Counter-Strike 2

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for Counter-Strike 2 with the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER reveal a clear performance hierarchy across presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 323.7 average FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combination. Medium follows at 268.7 FPS, High at 197.8 FPS, and Ultra at 156.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 55 FPS, while the drop from Medium to High is 70.9 FPS, indicating a steep scaling cost as settings rise.

For competitive play, the Low preset at 1080p is the optimal choice, as the 323.7 FPS average provides a substantial margin above high-refresh-rate displays. The data shows that even at 2560x1440, the Low preset maintains 212 FPS, which remains smooth for most esports monitors. The Medium preset at 1080p offers a balanced middle ground at 268.7 FPS, but the difference versus Low is modest relative to the visual gains.

At 3840x2160, the performance envelope narrows considerably. Low produces 116.9 FPS, Medium 99.1 FPS, High 72.6 FPS, and Ultra 55.2 FPS. For 4K gaming, the Low preset is the only setting that consistently exceeds the 100 FPS threshold, while Ultra falls below 60 FPS. Benchmark results indicate that the Ultra preset at 4K is not viable for fluid gameplay, whereas the Low preset at 4K remains playable. The 1440p resolution shows a similar pattern: Low at 212 FPS, Medium at 178.6 FPS, High at 130.4 FPS, and Ultra at 102.1 FPS. The best experience per the measured rows is the Low preset at 1920x1080, delivering the highest average frame rate with the least rendering overhead.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip fabricated on TSMC's 12 nm process. It contains 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die, with a transistor density of 24.3M per mm². The GPU operates at a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz or 14 Gbps effective. The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory is paired with a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is sufficient for Counter-Strike 2 at the tested resolutions, as the game's asset streaming does not appear to bottleneck the GPU based on the measured frame rates.

The RTX 2060 SUPER's compute resources include 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output pipelines. It also features 34 RT cores and 272 tensor cores, though these are not heavily utilized in a competitive FPS title like Counter-Strike 2. The pixel rate is 105.6 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 224.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 7.181 TFLOPS and FP16 at 14.36 TFLOPS (2:1). The GPU's passmark G3D score is 16462, and it sits at the 63rd percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, scores 19706, a delta of 0.3%, while the RTX 2070 scores 19680, a delta of 0.5%. These margins are negligible, indicating that the RTX 2060 SUPER performs essentially on par with those cards in synthetic benchmarks.

In Counter-Strike 2, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra preset yields 55.2 FPS, which is 52.7% lower than the 4K Low preset's 116.9 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a performance penalty of 61.7 FPS, highlighting the GPU's limited headroom for extreme settings. At 1080p, the GPU is less of a constraint, as even the Ultra preset achieves 156.1 FPS, which is above the 144 Hz refresh rate common in competitive monitors. The data suggests that the RTX 2060 SUPER is well-matched to 1080p and 1440p gaming for this title, but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, specifically the Raptor Lake-R codename, fabricated on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and features PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes (CPU only). Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The integrated UHD Graphics 770 is present but not relevant for discrete GPU gaming.

Benchmark results for the i5-14600K show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 32881, while single-core scores 4642. Geekbench multicore is 15846 and single-core 2803. Passmark multithread is 38682, and single-thread is 4270. The CPU's average benchmark score is 49166, placing it at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, scores 49062, a delta of 0.2%, while the Intel Core i5-14600KF scores 49367, a delta of -0.4%. These close margins indicate that the i5-14600K is competitively positioned in the high-end desktop segment.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's role is critical at lower resolutions where frame rates are higher. At 1080p Low, the 323.7 FPS average suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU with sufficient draw calls to maintain very high frame rates. The 14 cores and 20 threads provide ample headroom for the game's physics and logic, though the single-thread performance is likely the more important factor for this engine. The boost clock of 5.30 GHz and the Cinebench R15 single-core score of 467 indicate strong per-core throughput, which translates to high minimum frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios.

The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor at 4K, where the GPU's rendering load dominates. However, at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 167.6 FPS, and this scaling is driven by the GPU's shading load rather than CPU constraints. The i5-14600K's L3 cache of 24 MB and dual-channel memory support help maintain consistent frame pacing, as evidenced by the smooth average FPS figures across all settings. For Counter-Strike 2, this CPU provides ample compute capacity, ensuring that the RTX 2060 SUPER is the primary performance limiter at higher resolutions and settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1199 out of 1632 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the overall distribution, which is expected given the GPU's age and tier. The data indicates that this combo is outperformed by a significant number of other pairings, but it still delivers playable frame rates across most tested configurations.

In the context of the combo's ranking, the CPU's 93rd percentile standing contrasts sharply with the GPU's 63rd percentile. This imbalance suggests that the i5-14600K has considerable headroom that the RTX 2060 SUPER cannot fully utilize, particularly at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the combo achieves 323.7 FPS on Low, which is competitive with many higher-ranked combinations that feature more powerful GPUs. However, the 4K Ultra result of 55.2 FPS drags the overall ranking down, as many combos with newer GPUs maintain higher frame rates at that setting.

The nearest rival data for the GPU shows that the RTX 2060 SUPER is closely matched with the GTX TITAN (0.3% delta) and RTX 2070 (0.5% delta), meaning that swapping to those cards would not meaningfully change the combo's ranking. The CPU's rivals, such as the Ryzen 9 5950X (0.2% delta) and i5-14600KF (-0.4% delta), also offer negligible performance differences. This indicates that the combo's rank is primarily determined by the GPU's overall capability rather than the CPU's processing power. Benchmark results illustrate that for Counter-Strike 2, the combo is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but falls short of the top echelon at 4K Ultra.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The highest average frame rate is 323.7 FPS, measured at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

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

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers an average of 55.2 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this combination?

A: The GPU is the primary limiting factor, as the CPU ranks at the 93rd percentile while the GPU ranks at the 63rd percentile. At higher resolutions like 4K, the GPU's load dominates, while the CPU maintains high single-thread performance.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 1199 out of 1632 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the distribution.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER scores 19774 on average, with its nearest rival, the GTX TITAN, scoring 19706 (0.3% delta) and the RTX 2070 scoring 19680 (0.5% delta). These differences are negligible.

Q: What preset provides the best experience at 1440p?

A: The Low preset at 2560x1440 delivers 212 FPS, which is the highest at that resolution, while the Ultra preset yields 102.1 FPS, which remains playable but with a significant performance drop.