Hitman 2

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the Intel Arc B390 delivers profoundly limited performance in Hitman 2, placing this combination in the bottom tier of all tested systems. The measured frames per second (FPS) reveal a configuration that struggles to maintain playable frame rates at any resolution above 1080p, with the Arc B390 acting as the overwhelming performance bottleneck. This analysis breaks down the measured data to show exactly where this combo succeeds and, more frequently, where it falls short.

Resolution Scaling

The performance degradation from 1080p to 4K in Hitman 2 is severe, confirming that the Intel Arc B390 is the limiting component in this pairing. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 80 FPS, which represents the absolute peak of its capability. Moving to 1440p at the same Low settings, the average drops to 51 FPS, a substantial 36% reduction. Pushing further to 4K at Low settings yields just 27 FPS, which is a 66% decrease from the 1080p result. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is completely overwhelmed as pixel count increases, with the CPU having little influence on the outcome at higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior is consistent across all settings presets. At High settings, the drop from 1080p (46 FPS) to 1440p (29 FPS) represents a 37% loss, and the further decline to 4K (16 FPS) is a 65% loss from the 1080p baseline. The Medium preset shows a similar trajectory: 60 FPS at 1080p, 39 FPS at 1440p (35% drop), and 21 FPS at 4K (65% drop). The Ultra preset follows the same pattern but starts from an already low base: 34 FPS at 1080p, 21 FPS at 1440p (38% drop), and 11 FPS at 4K (68% drop).

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings is telling. A system bottlenecked by the CPU would typically show less severe degradation at higher resolutions, as the GPU becomes the limiting factor. Here, the resolution scaling is dramatic and uniform, which points squarely at the Arc B390's lack of raw throughput. The 4K results are essentially unusable, with even the best-case Low preset only reaching 27 FPS. The data suggests that 4K gaming with this combo is not a viable option for Hitman 2, regardless of the quality settings chosen.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is a GPU with specifications that place it in the 9th percentile of all graphics cards, a ranking that immediately signals its limitations. Its benchmark score in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 is 1,482, which is remarkably close to its nearest rivals: the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX scores 1,463 (1.3% slower), the GeForce 800M scores 1,460 (1.5% slower), the GT 625 OEM scores 1,446 (2.5% slower), and the GT 710 scores 1,443 (2.7% slower). This places the Arc B390 at the very bottom of the performance hierarchy, and the measured FPS in Hitman 2 reflects this reality.

The GPU's clock speeds are notable for their disparity: a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2,500 MHz. This wide range suggests the card is designed to aggressively boost when thermal and power conditions allow, but the measured results indicate that it cannot sustain sufficient performance for demanding titles. The memory configuration is "System Shared" with bandwidth described as "System Dependent," which means the GPU relies on the system's main memory rather than dedicated VRAM. This shared memory arrangement inherently limits performance in games like Hitman 2 that require substantial memory bandwidth for texture streaming and scene complexity.

The relationship between the GPU's capabilities and the game's results is clear. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 80 FPS, which is the only setting where the frame rate approaches smoothness. Every other configuration falls below 60 FPS, and the 4K results are uniformly poor. The Arc B390's 1,536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units are insufficient for Hitman 2's demands, particularly at higher resolutions. The measured pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s provide theoretical maxima that the game's real-world workloads cannot approach. The data indicates that this GPU is fundamentally mismatched for this game at anything beyond minimal settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the only configuration that provides a consistently playable experience is 1080p with Low settings, delivering an average of 80 FPS. This is the clear recommendation for any user who prioritizes smooth gameplay over visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 1080p produces 60 FPS on average, with a minimum of 51 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS, which is borderline acceptable for a stealth game where reaction times matter but not critically. However, the 51 FPS minimum indicates that there will be dips below the 60 FPS threshold during demanding scenes.

For users who want better visual quality, the High preset at 1080p achieves 46 FPS on average, which is playable but noticeably less smooth. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 34 FPS, which is a significant compromise that likely detracts from the experience. At 1440p, the situation worsens considerably. The Low preset at 1440p yields 51 FPS, which is the best 1440p option, but it requires sacrificing the visual quality that the resolution upgrade is meant to provide. The Medium preset at 1440p drops to 39 FPS, and High falls to 29 FPS, making these settings unsatisfactory for most players.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution due to its low frame rates: 34 FPS at 1080p, 21 FPS at 1440p, and 11 FPS at 4K. The 4K resolution is effectively unplayable across all settings, as even Low produces only 27 FPS. The data suggests that users should stick to 1080p and select either Low for maximum smoothness or Medium for a balanced experience. The step from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 20 FPS (from 80 to 60), which is a substantial loss, but the visual improvement may justify it for some players. The step from Medium to High costs another 14 FPS (from 60 to 46), which is harder to justify. The recommendation is clear: 1080p Low for competitive smoothness or 1080p Medium for a reasonable middle ground.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive picture of this combo's capabilities across all resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 80 FPS, which is the highest score recorded for this combo. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 60 FPS, with a minimum of 51 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS, showing a tight frame time distribution that indicates consistent performance. The High preset at 1080p averages 46 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 34 FPS. These 1080p results show a clear progression: each step up in settings costs roughly 14-20 FPS, reflecting the GPU's limited headroom.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 51 FPS, which is a 36% reduction from the 1080p Low result. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 39 FPS, with a minimum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 44 FPS, indicating that even the minimum frame rate is close to the average, suggesting stable but low performance. The High preset at 1440p averages 29 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 21 FPS. The 1440p results show that this resolution is only viable with Low settings, and even then, the 51 FPS average is below the 60 FPS target that many players consider the baseline for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. The Low preset averages 27 FPS, the Medium preset averages 21 FPS with a minimum of 17 FPS and a maximum of 24 FPS, the High preset averages 16 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 11 FPS. The 4K results demonstrate that this combo is not capable of handling Hitman 2 at this resolution, with even the best-case scenario falling well below playable thresholds. The frame time data for the Medium preset at 4K shows a range from 17 to 24 FPS, which would result in visible stuttering and inconsistent motion. The data across all resolutions confirms that the Arc B390 is the primary constraint, with the CPU's performance being largely irrelevant at these low frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This combo ranks 2,662 out of 3,001 tested combinations in Hitman 2, placing it in the bottom 11% of all systems evaluated. This ranking is consistent with the GPU's individual percentile of 9, indicating that the Arc B390's performance is the defining factor in this pairing. The CPU, by contrast, ranks in the 73rd percentile among all processors, showing that the Ryzen 5 5500 is a competent mid-range chip that is being held back by its GPU counterpart. The disparity between the CPU's relative strength and the GPU's weakness creates a fundamentally unbalanced system.

The nearest rivals for the CPU provide context for its performance level. The AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 scores 19,617 (0.1% higher), the Intel Core i5-12500 scores 19,668 (0.4% higher), the Intel Core i7-10700F scores 19,499 (0.5% lower), and the Intel Core i5-11600KF scores 19,723 (0.7% higher). These differences are negligible, confirming that the Ryzen 5 5500 is well within the mainstream performance envelope. However, the combo's rank in the game demonstrates that this CPU strength is irrelevant when paired with such a weak GPU.

The rank of 2,662 out of 3,001 means that 339 tested combos performed worse in Hitman 2, while 2,662 performed better. This places the combo in the lowest decile of systems, which is a poor showing for a modern CPU. The data suggests that users who own this combo should consider it a low-end configuration for this game, suitable only for 1080p gaming at minimal settings. The ranking also implies that upgrading either component would yield significant improvements, but the GPU is the clear priority for any performance uplift in this title.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. It has 16 MB of L3 cache and 512 KB of L2 cache per core, along with 64 KB of L1 cache per core. The CPU's benchmark scores demonstrate its capability: Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16,429, single-core score of 2,319, and a Geekbench multicore score of 7,976 with a single-core score of 1,730. These figures place it in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs, indicating that it is a solid mid-range processor for its generation.

Despite the CPU's reasonable performance, the measured FPS in Hitman 2 shows that it is not the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 80 FPS, which is higher than the 4K Low result of 27 FPS by a factor of nearly three. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would be more consistent across resolutions, as the CPU's workload does not scale with resolution in the same way the GPU's does. The dramatic resolution scaling observed in the data is a signature of a GPU-limited scenario.

The CPU's 12 threads are more than sufficient for Hitman 2, which is a game that scales reasonably well with multi-core processors but does not require high core counts to achieve good performance. The Ryzen 5 5500's 6 cores and 12 threads provide ample processing power for the game's AI, physics, and game logic. The CPU's 3DMark scores further confirm its capability: 5,386 in the 16-thread test, 4,593 in the 8-thread test, and 836 in the single-thread test. These scores indicate that the processor can handle the game's single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads without issue.

The conclusion from the data is that the CPU is not the problem in this pairing. The Ryzen 5 5500 is a capable processor that would deliver much higher frame rates in Hitman 2 if paired with a more powerful GPU. The 80 FPS at 1080p Low is likely close to the CPU's maximum frame rate ceiling for this game, but the GPU's limitations prevent the combo from reaching that ceiling at higher resolutions or settings. Users with this CPU should consider upgrading the GPU to unlock its full potential in Hitman 2.