Counter-Strike 2

The data for Counter-Strike 2 with the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 shows a system that is profoundly overqualified for the game’s engine, delivering frame rates that are limited by the CPU at lower resolutions and by the GPU’s relationship to the graphics preset at higher ones. The measured results indicate that the choice of settings is far more impactful on the experience than the choice of resolution, making the system’s configuration a matter of balancing refresh rates against visual fidelity.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results clearly indicate that the Medium preset is the optimal configuration for this system in Counter-Strike 2. Across all three tested resolutions, Medium delivers a significant performance uplift over High and Ultra while maintaining a more demanding visual profile than Low. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves an average of 471.8 FPS, which is 117.8 FPS higher than the High preset’s 354 FPS and 199.6 FPS higher than the Ultra preset’s 272.2 FPS. This places the system well above the refresh rate ceilings of virtually all high-end monitors, allowing the hardware to push frames at a rate where the CPU’s single-thread performance becomes the likely bottleneck.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset’s average of 315.3 FPS is 81 FPS higher than High’s 234.3 FPS and 131.9 FPS higher than Ultra’s 183.4 FPS. The pattern repeats at 3840x2160, where Medium’s 175.9 FPS is 46.1 FPS higher than High’s 129.8 FPS and 73.7 FPS higher than Ultra’s 102.2 FPS. While the Ultra preset offers the highest visual quality, its frame rates at 4K drop to 102.2 FPS, which is still playable but falls below the 144 Hz threshold that high-refresh displays demand. The Low preset, while producing the highest FPS numbers, sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a marginal competitive advantage given the system already exceeds 200 FPS at 4K on Medium. Therefore, the data suggests that Medium provides the best experience per the measured rows, offering a balance that keeps frame rates high enough for competitive play while retaining enough graphical detail for situational awareness.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, with its 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is the primary driver of frame rate differences between presets. The GPU’s boost clock of 2512 MHz and FP32 throughput of 30.87 TFLOPS provide ample raw compute for Counter-Strike 2’s relatively modest rendering demands. However, the benchmark data reveals that the GPU’s role is highly dependent on the selected preset. At the Low preset, the GPU is likely underutilized, as the average frame rates scale dramatically with resolution, from 567.3 FPS at 1080p down to 209 FPS at 4K. This scaling suggests that even at Low, the GPU is still doing significant work at higher resolutions, but the frame rates are so high that the CPU’s processing of game logic and draw calls becomes a limiting factor.

The GPU’s memory subsystem becomes more relevant at higher presets. The transition from Medium to High at 4K results in a drop from 175.9 FPS to 129.8 FPS, a reduction of 46.1 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra at 4K further reduces performance to 102.2 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset’s additional effects and shadow quality place a heavy load on the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth. The VRAM capacity of 12 GB is sufficient for this game at all tested settings, as the data shows no anomalous behavior indicating memory overflow. The GPU’s pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s are more than adequate for a competitive shooter, but the benchmark results indicate that the Ultra preset is the only configuration where the GPU becomes the definitive bottleneck at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s overall ranking in Counter-Strike 2 is position 316 out of 1632 tested combinations. This places the system in the top 19.4% of all tested combos, which is a strong showing given that the database includes many high-end enthusiast configurations. The ranking reflects a balance between the CPU’s general computing power and the GPU’s rasterization performance. The CPU, an Intel Core i5-13400F, sits in the 82nd percentile versus all CPUs, with a single-thread score of 960 in 3DMark and a Geekbench single-core score of 2301. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13620H with a deltaPct of 0.1% and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D with a deltaPct of -0.5%, indicating that the i5-13400F’s general performance is essentially on par with these processors. In a game like Counter-Strike 2, which relies heavily on CPU-bound scenarios, this processor’s strong single-thread performance is critical.

The GPU, a GeForce RTX 5070, ranks in the 83rd percentile versus all GPUs, with a Passmark G3D score of 29137. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 with a deltaPct of 0.6%, showing that the newer Blackwell architecture offers comparable raw performance to the previous generation’s flagship. The fact that this combo ranks 316th out of 1632 suggests that while the individual components are strong, the pairing does not crack the top tier of tested systems. This is likely due to the CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads, which, while capable, are not the absolute fastest available for gaming. The combo’s position in the middle of the upper quartile indicates that it is a very capable system, but one that leaves some performance on the table compared to combos using higher-end CPUs like the Core i9 or Ryzen 9 series.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates show a consistent hierarchy across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the system produces an average of 567.3 FPS on Low, 471.8 FPS on Medium, 354 FPS on High, and 272.2 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra is 295.1 FPS, which is a massive difference that underscores how much the game’s settings affect the rendering load. At 2560x1440, the averages are 377.4 FPS on Low, 315.3 FPS on Medium, 234.3 FPS on High, and 183.4 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 194 FPS, indicating that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor as the pixel count increases. At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 209 FPS on Low, 175.9 FPS on Medium, 129.8 FPS on High, and 102.2 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra shrinks further to 106.8 FPS, proving that the GPU’s workload scales with resolution and settings.

The data shows that the system can comfortably drive a 1440p 144 Hz monitor at the High preset, achieving 234.3 FPS. For 4K gaming, the Medium preset is the highest setting that maintains an average above 144 FPS, with a measured 175.9 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K dips to 102.2 FPS, which is still fluid for most users but may not satisfy those with 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays. The Low preset at 1080p produces 567.3 FPS, which is far beyond what any current display can show, indicating that the CPU is the primary bottleneck at this resolution and setting combination. The frame rate scaling from Low to Ultra is not linear; the steepest drop occurs between Medium and High, suggesting that the High preset introduces significantly more GPU-intensive effects.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling analysis reveals a system that transitions from CPU-bound to GPU-bound as resolution increases. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average frame rate drops by 33.5% on Low (from 567.3 to 377.4 FPS), by 33.2% on Medium (from 471.8 to 315.3 FPS), by 33.8% on High (from 354 to 234.3 FPS), and by 32.6% on Ultra (from 272.2 to 183.4 FPS). This consistent drop of roughly one-third across all settings indicates that the GPU is handling the increased pixel count in a predictable manner, but the fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical across settings suggests that the CPU is still contributing to the frame time at 1440p.

The scaling from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 shows a more pronounced GPU bottleneck. On Low, the frame rate drops by 44.6% (from 377.4 to 209 FPS), which is a larger percentage drop than the 1080p to 1440p transition. On Medium, the drop is 44.2% (from 315.3 to 175.9 FPS), while on High it is 44.6% (from 234.3 to 129.8 FPS), and on Ultra it is 44.3% (from 183.4 to 102.2 FPS). This uniform drop of approximately 44% across all settings when moving to 4K strongly indicates that the GPU is now the sole limiting component. The 4K resolution quadruples the pixel count compared to 1080p, and the frame rate scaling reflects this heavy GPU workload. In contrast, the 1080p to 1440p scaling shows that the CPU is still able to feed frames quickly enough, but the GPU’s rendering time is increasing. The data confirms that for the best competitive experience, users should target 1080p or 1440p with Medium or High settings, while 4K is best reserved for Medium settings to keep the frame rate above 144 FPS.