Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 is a competitive FPS that places a premium on high frame rates, and the measured data for the Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER shows a system that scales predictably with resolution. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high, with the Low preset hitting 353.9 FPS and the Medium preset reaching 294.5 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the average frame rates drop significantly: Low falls to 236.2 FPS, a reduction of roughly 33%, while Medium drops to 194.9 FPS. This pattern continues to 3840x2160, where the Low preset still manages 128.3 FPS, but the scaling curve steepens considerably. The delta between 1080p and 4K at Low settings is a substantial 225.6 FPS, indicating that while the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions, the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises. The most telling indicator is the High preset: it delivers 222 FPS at 1080p, 149 FPS at 1440p, and 84.5 FPS at 4K. This progression shows a system where the CPU headroom is vast—evidenced by the 353.9 FPS at 1080p Low—but the RTX 2070 SUPER’s rendering throughput caps performance as resolution climbs. The 4K Ultra result of 61.7 FPS is the lowest in the dataset, confirming that this combo is not optimized for maximum fidelity at that resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of all tested combinations, this pairing sits at rank 985 out of 1632 combos for Counter-Strike 2. That places it in the lower half of the field, which is surprising given the CPU’s strength. The Intel Core i7-13700K is a top-tier processor, ranking in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 47282. Its nearest rivals in CPU benchmarks include the Intel Core i7-13700KF, which scores 47334 (a delta of -0.1%), and the AMD EPYC 4364P at 47131 (a delta of 0.3%). The combo’s low rank is not a reflection of the CPU, but rather the GPU’s positioning. The RTX 2070 SUPER sits in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA RTX A400 (22307, delta -0.5%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (22006, delta 0.9%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile (22729, delta -2.3%). The data shows that this combination is a classic high-CPU/low-GPU pairing; the processor has the raw power to push far beyond what the graphics card can render, which drags the overall combo ranking down despite the CPU’s elite status. The 1632-combo field includes many pairings with more balanced or newer GPUs, which explains why this duo lands near the 60th percentile mark.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is the driving force behind the high frame rates seen at lower resolutions. It features 16 cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This Raptor Lake architecture chip, built on a 10 nm process, has a 30 MB shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, it shines: Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 39000, while single-core is 5505; Geekbench multi-core hits 17731 and single-core 2850. The Passmark multi-thread score is 45887, and the single-thread score is 4333. These numbers indicate exceptional headroom for esports titles like Counter-Strike 2, which are traditionally CPU-bound at lower settings. The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1080p Low, the system produces 353.9 FPS, a figure that is almost certainly limited by the GPU’s pixel throughput rather than the CPU’s ability to process game logic. The fact that the frame rate drops to 236.2 FPS at 1440p Low and 128.3 FPS at 4K Low illustrates that the CPU is not the bottleneck—if it were, the frame rates would remain more consistent across resolutions. The 16-core configuration is overkill for a game that typically scales well with fewer, faster cores, but the high boost clock of 5.40 GHz ensures that even single-threaded performance is top-tier, as shown by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1136. The CPU’s 125 W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide flexibility, but the benchmark results are clear: this processor can handle far more graphical load than the RTX 2070 SUPER can provide.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings, providing a complete picture of the combo’s capabilities. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 353.9 FPS, Medium 294.5 FPS, High 222 FPS, and Ultra 172.8 FPS. This shows a linear degradation as settings increase, with a total drop of 181.1 FPS from Low to Ultra. At 2560x1440, the numbers are: Low 236.2 FPS, Medium 194.9 FPS, High 149 FPS, and Ultra 116 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra at this resolution is 120.2 FPS, which is proportionally similar to 1080p but with a lower ceiling. At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 128.3 FPS, Medium 110.8 FPS, High 84.5 FPS, and Ultra 61.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 66.6 FPS, indicating that the GPU is hitting its limits across all settings. The data reveals that the High preset at 4K (84.5 FPS) is roughly equivalent to the Ultra preset at 1440p (116 FPS) in terms of relative performance. The most striking figure is the 1080p Low result of 353.9 FPS, which is more than double the 4K Low result of 128.3 FPS. This 2.76x difference underscores the GPU’s role as the primary constraint at higher resolutions. For competitive play, the 1080p Medium and High settings (294.5 FPS and 222 FPS respectively) are ideal, offering high refresh rates without sacrificing too much visual quality. At 1440p, the Low setting still provides a very playable 236.2 FPS, but the Medium setting at 194.9 FPS is a strong balance for most players.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the limiting component in this pairing, and its specs explain why. It has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU is built on a 12 nm Turing architecture with 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It also includes 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores. The base clock is 1605 MHz, boosting to 1770 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). With a 215 W TDP and a dual-slot design, it requires a 550 W PSU and uses a 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connector. In synthetic benchmarks, the GPU scores 18169 in Passmark G3D and 98316 in Geekbench OpenCL. Its Passmark DirectX 11 score is 151, DirectX 12 is 67, and Vulkan is 94918 in Geekbench. The GPU’s 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the mid-range tier, and its nearest rivals—such as the RTX 4060 Mobile (delta -2.3%)—indicate it is comparable to modern entry-level hardware. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game, as Counter-Strike 2 is not VRAM-intensive, but the raw compute power (9.062 TFLOPS FP32) is the bottleneck. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is stark: at Low settings, the GPU delivers 353.9 FPS at 1080p but only 128.3 FPS at 4K, a 64% reduction. This is consistent with a GPU that is being pushed to its limits by the higher pixel count. The RTX 2070 SUPER’s 1605 MHz base clock and 1770 MHz boost are modest compared to modern GPUs, but the real constraint is its 256-bit memory bus and 8 GB capacity, which limit fill-rate at high resolutions. The data suggests that for 1080p gaming, the GPU is more than adequate, providing over 170 FPS even at Ultra settings, but for 4K, it is only suitable for Low to Medium presets if players want to maintain 100+ FPS.