Hitman 2

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination ranks 24th out of 1,795 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the top 1.3% of all hardware pairings. This is a strong position for a 2020 CPU paired with a 2025 flagship GPU, demonstrating that the processor still holds its own in this stealth title. The combo’s high rank reflects how the RTX 5090’s immense rendering power compensates for the Ryzen 5 5600X’s age, though the data also reveals where the CPU becomes the limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

The 24th-place finish out of 1,795 combos puts this pairing in the 98.7th percentile overall, which is exceptional for a system built around a six-core processor. The CPU itself sits in the 78th percentile among all processors on average benchmark scores, while the GPU is in the 94th percentile. The gap between these percentiles suggests the graphics card is doing the heavy lifting in Hitman 2, but the CPU’s single-thread performance — a 3DMark single-thread score of 917 — keeps it from becoming a bottleneck in most scenes.

Looking at the CPU’s nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 5600X scores 20,680 on average across all benchmarks, which is only 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT (20,740) and Intel Core i7-10700 (20,746). It trails the Intel Core i5-12490F (20,794) by 0.5% but leads the Intel Xeon 6325P (20,538) by 0.7%. These margins are negligible, meaning the 5600X is effectively tied with its closest competitors in general compute. In Hitman 2 specifically, the combo’s rank shows that even a mid-range 2020 CPU can reach top-tier status when paired with a flagship GPU, though the measured FPS data will show where that pairing breaks down.

For the GPU, the RTX 5090 averages 84,306 across all benchmark suites, placing it just 0.1% ahead of the RTX 5090 D (84,241) and 0.2% ahead of the RTX 5050 Mobile (84,171). It also outperforms the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 (83,209) by 1.3%, but trails the NVIDIA CMP 40HX (85,637) by 1.6%. These rival deltas are all within 2%, indicating that the RTX 5090’s raw compute scores are tightly clustered with other high-end parts, making its in-game lead more dependent on driver optimization and game-specific workloads.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 brings 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This is the most critical spec for Hitman 2, as the game’s large, detailed environments benefit from high memory throughput. The GPU’s 21,760 shading units and 176 ROPs handle the game’s rendering pipeline efficiently, while the 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are largely secondary in this non-ray-traced title. The boost clock of 2,407 MHz (base 2,017 MHz) allows the card to maintain high utilization across all settings, but the measured FPS shows diminishing returns at lower resolutions.

At 1080p, the GPU is clearly not the limiting factor. The Low preset hits 299 FPS, but the CPU’s 12 threads (6 cores) can only push so many draw calls. The 5600X’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 18,578 and single-core score of 2,622 suggest it can feed the RTX 5090 adequately, but the 299 FPS ceiling at Low settings indicates the CPU is capping performance before the GPU reaches its potential. At 4K, the GPU becomes fully utilized, with the 32 GB VRAM ensuring no texture or geometry loads cause stuttering. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth is more than enough for Hitman 2’s asset streaming, even at Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a classic shift from CPU-bound to GPU-bound behavior. At Ultra settings, the combo delivers 147.2 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 96 FPS at 1440p (a 34.8% reduction), and then to 51.7 FPS at 4K (a 64.9% reduction from 1080p). This steep decline at higher resolutions confirms the GPU is the limiting component once pixel count increases, as the RTX 5090 must render four times the pixels at 4K versus 1080p.

The Low preset tells a different story. At 1080p, the combo achieves 299 FPS, which falls to 224.6 FPS at 1440p (a 24.9% drop) and then to 120.2 FPS at 4K (a 59.8% drop from 1080p). The smaller relative drop from 1080p to 1440p compared to Ultra settings suggests the CPU is still the bottleneck at 1080p Low, but the GPU begins to take over as resolution climbs. At 4K Low, the 120.2 FPS result is still highly playable, showing that even with reduced settings, the GPU has enough headroom to brute-force high frame rates.

Medium settings show a similar pattern: 259.4 FPS at 1080p, 169.5 FPS at 1440p (a 34.7% drop), and 91.2 FPS at 4K (a 64.8% drop from 1080p). High settings follow with 200 FPS at 1080p, 124.7 FPS at 1440p (a 37.7% drop), and 65.4 FPS at 4K (a 67.3% drop). The consistent ~35% drop from 1080p to 1440p across Medium, High, and Ultra indicates the GPU is scaling predictably with pixel count, while the larger drops to 4K reflect the RTX 5090’s raw limits in this game engine.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured rows, Medium settings at 1440p offer the sweet spot. The 169.5 FPS average is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate of most gaming monitors, and the visual uplift from Low to Medium is substantial in Hitman 2’s detailed interiors. At 4K, Medium settings deliver 91.2 FPS, which is smooth for a stealth game where precise timing matters, but players with high-refresh 4K displays may prefer Low settings at 120.2 FPS.

Ultra settings are only viable at 1080p, where the 147.2 FPS average remains competitive. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 96 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices the high-refresh advantage. At 4K, Ultra’s 51.7 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold many players consider the minimum for action games, making it a poor choice unless visual fidelity is the sole priority. The data suggests that High settings at 1440p (124.7 FPS) is the best balance of quality and speed for most users, as it delivers a 29.9% improvement over Ultra at the same resolution while maintaining a frame rate that suits both 120 Hz and 144 Hz displays.

For competitive play, Low settings at 1080p (299 FPS) maximizes frame rate, but the visual downgrade in Hitman 2’s crowd and lighting effects may hurt gameplay readability. Medium at 1080p (259.4 FPS) offers a better compromise, keeping the frame rate above 240 Hz while improving visual clarity. At 4K, Low settings (120.2 FPS) is the only configuration that breaks the 120 FPS barrier, making it the recommended choice for 4K high-refresh displays.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the combo delivers a wide spread of results. Low settings produce 299 FPS, Medium reaches 259.4 FPS (13.2% lower), High hits 200 FPS (33.1% lower than Low), and Ultra drops to 147.2 FPS (50.8% lower than Low). The 151.8 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p highlights the game’s significant graphical scaling, but also shows that the CPU can still push high frame rates even at maximum settings.

At 1440p, the same settings ladder shows tighter gaps in raw terms but similar percentages. Low hits 224.6 FPS, Medium reaches 169.5 FPS (24.5% lower), High delivers 124.7 FPS (44.5% lower), and Ultra falls to 96 FPS (57.3% lower than Low). The 128.6 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is slightly smaller than at 1080p, indicating the GPU is starting to equalize the performance curve.

At 4K, the results compress further. Low achieves 120.2 FPS, Medium reaches 91.2 FPS (24.1% lower), High drops to 65.4 FPS (45.6% lower), and Ultra bottoms out at 51.7 FPS (57.0% lower than Low). The 68.5 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is less than half the 1080p difference, confirming that the RTX 5090’s rendering workload dominates at this resolution. The 4K Ultra score of 51.7 FPS is the only measured result below 60 FPS, while the 4K High score of 65.4 FPS barely clears that threshold, making High the minimum viable setting for 4K play.