Counter-Strike 2

# Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a steep and consistent drop as resolution climbs, with the 4K Ultra result falling to less than one-fifth of the 1080p Low figure. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo delivers 179 FPS average, but at 3840x2160 Ultra that collapses to 32 FPS. This represents an 82% reduction in frame rate, which is a much larger penalty than what a typical CPU-limited scenario would produce. The data indicates that the integrated GPU becomes the dominant limiting factor well before 4K is reached.

Looking at the scaling pattern across the three resolutions at Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 61 FPS (179 to 118, a 34% decline), and the drop from 1440p to 4K is 52 FPS (118 to 66, a 44% decline). The progressive nature of these losses suggests a component whose throughput scales poorly with pixel count. The 3 nm process node and 80 W TDP of the Intel Arc B390 place it in a power envelope that simply cannot sustain high frame rates at larger render targets.

The Medium settings results reinforce this interpretation. At 1080p Medium, the average is 149 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it falls to 98 FPS; and at 4K Medium, it drops to 55 FPS. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings is 94 FPS, which is a 63% loss. For comparison, the High settings show a similar magnitude of degradation: 111 FPS at 1080p, 73 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these percentage losses across settings tiers indicates that resolution scaling is the primary bottleneck, not settings complexity.

The conclusion from this data is straightforward: this combination is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can maintain competitive frame rates. At 1440p, the system still produces playable results in most settings, but at 4K, the frame rates fall below 60 FPS across all settings, making it unsuitable for smooth competitive play at that resolution. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS is particularly telling—it is barely half of the 60 FPS threshold that competitive shooters typically require.

# GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process. It features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster operation units, along with 12 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, which is a wide frequency range that allows it to scale between idle and load conditions. The memory configuration is entirely system-shared, meaning the GPU relies on the host system's DDR5 memory rather than dedicated VRAM, with bandwidth described as "system dependent."

The performance data shows that this GPU sits in the 9th percentile of all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. Its nearest rivals in terms of raw score are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% higher), and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443, 2.7% higher). These are all entry-level or legacy mobile parts, which places the Arc B390 firmly in the low-end segment of the GPU hierarchy.

The GPU's pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 compute at 7.680 TFLOPS and FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These specifications, while modest by discrete GPU standards, are what drive the measured frame rates in Counter-Strike 2. The High settings at 4K produce 41 FPS, which indicates that the GPU is working near its limits at that resolution. The fact that lowering settings from High to Low at 4K improves performance from 41 to 66 FPS (a 61% gain) shows that the GPU is heavily shader-bound—reducing pixel shading work has a dramatic effect.

The system-shared memory is a critical constraint. With no dedicated VRAM, the GPU must contend with the CPU for memory bandwidth, and the "system dependent" bandwidth figure means that performance will vary based on the host platform. In this configuration with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, the dual-channel DDR5 memory provides 102.4 GB/s, which is shared between the 20-core CPU and the GPU. This contention likely explains why the GPU's performance degrades so sharply at higher resolutions, where memory bandwidth requirements increase proportionally with pixel count.

# How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested combinations for Counter-Strike 2, this CPU+GPU pairing ranks 2535th out of 2870 combos, placing it in the bottom 12% of all configurations. This is a low ranking, but the context matters: the database includes every tested combination of CPUs and GPUs, and this pairing pairs a high-end 20-core processor with an entry-level integrated GPU. The rank reflects the GPU's limitations more than the CPU's capabilities.

The CPU itself, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, is a top-tier processor that sits in the 94th percentile of all CPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score of 70879 places it alongside the Intel Xeon 6511P (71051, 0.2% higher), the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (71370, 0.7% higher), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70163, 1% lower), and the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996, 1.3% lower). These are all high-end desktop or server processors, which underscores that the CPU is not the performance limiter here.

The GPU, by contrast, ranks in the 9th percentile, with its nearest rivals being the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1.3% higher), the GeForce 800M (1.5% higher), the GT 625 OEM (2.5% higher), and the GT 710 (2.7% higher). The delta between the CPU's percentile (94) and the GPU's percentile (9) is a massive disparity of 85 percentage points. This mismatch is the defining characteristic of this combo—it is a CPU that is capable of feeding a much more powerful GPU, paired with an integrated solution that cannot translate that CPU headroom into frame rate.

The combo rank of 2535 out of 2870 means that 335 other combinations perform worse in this game. That places this pairing in the lower quartile of tested combos, but it is not the absolute bottom. The measured FPS data confirms this positioning: at 1080p Low, the combo produces 179 FPS, which is respectable for esports play, but at 4K Ultra, the 32 FPS result is unplayable for competitive purposes.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best performance across all settings. The Low preset produces an average of 179 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 149 FPS with a minimum of 126 FPS and a maximum of 171 FPS, showing a tight frame time distribution. High settings drop to 111 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 86 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 93 FPS, which indicates that settings have a significant impact on performance at this resolution, but even the worst-case Ultra setting remains above 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops noticeably. Low settings produce 118 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold but represents a 34% reduction from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings average 98 FPS with a minimum of 84 FPS and a maximum of 113 FPS. High settings drop to 73 FPS, and Ultra falls to 57 FPS. The Ultra result at 1440p is the first setting where the average dips below 60 FPS, which is a critical threshold for competitive shooters like Counter-Strike 2.

At 3840x2160, the performance falls below playable levels for most settings. Low settings average 66 FPS, which is still technically above 60 FPS but with little headroom. Medium settings drop to 55 FPS with a minimum of 47 FPS and a maximum of 63 FPS, meaning the frame rate can dip below 50 FPS during intense scenes. High settings average 41 FPS, and Ultra settings plummet to 32 FPS. The 4K results clearly show that this combo is not suited for 4K gaming, even at the lowest settings.

The Medium settings results are the only ones that include both minimum and maximum FPS values across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range is 126-171 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 84-113 FPS; and at 4K Medium, it is 47-63 FPS. The frame time consistency degrades with resolution—the ratio of maximum to minimum FPS at 1080p is 1.36, at 1440p it is 1.35, and at 4K it is 1.34. This relatively stable ratio suggests that the GPU is delivering consistent frame pacing even as absolute performance drops.

# FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The data shows that 1080p Low delivers the highest average FPS at 179, while 1080p Ultra still maintains 86 FPS. For competitive play, 1080p Low or Medium (149 FPS) are the most suitable, as they remain well above the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Counter-Strike 2?

A: The measured results indicate that 4K performance is limited. At 4K Low, the average is 66 FPS, but Medium drops to 55 FPS, High to 41 FPS, and Ultra to 32 FPS. Only the Low preset comes close to 60 FPS, and the frame rates are not consistent enough for serious competitive play.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B390's average benchmark score is 1482, which places it 1.3% below the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% below the GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% below the GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% below the GT 710 (1443). These are all entry-level parts, confirming the Arc B390's low-end positioning.

Q: What is the CPU's performance ranking relative to other processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K ranks in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70879. It performs 0.2% below the Intel Xeon 6511P, 0.7% below the Xeon Platinum 8270, and 1% above the Core i7-14700KF, and 1.3% above the Ryzen 7 9700F.

Q: Why does performance drop so significantly from 1080p to 4K?

A: The drop is primarily due to the GPU's limited pixel throughput capabilities. At 1080p Low, the system averages 179 FPS, but at 4K Low, it falls to 66 FPS—a 63% reduction. The system-shared memory and 80 W TDP of the Arc B390 constrain its ability to handle the increased pixel workload at higher resolutions.

Q: Is this combo better suited for CPU-bound or GPU-bound scenarios?

A: The data clearly shows this combo is GPU-bound. The CPU ranks in the 94th percentile, while the GPU ranks in the 9th percentile. The measured FPS decreases with resolution at a rate consistent with GPU limitations, not CPU limitations, indicating that the CPU has significant headroom that the GPU cannot utilize in this game.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, and it includes integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 64 execution units.

In terms of synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 35850 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2020 in single-core, 20918 in Cinebench R20 multicore and 2953 in single-core, and 5020 in Cinebench R15 multicore and 708 in single-core. Geekbench results show 23085 multicore and 2713 single-core. PassMark scores include 58594 multithread, 4928 single-thread, 189629 floating point math, 143242 integer math, and 665554 data compression. These scores place the CPU in the 94th percentile of all CPUs.

In Counter-Strike 2, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The measured FPS data suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor, as performance scales with resolution in a pattern consistent with GPU bottlenecks. If the CPU were the constraint, the frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions, but instead they drop sharply from 179 FPS at 1080p Low to 66 FPS at 4K Low. This indicates that the CPU is capable of producing frame rates well above what the Arc B390 can render.

The CPU's 20 cores and 20 threads provide ample computational headroom for Counter-Strike 2's engine, which is known to be more dependent on single-thread performance than multi-core scaling. The single-core boost clock of 5.50 GHz, combined with the 2020 Cinebench R23 single-core score, suggests that the CPU can handle the game's primary thread with ease. The 30 MB of L3 cache also helps with game data locality, reducing memory latency that could otherwise impact frame times.

The launch MSRP for the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is $394, and it was released on 2024-10-23. The CPU supports ECC memory and uses PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes, though these features are not directly relevant to the measured game performance. The multiplier is unlocked, allowing for overclocking, but the data provided does not include any overclocked test results. In the context of this combo, the CPU's performance is more than sufficient for the game; it is the integrated GPU that holds back the overall experience.