Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 pairs the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, and the combined result lands squarely in the upper-middle tier of the benchmark database. The combo ranks 1182 out of 2870 tested combinations, placing it in the 59th percentile of all CPU/GPU pairings evaluated for this title. That position reflects a system capable of high refresh rates at mainstream resolutions, though it is not among the elite configurations that dominate the top of the leaderboard. The data shows a pairing where the CPU’s strong single-thread performance and the GPU’s solid rasterization throughput combine to deliver competitive, if not class-leading, frame rates in Valve’s tactical shooter.

How This Combo Ranks

At position 1182 of 2870, this Intel-NVIDIA pairing sits above the median tested combo but below the top echelon. The rank indicates that roughly 59% of all tested configurations outperform it, while 41% fall behind. This is a respectable standing for a mid-generation CPU paired with a previous-generation GPU, and it suggests the system is well-balanced for the game’s demands. The ranking does not reflect a bottleneck-heavy setup; rather, it points to a configuration where both major components contribute meaningfully to the final frame delivery.

The CPU alone holds a percentile rank of 93 among all tested processors, which is far higher than the combo’s overall percentile. This discrepancy is expected in Counter-Strike 2, a game that is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions and settings. The GPU, meanwhile, sits at the 61st percentile among all tested graphics cards, indicating it is a more modest performer relative to its peers. The gap between the CPU’s high percentile and the GPU’s mid-tier percentile explains why the combo does not crack the top 1000: the graphics card limits the system’s ability to push extreme frame rates, especially at higher graphical presets.

When compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, the Core Ultra 7 265 shows a tight cluster of results. It trails the AMD EPYC 4464P by 0.3% in average benchmark score, and it leads the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F by 0.3% and the AMD EPYC 7343 by 0.7%. The AMD EPYC 9124 sits 0.7% ahead. These sub-percentage differences mean the CPU’s raw compute capability is effectively identical to its closest competitors, reinforcing that the ranking in Counter-Strike 2 is more about how the rest of the platform performs than about the chip’s intrinsic speed. On the GPU side, the RTX 3070’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, which trails by 0.7%, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, which is 1% behind. The AMD Radeon HD 7970M is 1.1% slower, while the NVIDIA Tesla K40c leads by 1.5%. These small deltas again suggest that the GPU’s average performance is well within the noise of similar-tier hardware.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor built on the Arrow Lake architecture, fabricated on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock runs at 2.40 GHz, boosting up to 5.30 GHz, and it carries 30 MB of shared L3 cache alongside 3 MB of L2 per core and 192 KB of L1 per core. This is a high-core-count desktop part, but Counter-Strike 2 does not scale linearly with core count; it favors high clock speeds and low latency. The boost clock of 5.30 GHz, combined with the modern architecture, gives the CPU a strong single-thread presence that is critical for this game’s engine. The data supports this: the CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score is 5960, which places it well above the average for all processors and explains why it can feed frames quickly to the GPU.

In synthetic multi-threaded workloads, the chip scores 42216 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 6268 in Cinebench R20 multi-core. Its PassMark multi-thread score reaches 49682, and it posts a 93rd-percentile ranking across all CPUs. These numbers indicate a processor that is not just fast in single-threaded tasks but also a capable multi-threaded performer, even though that capability is largely irrelevant for Counter-Strike 2’s core gameplay loop. The game’s engine, based on the Source 2 framework, tends to utilize a handful of threads heavily, and the Ultra 7 265’s high boost clock ensures those threads are serviced at maximum frequency. The 20 cores also mean that background tasks, such as streaming or voice chat, are unlikely to steal cycles from the game’s primary threads, which can help maintain consistent frame pacing.

The CPU’s memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus, with a theoretical bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. For an esports title like Counter-Strike 2, memory bandwidth is less of a factor than memory latency, and the low-latency characteristics of DDR5 in this configuration help keep frame times tight. The processor also includes integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 32 execution units, though the discrete RTX 3070 renders all frames in this dataset. The CPU’s PCIe Gen 5 interface with 20 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the GPU, though the RTX 3070 uses PCIe 4.0, so the connection does not become a limiting factor in any of the measured scenarios.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is an Ampere-generation card built on Samsung’s 8 nm process, with a GA104 chip housing 17,400 million transistors on a 392 mm² die. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s base clock is 1500 MHz, boosting to 1725 MHz, and memory runs at an effective 14 Gbps. With 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units, the RTX 3070 offers substantial rasterization power. Its FP32 throughput is 20.31 TFLOPS, and it includes 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores for ray tracing and DLSS workloads, though those features are not central to Counter-Strike 2’s competitive play.

The GPU’s benchmark results place it at the 61st percentile among all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 17208. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 3162, while Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 112821 and 21022 respectively. PassMark G3D score is 22214, and PassMark GPU Compute is 11195. These synthetic results show a card that is competent but not exceptional in 2025 terms, especially when compared to newer Ampere successors or RDNA3 offerings. For Counter-Strike 2, the RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM is sufficient at the resolutions tested—1080p, 1440p, and 4K—since the game’s textures and geometry are not particularly demanding. The data shows no signs of VRAM throttling, as frame rates scale predictably with resolution and settings.

The GPU’s 220 W TDP and 550 W suggested PSU indicate a moderate power draw, but that is not a factor in the measured FPS data. The card uses a 1x 12-pin power connector and is a dual-slot design, fitting into most mid-tower cases. Its display outputs include one HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a ports, supporting high refresh rate monitors that this combo can drive at 1080p and 1440p. The RTX 3070’s role in this pairing is the limiting factor at higher settings, as the CPU can clearly push more frames than the GPU can render, particularly at 4K Ultra where the average FPS drops to 77.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset provides measured average FPS for four settings presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—across three resolutions: 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160. At 1080p, the combo delivers exceptional performance. Low settings produce an average of 433 FPS, Medium yields 360 FPS, High drops to 269 FPS, and Ultra brings the average down to 209 FPS. The Medium preset also reports a minimum of 306 FPS and a maximum of 414 FPS, indicating tight frame pacing. These numbers show that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, as even the most demanding preset (Ultra) stays above 200 FPS, far exceeding the refresh rate of most monitors.

Moving to 1440p, the averages scale down but remain high. Low settings average 287 FPS, Medium averages 238 FPS with a min of 202 and max of 274, High averages 178 FPS, and Ultra averages 138 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is noticeable but not severe, with the High preset losing about 91 FPS (from 269 to 178) and Ultra losing 71 FPS (from 209 to 138). This indicates that the GPU begins to take on a larger role at 1440p, though the CPU still has headroom, as the frame rates remain well above 100 FPS across all presets.

At 4K (3840x2160), the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low settings average 160 FPS, Medium averages 133 FPS with a min of 113 and max of 153, High averages 99 FPS, and Ultra averages just 77 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a steep decline: Low to Medium drops 27 FPS, Medium to High drops 34 FPS, and High to Ultra drops 22 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 77 FPS is the only measured average below 100 FPS in the entire dataset, confirming that the RTX 3070’s 8 GB memory and 448 GB/s bandwidth are stretched at this resolution with maximum settings. The min FPS of 113 at 4K Medium suggests that even in heavy scenes, the system stays fluid, but Ultra’s average of 77 FPS could dip below 60 in chaotic firefights, though no min FPS is reported for that preset.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal the limiting component at each stage. At 1080p Low, the system produces 433 FPS, which falls to 287 FPS at 1440p Low and 160 FPS at 4K Low. That is a 63% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. For Ultra settings, the drop is from 209 FPS at 1080p to 138 FPS at 1440p and 77 FPS at 4K, a 63% reduction as well. The consistency of this percentage across Low and Ultra suggests that the scaling is driven primarily by pixel count rather than settings, which points to a GPU limitation. The RTX 3070’s fill rate and bandwidth are the constraining factors, as the CPU’s performance is ample enough to feed frames even at 4K Low, where 160 FPS is achieved.

Comparing the 1080p to 1440p scaling, the FPS drops by roughly 33-34% across all presets. For example, High goes from 269 to 178, a 34% drop, and Medium goes from 360 to 238, a 34% drop. From 1440p to 4K, the drop is steeper, around 44% on average. This non-linear scaling is typical of a GPU that becomes increasingly pixel-bound as resolution rises. At 1080p, the CPU is the primary limit, as evidenced by the fact that increasing settings from Low to Ultra only reduces FPS from 433 to 209—a 52% drop—while the GPU still has plenty of headroom. At 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that even dropping from Ultra to Low only improves FPS from 77 to 160, a 108% increase, showing that the GPU is the sole bottleneck.

The data also shows that the CPU’s 5.30 GHz boost clock and high single-thread score are sufficient to avoid bottlenecking at any resolution. At 4K Low, the system still achieves 160 FPS, which is above the refresh rate of most 4K monitors, though competitive players would likely prefer lower resolution for higher frame rates. The limiting component is unambiguously the RTX 3070 at 4K, while at 1080p, the game engine’s frame rate ceiling—likely tied to CPU latency and engine tick rate—appears to cap performance around 433 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For players prioritizing competitive performance, the 1080p Low preset is the clear choice, delivering 433 FPS on average. This far exceeds any monitor’s refresh rate and provides the lowest input latency, which is critical in a tactical shooter where reaction time matters. The 1440p Low preset at 287 FPS is also an excellent option for those who want a sharper image without sacrificing much frame rate, as it still offers more than double the refresh rate of a typical 144Hz monitor. At 4K, the Low preset’s 160 FPS is playable and smooth, but the visual fidelity is reduced, making it a trade-off for resolution purists.

For a balance of visuals and performance, the Medium preset is the sweet spot. At 1080p, it averages 360 FPS with a minimum of 306 FPS, ensuring no drops below 300 FPS in normal gameplay. At 1440p, Medium averages 238 FPS with a min of 202 FPS, which is still well above 144Hz and provides a comfortable margin for frame time spikes. The 4K Medium preset averages 133 FPS with a min of 113 FPS, making it the highest settings level that maintains a solid 100+ FPS floor at that resolution. Medium settings typically include higher texture quality and more detailed shadows than Low, which can aid in spotting enemies without a significant performance hit.

The High preset is viable for those who want improved visuals and have a high-refresh-rate 1080p or 1440p monitor. At 1080p, it delivers 269 FPS, and at 1440p, 178 FPS—both sufficient for 144Hz or 165Hz displays. However, at 4K High, the average drops to 99 FPS, which is below the 100 FPS threshold and could feel less fluid in fast-paced encounters. The Ultra preset is only recommended for 1080p, where it averages 209 FPS, or for players who prioritize image quality over frame rate at 1440p, where it still hits 138 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the 77 FPS average is the only measured result that falls below 100 FPS, and given the game’s competitive nature, it is not advisable unless the user has a 60Hz monitor and values maximum visual detail.

In summary, the measured rows suggest that 1080p Medium or Low is optimal for esports-focused play, while 1440p Medium offers the best compromise between clarity and speed. For 4K, Medium is the highest recommended preset, as it stays above 100 FPS average with a minimum of 113 FPS. The High preset is acceptable for 1080p and 1440p, but Ultra should be reserved for 1080p-only users who accept the trade-off in frame rate for maximum graphical fidelity. This combo is well-suited for high-refresh-rate 1080p and 1440p gaming, with the RTX 3070 being the primary constraint at higher resolutions and settings.