPS, compared to a 368.4 FPS gap at 1080p, indicating that the RTX 4090’s throughput is the constraint at 4K.

Q: Is the i5-13400F strong enough to feed the RTX 4090 in this game?

A: Benchmark results indicate that at 1080p, the CPU caps frame rates, as shown by the 729 FPS ceiling on Low settings. However, this is far beyond typical display refresh rates, so the combo is still well-matched for practical gaming, even if the GPU is not fully saturated at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between 1440p High and 4K High?

A: At 2560x1440 High, the average FPS is 309, while at 3840x2160 High it drops to 173.4. This is a 135.6 FPS decrease, or a 43.9% reduction, when moving from 1440p to 4K.

Q: How does the Medium preset scale across resolutions?

A: At 1080p Medium, the system achieves 620 FPS, which falls to 408.4 FPS at 1440p and 232.9 FPS at 4K. The step from 1080p to 1440p is a 34.1% drop, while 1440p to 4K is a 43.0% drop, showing consistent scaling.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is a flagship Ada Lovelace GPU with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is listed at 2520 MHz, with a base clock of 2235 MHz, and it carries 16,384 shading units. In Counter-Strike 2, this hardware produces the frame rates seen across all tested settings, but the game’s low graphical demands mean the GPU is rarely the limiting factor until 4K. The GPU’s benchmark scores reflect its top-tier status, with a Passmark G3D score of 38,194 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 317,684, placing it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs.

The VRAM capacity of 24 GB is far beyond what Counter-Strike 2 requires, even at 4K Ultra, so memory capacity is not a constraint in any of these results. The memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s ensures that texture streaming and asset loading are not bottlenecks, even at the highest settings. The data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is underutilized, as evidenced by the small FPS gap between Low and High settings relative to the CPU-limited ceiling. At 4K, however, the GPU’s shading units and ROPs (176) are pushed harder, and the frame rates, while still high, drop to levels that reflect the increased pixel workload. The RTX 4090’s 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than sufficient for this title, and the measured FPS at 4K Ultra of 134.5 confirms that even the most demanding preset in this dataset is well within the GPU’s capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 44th out of 1,632 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2, placing it in the top 2.7% of all systems evaluated. This high ranking is driven primarily by the RTX 4090’s immense GPU power, but the i5-13400F’s strong single-thread performance ensures that frame rates remain high even at lower resolutions where the CPU is the bottleneck. The combo’s rank of 44 means there are 43 other combinations that produce higher average FPS in this game, likely featuring even stronger CPUs paired with the same GPU.

The CPU itself sits in the 82nd percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25,236. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13620H with a score of 25,201 (0.1% higher), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D at 25,365 (0.5% higher), and the AMD EPYC 9474F at 25,103 (0.5% lower). These small deltas show that the i5-13400F is tightly clustered with other mid-range to high-end CPUs in synthetic benchmarks. The GPU, meanwhile, is in the 91st percentile, with an average score of 66,473, and its nearest rivals—the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66,733, -0.4%), NVIDIA Tesla P40 (66,127, 0.5%), and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67,097, -0.9%)—are all within 1.3% of its score, indicating that the RTX 4090’s raw compute is near the top of the database. The combination of a high-percentile GPU with a solidly above-average CPU yields a rank that reflects the GPU’s dominance in this title, while the CPU’s contribution is sufficient to avoid dragging down the overall result.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a Raptor Lake desktop processor with 10 cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 2.50 GHz, and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It has 20 MB of shared L3 cache, with 1.25 MB of L2 per core and 80 KB of L1 per core. In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU’s role is critical at 1080p and 1440p, where the measured FPS values suggest that the processor is the primary limiter. The 3DMark single-thread score of 960 and the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,004 indicate strong per-core performance, which is exactly what a CPU-bound game like Counter-Strike 2 needs.

The data supports this: at 1080p Low, the FPS is 729, but at 1080p High it is 465.7, showing that the CPU can push well over 700 frames when GPU load is minimal. The fact that the FPS ceiling does not increase dramatically between Low and Ultra at 1080p (from 729 to 360.6) suggests that the CPU is holding the system back from even higher frame rates at lower settings. The CPU’s multi-threaded scores, such as the 21,279 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 7,314 in 3DMark 16-thread, are respectable but not the primary driver here; single-thread performance matters more in this title. With a Passmark single-thread score of 3,634 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,301, the i5-13400F provides enough per-core speed to keep the RTX 4090 well-fed at 1440p, where the system still manages 493.1 FPS on Low settings. At 4K, the CPU’s influence wanes, and the GPU becomes the bottleneck, but the processor’s ability to maintain frame rates above 134 FPS even at 4K Ultra shows that it does not become a liability at higher resolutions. The 65 W TDP and lack of an unlocked multiplier position it as an efficient, non-overclocking part, but its stock boost clock of 4.60 GHz is sufficient for this game’s demands.