Hitman 2

Hitman 2, a stealth title from 2018, demonstrates distinct performance scaling characteristics when paired with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. The measured data reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with the CPU's substantial headroom only becoming apparent as resolution drops. The transition from 1080p to 4K illustrates a classic bottleneck shift, moving from a balanced workload to a purely graphics-limited scenario.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is steep and consistent across all settings presets. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 170.1 FPS at 1080p to 111.4 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 61 FPS at 4K. This represents a 64% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, which is substantial but expected for a game of this era running on modern hardware. The scaling pattern indicates that pixel throughput is the dominant constraint at higher resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more dramatic. The average FPS at 1080p is 299.2, dropping to 192.3 at 1440p and 102.7 at 4K. The 1080p result is particularly telling—it approaches the theoretical limit of what the CPU can feed to the GPU, suggesting that at this resolution and settings combination, the Ryzen 7 7700X becomes a more significant factor. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings is 35.7%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 46.6%, showing that the GPU's workload increases non-linearly with pixel count.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern, with 223.9 FPS at 1080p, 145.8 FPS at 1440p, and 76.9 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, yields 126 FPS at 1080p, 81.5 FPS at 1440p, and 44.6 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these scaling factors across presets—roughly 35-40% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and another 45-50% from 1440p to 4K—confirms that the RTX 4080 SUPER's rendering pipeline is the primary limiter as resolution increases.

The data strongly suggests that at 4K, even the High preset (61 FPS) struggles to maintain smooth gameplay, while Ultra drops below 45 FPS. The RTX 4080 SUPER, with its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 256-bit bus, is being pushed to its limits by Hitman 2's draw calls and shadow rendering at 4K. Conversely, at 1080p, the frame rates exceed 170 FPS even at High settings, indicating that the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient to keep the GPU fed at lower pixel counts.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy of performance across the four presets. At 4K, the High preset delivers 61 FPS, which is the only preset that approaches playable frame rates—Medium offers 76.9 FPS and Low 102.7 FPS, but both sacrifice visual fidelity. Ultra at 4K is not viable, as 44.6 FPS falls below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The best experience at 4K is achieved with the High preset, which balances visual quality with acceptable performance.

At 1440p, the High preset delivers 111.4 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium produces 145.8 FPS, and Low reaches 192.3 FPS, but the visual trade-offs are significant. Ultra at 1440p yields 81.5 FPS, which is still smooth but represents a substantial drop from High. For most users, the High preset at 1440p is the sweet spot, offering nearly double the frame rate of Ultra while maintaining most of the visual enhancements.

At 1080p, the High preset delivers 170.1 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate of most standard monitors. Medium produces 223.9 FPS, and Low reaches 299.2 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play. Ultra at 1080p yields 126 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 26% reduction from High. Given that the High preset at 1080p is already above 170 FPS, there is little reason to drop below High settings unless the user has a 240Hz or higher refresh rate display. The data indicates that High settings at 1080p provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, while Medium is the recommended fallback for users prioritizing frame rate above all else.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is a significant asset for Hitman 2, which features large, detailed environments with numerous NPCs and dynamic lighting. The 736.3 GB/s memory bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and geometry loading are not bottlenecks, even at 4K Ultra where the game's asset demands are highest. The GPU's 10240 shading units and 80 RT cores, while not fully utilized in this non-ray-traced title, provide ample compute headroom for the game's pixel shaders and post-processing effects.

The GPU's clock behavior, with a base of 2295 MHz and boost of 2550 MHz, is consistent with the Ada Lovelace architecture's ability to maintain high clocks under load. The measured frame rates show that the GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions above 1080p. At 4K Ultra, the 44.6 FPS average indicates that the GPU is saturated, with the 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 performance being fully consumed by the game's rendering workload. The passmark G3D score of 34245 places this GPU in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, confirming its high-end positioning.

The GPU's performance relative to its nearest rivals is notable. The RTX 4080 SUPER's average benchmark score of 53610 is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M, and 2.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7700S. This narrow margin over the RX 6900 XT suggests that in Hitman 2, which is not heavily optimized for NVIDIA-specific features, the performance gap between these high-end cards is minimal. The 2.9% lead over the RTX 5070 Ti indicates that the 4080 SUPER remains competitive even against newer generation hardware in this title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 124th out of 1795 tested combos in Hitman 2. This places it in the top 7% of all configurations, which is an impressive result given the game's age and the system's modern components. The high ranking is primarily driven by the GPU's strong performance at 4K, where many older and mid-range GPUs struggle to maintain playable frame rates.

The rank of 124 out of 1795 suggests that there are 123 combinations that outperform this setup, likely including systems with higher-end GPUs such as the RTX 4090 or newer RTX 50-series cards. However, the fact that this combo is in the top 7% indicates that the 4080 SUPER is more than adequate for Hitman 2, even at maximum settings. The CPU's contribution to this ranking is less significant, as the game's engine is not heavily multi-threaded, but the 8-core/16-thread configuration ensures that there is no CPU-induced bottleneck at any resolution.

The data shows that this combo is particularly well-suited for 1440p gaming, where it achieves over 110 FPS at High settings. At 4K, the combo is playable but requires careful settings management, as the Ultra preset drops below 45 FPS. The ranking reflects this balance, placing the combo ahead of most systems while acknowledging that there are a handful of more powerful configurations that can handle 4K Ultra with ease.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, provides a strong foundation for Hitman 2. The CPU's base clock of 4.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz ensure that single-threaded performance is excellent, which is critical for a game engine that primarily relies on a few main threads for game logic and physics. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for the game's AI and pathfinding calculations.

The CPU's benchmark results confirm its capability. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 30325 and single-core score of 4281 place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 8859 and max-thread score of 8852 indicate that the CPU scales well with multi-threaded workloads, although Hitman 2 does not fully utilize all 16 threads. The PassMark multi-thread score of 35686 and single-thread score of 4190 further corroborate the CPU's balanced performance profile.

In Hitman 2, the CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low settings, the 299.2 FPS average suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls to approach the 300 FPS mark. This reflects the 7700X's strong single-thread performance, as many CPUs would become the bottleneck at this frame rate. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13500, has an average score of 34175, which is 0.4% lower than the 7700X's 34313. Similarly, the Intel Core i7-12800HX is 0.5% lower, while the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H is 0.8% higher.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in Hitman 2 at any resolution. Even at 1080p Low, where the frame rate is highest, the GPU remains the primary constraint. This is unusual for a game of this era, as many modern titles become CPU-bound at high frame rates. The 7700X's combination of high clock speeds and efficient Zen 4 architecture ensures that it can keep up with the RTX 4080 SUPER's rendering capability, allowing the GPU to operate at its full potential.