Counter-Strike 2

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the Intel Arc B390 presents a highly unusual combination for Counter-Strike 2, a game notoriously sensitive to both CPU and GPU performance. The benchmark data reveals a system where the processor's substantial headroom is consistently bottlenecked by the integrated graphics solution, resulting in a playable but constrained experience that scales dramatically with resolution and settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data indicates that the Low preset is the only viable option for achieving consistently high refresh rates across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 179 FPS, which is 30 frames higher than the High preset's 111 FPS and nearly double the Ultra preset's 86 FPS. This suggests that the game's visual fidelity settings have a disproportionate impact on the Arc B390's limited shading resources.

For 2560x1440, the Low preset maintains an average of 118 FPS, which remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay but represents a significant drop from the 1080p result. The Medium preset at 1440p yields 98 FPS average, with a minimum of 84 FPS, which could still be acceptable for less competitive play. However, the High preset at 1440p drops to 73 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 57 FPS, indicating that the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher quality settings.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more critical. The Low preset produces an average of 66 FPS, which is technically playable but below the 144Hz refresh rates that competitive Counter-Strike 2 players typically target. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 55 FPS average with a minimum of 47 FPS, while High manages only 41 FPS and Ultra falls to 32 FPS. These numbers clearly show that 4K resolution is only feasible with the Low preset, and even then, the experience will feel less responsive than at lower resolutions.

The optimal strategy for this combination is to prioritize the Low preset at 1080p or 1440p. The 179 FPS at 1080p Low provides the best balance of responsiveness and visual clarity, while 1440p Low at 118 FPS remains competitive. Users with 4K displays should accept the 66 FPS ceiling or consider reducing resolution, as the Ultra preset's 32 FPS average is objectively unplayable for a fast-paced FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this CPU-GPU combination?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 179, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset. This is the only configuration that approaches the 180+ FPS range typically desired for high-refresh-rate competitive play.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Low at 1080p?

A: The Ultra preset at 1920x1080 delivers an average of 86 FPS, which is 93 FPS lower than the Low preset's 179 FPS. This represents a 52% performance penalty for enabling maximum visual quality, indicating that the Arc B390's rendering resources are heavily taxed by the game's higher-tier effects.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this setup?

A: At 3840x2160, only the Low preset achieves an average above 60 FPS (66 FPS). The Medium preset falls to 55 FPS, High drops to 41 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 32 FPS. For a competitive FPS, 4K is only marginally viable with the lowest settings, and even then, the frame pacing may be inconsistent.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Medium at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 118 FPS while Medium averages 98 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum FPS is 84, which is 34 FPS lower than the Low preset's average, showing that the visual upgrade from Low to Medium costs roughly 20 FPS at this resolution.

Q: How does the 1080p Medium preset's minimum FPS compare to its average?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 126 against an average of 149 FPS. This creates a 23 FPS gap between the minimum and average, suggesting occasional frame drops during intense combat scenes, though the minimum remains well above playable thresholds.

Q: Which resolution provides the best balance between visual quality and performance?

A: The data indicates that 2560x1440 with Low settings (118 FPS average) offers the best compromise. It provides 61% more pixels than 1080p while maintaining a frame rate that exceeds most 100Hz+ monitors, and it avoids the severe performance collapse seen at 4K.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, manufactured on Intel's 3 nm process. Its performance profile is decidedly entry-level, as evidenced by its 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482. This places it in direct competition with legacy NVIDIA parts like the GeForce GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% slower) and GeForce GT 710 (1443, 2.7% slower), which are over a decade old.

The GPU's specifications reveal why it struggles with Counter-Strike 2. It features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster operations pipelines, with a boost clock of 2500 MHz. Its theoretical peak performance is 7.680 TFLOPS for FP32 calculations, which is modest by modern discrete GPU standards. The memory subsystem is entirely system-dependent, using shared system memory with bandwidth that varies based on the installed RAM configuration. This shared memory architecture is a significant handicap for a game like Counter-Strike 2, which benefits from dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM.

The impact of this GPU limitation is starkly visible in the FPS scaling across settings. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra costs 93 FPS (from 179 to 86), a 52% reduction. This disproportionate scaling indicates that the Arc B390's shading and texture units are overwhelmed by the higher-quality lighting, shadows, and post-processing effects enabled by the Ultra preset. The GPU's 24 ROPs also constrain fill-rate-dependent tasks, which explains why higher resolutions cause such dramatic FPS drops.

Counter-Strike 2's competitive nature demands high and consistent frame rates, but the Arc B390's 9th percentile ranking suggests it was never designed for this workload. The 3DMark score of 1482, while only 1.3% higher than the GT 520MX, places this GPU in a performance tier that is fundamentally unsuited for modern FPS titles at high settings. The data shows that the GPU, not the CPU, is the definitive limiting factor in this system.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of this combination's performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low averages 179 FPS, Medium averages 149 FPS with a minimum of 126 and maximum of 171, High averages 111 FPS, and Ultra averages 86 FPS. The 1080p Medium preset's 126 FPS minimum is particularly noteworthy, as it indicates the system can maintain playable frame rates even during demanding scenes, though the 23 FPS variance between minimum and average suggests occasional hitches.

At 2560x1440, performance drops considerably but remains usable at lower presets. Low averages 118 FPS, Medium averages 98 FPS with a minimum of 84 and maximum of 113, High averages 73 FPS, and Ultra averages 57 FPS. The 1440p Medium preset's minimum of 84 FPS is right at the edge of what most players would consider acceptable for competitive play, while the Ultra preset's 57 FPS average falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

The 3840x2160 results paint a grim picture for 4K gaming. Low averages 66 FPS, Medium averages 55 FPS with a minimum of 47 and maximum of 63, High averages 41 FPS, and Ultra averages 32 FPS. The 4K Medium preset's minimum of 47 FPS is critically low for a fast-paced shooter, and the Ultra preset's 32 FPS average makes the game feel sluggish and unresponsive. Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently provides the highest average FPS, while the Ultra preset consistently provides the lowest, confirming that settings have a linear impact on this GPU's performance.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a GPU-bound system with severe scaling limitations. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 179 at 1080p to 118 at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 66 at 4K (a 63% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU that is heavily dependent on pixel throughput, as the pixel count increases by 1.78x from 1080p to 1440p and by 4x from 1080p to 4K.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend: 149 FPS at 1080p, 98 FPS at 1440p (34% lower), and 55 FPS at 4K (63% lower). The High preset follows with 111 FPS at 1080p, 73 FPS at 1440p (34% lower), and 41 FPS at 4K (63% lower). The Ultra preset exhibits the same proportional drops: 86 FPS at 1080p, 57 FPS at 1440p (34% lower), and 32 FPS at 4K (63% lower).

This consistent 34% drop from 1080p to 1440p and 63% drop from 1080p to 4K across all settings indicates that the rendering pipeline is uniformly limited by the GPU's fill rate and shading capabilities, rather than by any specific setting. The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical across presets suggests that the Arc B390's bottleneck is fundamental to its architecture, not a function of specific visual features. The system is clearly GPU-limited at all resolutions above 1080p, and even at 1080p, the GPU is the primary constraint when settings are increased beyond Low.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread Raptor Lake processor with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It features 24 MB of shared L3 cache and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. Its benchmark scores are impressive: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32544 and a single-core score of 4594, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 17085 and single-core score of 2445. The processor ranks in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49394.

The CPU's nearest rivals illustrate its strong performance tier. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900 scores 49228 (0.3% lower), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G scores 49196 (0.4% lower), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 scores 48995 (0.8% lower). Only the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 scores higher at 49796 (0.8% higher). This places the i5-14600KF firmly in the upper echelon of desktop processors, with sufficient single-threaded performance to feed even the most demanding game engines.

However, the measured FPS data shows that this CPU's capabilities are never fully utilized in this configuration. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 179 FPS, which is well below what this CPU could deliver with a discrete GPU capable of higher frame rates. The CPU's 5.30 GHz boost clock and strong IPC would theoretically support 300+ FPS in Counter-Strike 2, but the Arc B390's 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and shared memory bandwidth create a hard ceiling. The 125W TDP and unlocked multiplier (enabling overclocking) suggest the CPU has further headroom, but this is irrelevant when the GPU is the bottleneck. The data clearly shows that the i5-14600KF is not the limiting component in any of the 12 measured configurations; the Arc B390's performance tier is the sole constraint on frame rates.