Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 with the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 produces a dataset that is defined by extreme headroom and a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution changes. The measured frames per second (FPS) across all settings and resolutions indicate a system that is overwhelmingly capable of driving high refresh rate displays, with the primary performance ceiling appearing at lower resolutions where the CPU becomes the limiting factor. This analysis examines the measured FPS rows to determine the optimal settings, the role of each component, and how this combination stacks up against other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all three tested resolutions, providing a significant jump in frame rate over High settings while maintaining a playable and smooth experience at 4K. At 3840x2160, Medium delivers an average of 149 FPS, which is 38 frames per second (FPS) higher than the High preset’s 111 FPS. This margin is substantial, representing a 34% improvement in average frame rate. While the Low preset at 4K pushes performance further to 179 FPS, the visual quality trade-off from Medium is often less desirable for a competitive title where clarity matters. The Medium preset retains more visual fidelity while still nearly doubling the frame rate of the Ultra preset, which only manages 86 FPS at 4K.

The case for Medium becomes even stronger at lower resolutions, where the frame rates are already exceptionally high. At 2560x1440, Medium achieves an average of 266 FPS, which is 67 FPS higher than High’s 199 FPS and 112 FPS higher than Ultra’s 154 FPS. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 402 FPS, outpacing High by 102 FPS and Ultra by 169 FPS. While Low settings at 1080p reach a staggering 484 FPS, the difference between Medium and Low (82 FPS) is less impactful for most high-refresh-rate monitors, which typically cap at 240Hz or 360Hz. The Medium preset is the sweet spot, offering frame rates that far exceed the refresh rate of common gaming monitors while preserving enough graphical detail for effective target acquisition and environmental readability. The data suggests that the Ultra preset is the least favorable option, as it cuts average performance nearly in half compared to High at 4K, from 111 to 86 FPS, without a proportional visual benefit that would justify the frame rate loss for competitive play.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest average frame rate at 1920x1080 is 484 FPS, achieved with the Low settings preset. This is significantly higher than the High, Medium, and Ultra presets, which average 300, 402, and 233 FPS, respectively.

Q: How does the GPU handle the most demanding scenario at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combination produces an average of 86 FPS. This is the lowest average frame rate in the entire measured dataset, indicating that the GPU is heavily taxed at this resolution and settings level, but it remains playable.

Q: Is there a significant performance drop when moving from 1440p to 4K?

A: Yes, the drop is considerable. For example, at High settings, the average frame rate falls from 199 FPS at 2560x1440 to 111 FPS at 3840x2160, a decrease of 88 FPS. Similarly, at Medium settings, it falls from 266 FPS to 149 FPS, a drop of 117 FPS.

Q: Which component is more likely to be the performance bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high, reaching up to 484 FPS on Low settings. The CPU’s performance characteristics, including its 5.10 GHz boost clock and 24 MB of shared L3 cache, become the primary factor limiting frame rates, as the RTX 4080 has ample headroom at this resolution.

Q: Does the RTX 4080’s 16 GB of VRAM appear to be a limiting factor in this game?

A: The data does not indicate VRAM capacity as a limiting factor. The RTX 4080 has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory, and even at the highest settings and resolution combination (4K Ultra), the average frame rate is 86 FPS, suggesting the GPU’s compute capabilities, not its memory capacity, are the primary constraint.

Q: How does this combo’s average FPS at 4K Medium compare to the frame rate at 1080p Ultra?

A: The average frame rate at 4K Medium is 149 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra it is 233 FPS. This shows a difference of 84 FPS, demonstrating that resolution has a more significant impact on performance than the jump from Medium to Ultra settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. The GPU’s specifications, including a boost clock of 2505 MHz and 9728 shading units, are substantial, but the measured data shows how its performance scales with workload. The RTX 4080 has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s. This memory configuration ensures that the GPU is not starved for data, even at 4K resolution, where texture and geometry demands are highest. The data supports this, showing that the GPU is capable of producing an average of 111 FPS at 4K High and 86 FPS at 4K Ultra, which are demanding scenarios for any graphics card.

The GPU’s role as the primary bottleneck is clearly evident when examining the scaling from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p with Low settings, the average frame rate is 484 FPS, which is likely constrained by the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU with draw calls. As the resolution increases to 1440p and then 4K, the GPU’s rendering workload increases, and the average frame rates drop significantly. For instance, on Medium settings, the FPS drops from 402 at 1080p to 266 at 1440p and finally to 149 at 4K. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions, where its fill rate, texture rate, and compute power are fully utilized. The RTX 4080’s performance percentile of 86, relative to all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 54247, position it as a top-tier part that is well-suited for high-resolution gaming. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores nearly identically with a deltaPct of 0.1, suggesting that this non-SUPER variant offers comparable performance in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive look at performance across twelve distinct configurations. At 1920x1080, the combination demonstrates exceptional performance. The Low preset yields an average of 484 FPS, which is the highest recorded value in the entire dataset. The Medium preset produces an average of 402 FPS, with minimum and maximum values of 342 and 462 FPS, respectively, indicating consistent frame pacing. High settings average 300 FPS, while the Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, still manages a very high average of 233 FPS. These numbers suggest that at 1080p, the system is rarely constrained by the GPU, and the frame rates are high enough to take full advantage of any high-refresh-rate monitor.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains remarkably strong. The Low preset averages 320 FPS, which is a substantial number for 1440p gaming. The Medium preset averages 266 FPS, with a minimum of 226 FPS and a maximum of 306 FPS. High settings average 199 FPS, and Ultra settings average 154 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a consistent decrease in performance across all settings, but the frame rates remain high enough for smooth, competitive gameplay. At 3840x2160, the GPU’s workload becomes the defining factor. The Low preset averages 179 FPS, which is still very playable. Medium settings average 149 FPS, with minimum and maximum values of 126 and 171 FPS. High settings average 111 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 86 FPS. The 4K results show a clear performance hierarchy, with the gap between Low and Ultra being substantial, a difference of 93 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic resolution scaling pattern, where the frame rate drops as the number of pixels rendered increases. On Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 484 FPS at 1080p to 320 FPS at 1440p, a 34% reduction, and then to 179 FPS at 4K, a further 44% reduction from 1440p. This substantial drop indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is heavily involved in pixel processing. The scaling on Medium settings is similar, with average FPS dropping from 402 at 1080p to 266 at 1440p (a 34% drop) and then to 149 at 4K (a 44% drop). The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and Medium settings suggests that the GPU’s rendering pipeline is scaling predictably with pixel count.

The scaling pattern changes slightly on higher settings. On High settings, the average FPS drops from 300 at 1080p to 199 at 1440p (a 34% drop) and then to 111 at 4K (a 44% drop). On Ultra settings, the frame rate drops from 233 at 1080p to 154 at 1440p (a 34% drop) and then to 86 at 4K (a 44% drop). The consistent ~34% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~44% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting component at all resolutions above 1080p. At 1080p, the frame rates are so high that the CPU’s performance becomes the limiting factor, as evidenced by the fact that the RTX 4080 is not producing frame rates that would be expected if it were fully utilized. This analysis indicates that the system is well-balanced for high-resolution gaming, with the GPU scaling its workload efficiently as resolution increases, but it also shows that the CPU holds back performance at 1080p, a scenario common in esports titles where high frame rates are prioritized.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H plays a crucial role in enabling the extreme frame rates seen at lower resolutions. This processor features 16 cores and 22 threads, with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. Its cache hierarchy, including 2 MB of L2 cache per core and 24 MB of shared L3 cache, is well-suited for gaming workloads. The CPU’s single-core performance, as indicated by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1810.5 and a Geekbench single-core score of 1794, is strong, and this is critical for Counter-Strike 2, which relies heavily on a single primary game thread. The CPU’s 85th percentile ranking versus all CPUs and its average benchmark score of 35670 confirm its high-end status.

The data shows that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p. For example, the difference between 1080p Low (484 FPS) and 1440p Low (320 FPS) is 164 FPS, which is a massive drop. If the GPU were the sole bottleneck at 1080p, we would expect the frame rates to be even higher, as the RTX 4080 has the raw power to push beyond 484 FPS. The fact that the frame rate is capped at around 484 FPS on Low settings suggests that the CPU’s ability to process game logic and issue draw calls is maxed out. This is further supported by the relatively small difference in FPS between 1080p Low and 1080p Medium (484 vs 402 FPS), which is only 82 FPS, compared to the larger difference between 1080p Medium and 1440p Medium (402 vs 266 FPS), which is 136 FPS. This indicates that at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom to handle the increased settings load without a proportional decrease in frame rate, while the CPU remains the primary constraint. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 with a deltaPct of -0.1, show that it is performing within a close margin of other modern processors, but its specific capabilities in this game are what allow for these high frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 873rd out of 2870 tested combos for Counter-Strike 2. This places it in the 70th percentile of all tested systems, indicating that it performs better than the majority of combinations but is not at the very top of the leaderboard. Given the extreme frame rates measured, this ranking might seem surprising, but it is important to consider that the combo rank is determined by the average FPS across all tested settings and resolutions, not just the peak performance. The high frame rates at 1080p are offset by the lower frame rates at 4K, and the ranking reflects the overall average performance across the entire test suite.

The ranking also implies that there are many other combinations that achieve higher average frame rates, likely consisting of more powerful desktop-class CPUs and GPUs. However, for a mobile platform, this combo performs exceptionally well. The data shows that the RTX 4080’s performance is nearly identical to its direct successor, the RTX 4080 SUPER, which has a deltaPct of 0.1 in GPU benchmarks. This suggests that the GPU is not a weak link in this combo. Similarly, the CPU’s performance is competitive with its direct rivals, as indicated by the negligible deltaPct values (all under -0.7%) in CPU benchmarks. This combination is well-matched, with no single component dramatically underperforming relative to its peers, and its 873rd rank out of 2870 puts it in the top third of all tested systems, a strong result for a laptop-class processor paired with a high-end mobile GPU.