Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 is a competitive FPS title that scales dramatically with resolution. The measured data for the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination reveals a classic CPU-bound scenario at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low settings, the combo delivers 415 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 120 FPS. This four-fold increase in pixel count results in a 71% reduction in frame rate, indicating that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as resolution climbs. The scaling pattern is telling: the delta between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is only 96 FPS (from 415 down to 319), while at 4K, the same settings gap expands to 128 FPS (from 248 down to 120). This suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER has ample headroom at 1080p, but the i5-9400's six cores limit how fast the CPU can feed the GPU with draw calls.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K highlights the shift in system bottleneck. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 389 FPS, which is only 6% lower than the 415 FPS seen at Low settings. This modest penalty indicates the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU can render these frames quickly without being stressed by higher pixel counts. Moving to 1440p Medium, the average drops to 339 FPS, a 13% reduction from the 1080p Medium result. This is a smaller relative drop than the 4K transition, where 2160p Medium falls to 206 FPS, a 47% decrease from the 1440p Medium score. The data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB of VRAM and 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth are not taxed until 4K, where the GPU's 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute begins to matter more.

At 4K, the scaling becomes more pronounced across settings. The jump from 4K Low (248 FPS) to 4K Medium (206 FPS) is a 17% loss, while 4K High (154 FPS) is 38% lower than Medium. The 4K Ultra result of 120 FPS represents a 52% drop from 4K Low, showing that the highest settings demand significantly more from the GPU. This pattern suggests that at 4K, the RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary constraint, as the CPU's 2.90 GHz base and 4.10 GHz boost clocks are sufficient to keep up with the reduced frame rate demands. The 1440p data reinforces this: 1440p Low (362 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (214 FPS) is a 41% reduction, which is less severe than the 4K drop but still indicates that higher settings tax the GPU more than the CPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination ranks 705th out of 3719 tested combos in Counter-Strike 2. This places it in the top 19% of all configurations, which is solid but not exceptional for a GPU that sits in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. The CPU, however, only ranks in the 47th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2254. This mismatch is evident in the game results: the combo's ranking is dragged down by the i5-9400's six-core, six-thread design, which lacks the multi-threaded headroom of more modern processors. The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (0.2% faster), the Intel Core i7-10710U (0.3% slower), and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (0.4% slower), all of which have similar average scores, indicating that the i5-9400 is competitive with its peers in synthetic benchmarks.

However, in a fast-paced FPS like Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth are more critical than raw benchmark scores. The combo's 705th rank suggests that many other processors, particularly those with higher single-core performance, can achieve better frame rates in this title. The RTX 4080 SUPER's nearest rivals, including the RTX 4080 (0.1% slower) and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (1.1% slower), show that the GPU is not the limiting factor in this ranking. The data indicates that swapping the i5-9400 for a CPU with better single-threaded performance would likely improve the combo's rank more than upgrading the GPU, as the 4080 SUPER is already in the top tier of graphics cards.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings for this combo?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings is 349 FPS. This is higher than the 1440p High result of 275 FPS, confirming that lower resolutions favor this CPU-GPU pairing.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 54209, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080's score of 54247. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% faster, and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.7% faster.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at 1440p Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 288, with a maximum of 390 and an average of 339. This shows a tight frame time distribution, good for competitive play.

Q: Is the i5-9400 a bottleneck for the RTX 4080 SUPER in this game?

A: The data suggests yes. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 415 FPS, but at 4K Low, it reaches 248 FPS. The CPU's 47th percentile ranking and six threads limit how many frames the GPU can be fed at lower resolutions, while the GPU's 86th percentile ranking shows it has more headroom.

Q: What is the combo's rank in Counter-Strike 2?

A: This combination ranks 705th out of 3719 tested combos, placing it in the top 19% of configurations. This rank reflects the CPU's mid-tier standing relative to the GPU's high-tier performance.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4080 SUPER have, and does it affect 4K performance?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus with 736.3 GB/s bandwidth. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 120, and the 16 GB capacity is sufficient for this game's textures, as the frame rate drop is more attributable to compute load than memory capacity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings tiers, with some entries missing min/max values. At 1080p, the results range from 415 FPS at Low to 319 FPS at Ultracars, with Medium at 389 FPS (min 330, max 447) and High at 349 FPS. The 1440p results show a clear step down: Low is 362 FPS, Medium is 339 FPS (min 288, max 390), High is 275 FPS, and Ultra is 214 FPS. At 4K, the scaling is more aggressive: Low is 248 FPS, Medium is 206 FPS (min 175, max 237), High is 154 FPS, and Ultra is 120 FPS. These numbers reveal that the combo can maintain above 200 FPS at 1440p even on Medium settings, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. At 4K, only Low and Medium settings clear 200 FPS, making High and Ultra less suitable for competitive play where frame rate is paramount.

The gap between 1080p and 1440p is consistent across settings: Low drops from 415 to 362 (13%), Medium from 389 to 339 (13%), High from 349 to 275 (21%), and Ultra from 319 to 214 (33%). The larger percentage drop at Ultra settings indicates that the GPU starts to become more involved, as the increased pixel count and settings demand more shader work. The 4K transition shows even larger gaps: Low drops from 362 to 248 (31%), Medium from 339 to 206 (39%), High from 275 to 154 (44%), and Ultra from 214 to 120 (44%). This pattern confirms that the RTX 4080 SUPER's 10240 shading units and 112 ROPs are the limiting factor at 4K, while the i5-9400's 6 cores and 6 threads handle the CPU-side workload adequately at higher resolutions where frame rates are lower.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, with a 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 54209. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth provide ample bandwidth for Counter-Strike 2's textures, even at 4K Ultra. The GPU's base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2550 MHz are high for a card of this class, and its 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is more than enough to handle the game's particle effects and lighting at high frame rates. The 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are not directly utilized by Counter-Strike 2, which is a traditional rasterization-based title, but they contribute to the card's overall throughput in other workloads.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU's role becomes more critical at 4K. At 4K Ultra, the combo hits 120 FPS, which is a 71% drop from 1080p Low. This indicates that the GPU is fully utilized at this resolution, as the pixel fill rate of 285.6 GPixel/s is being taxed. The card's 320 TMUs and 112 ROPs are responsible for texture and pixel processing, and the 816.0 GTexel/s texture rate helps maintain detail at high resolutions. The 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die at a 5 nm process node allow for high efficiency, but the 320 W TDP means it requires a robust power supply, as suggested by the 700 W PSU recommendation. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6600 and PassMark G3D score of 34245 confirm its high-end positioning, though these synthetic tests do not directly translate to Counter-Strike 2's frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.10 GHz are modest by modern standards, and its 9 MB of shared L3 cache is smaller than many newer CPUs. The 47th percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 2254 place it in the mid-range of all CPUs, with nearest rivals like the i7-1068NG7 (0.2% faster) and i5-10305 (0.4% faster) showing similar synthetic performance. In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's role is to process game logic, player positions, and network updates, which are heavily single-threaded tasks. The 4.10 GHz boost clock helps, but the lack of hyper-threading means the CPU can struggle to maintain high frame rates when many entities are on screen.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 415 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum frame output for this title. The 1440p Low result of 362 FPS is only 13% lower, indicating that the CPU is still the primary bottleneck at this resolution. However, at 4K Low, the CPU's load decreases as the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the combo still manages 248 FPS. This suggests that the i5-9400's 6 cores are sufficient for Counter-Strike 2's CPU demands at higher resolutions, but at 1080p, the CPU can limit the GPU's potential. The 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for this game, but the PCIe Gen 3 interface with 16 lanes is a potential bottleneck for the RTX 4080 SUPER's PCIe 4.0 x16 bus, although the impact is minimal in practice. The CPU's integrated UHD 630 graphics are irrelevant when a discrete GPU is present, but they do not detract from the gaming experience. Overall, the i5-9400 holds the combo back at lower resolutions, but the RTX 4080 SUPER's raw power ensures playable frame rates at all tested settings.