Hitman 2

Settings Recommendations

For Hitman 2, the measured data shows that Medium settings at 2560x1440 delivers the most balanced experience, producing 86.8 FPS while maintaining visual fidelity. This represents a 40.7% improvement over High settings at the same resolution (66.9 FPS) with only a modest visual downgrade. At 1920x1080, Medium settings achieve 134.8 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate displays, while High settings still provide 103.2 FPS for those prioritizing image quality.

The Ultra preset is difficult to recommend. At 2560x1440, Ultra drops to 47.3 FPS, and at 3840x2160 it falls to 25.4 FPS — below playable thresholds for most users. Even at 1920x1080, Ultra only reaches 74.7 FPS, which is 44.6% slower than Medium. The performance cost of Ultra is steep: moving from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 28.5 FPS (a 27.6% reduction), while the visual gains in a stealth game like Hitman 2 are typically subtle.

For 4K displays, Low settings at 3840x2160 produce 65.2 FPS, which is the only 4K preset that clears 60 FPS. Medium at 4K (46.1 FPS) and High at 4K (37.5 FPS) are playable but not smooth. The data suggests that players with 4K monitors should either accept Low settings or consider 2560x1440 with Medium or High presets for the best overall experience.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X brings substantial processing headroom to Hitman 2. With 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), this CPU operates at a 4.40 GHz base clock and boosts to 5.60 GHz. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 46,438 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 6,555 in single-core, placing it in the 94th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D (0.4% ahead), Intel Core i7-14700F (0.7% behind), Intel Core Ultra 5 245K (1.5% ahead), and Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF (1.8% ahead).

Hitman 2's engine benefits from strong single-thread performance, and the 9900X delivers exactly that. The single-core Cinebench R23 score of 6,555 and Geekbench single-core result of 3,341 indicate excellent per-thread throughput. The 64 MB shared L3 cache helps with level streaming and NPC AI calculations common in stealth scenarios. At 1080p Low settings, the combo reaches 181.3 FPS, suggesting the CPU is not a bottleneck even in the lightest GPU load scenarios.

The 3DMark thread scaling data is telling: 2-thread score of 2,519, 4-thread of 4,886, 8-thread of 9,114, and 16-thread of 12,552. The scaling from 8 to 16 threads (37.7% improvement) indicates that Hitman 2 can utilize multiple cores, though the game rarely needs all 24 threads. The 24-thread maximum score of 13,929 shows diminishing returns beyond 16 threads, confirming that the 9900X's 12-core/24-thread configuration provides ample headroom for this title without being fully utilized.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 60 FPS gaming at 2560x1440?

A: Medium settings at 2560x1440 deliver 86.8 FPS, which is well above 60 FPS. High settings at the same resolution produce 66.9 FPS, also clearing the 60 FPS threshold. Both options work, with Medium providing more headroom.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Only at Low settings, which produce 65.2 FPS at 3840x2160. Medium drops to 46.1 FPS, High to 37.5 FPS, and Ultra to 25.4 FPS. For 4K, Low is the only smooth option.

Q: How much performance does Ultra settings cost at 1080p?

A: Ultra at 1920x1080 runs at 74.7 FPS, compared to 103.2 FPS on High and 134.8 FPS on Medium. Moving from High to Ultra costs 28.5 FPS, a 27.6% performance penalty.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this combo?

A: At 1080p Low (181.3 FPS), the system shows strong overall throughput. The performance drop from 1080p to 4K at the same settings — for example, 181.3 to 65.2 FPS on Low — indicates the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU maintains sufficient headroom.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems?

A: This combination of AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 ranks 886th out of 1,795 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the middle of the tested field.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: Low at 2560x1440 produces 117.5 FPS, while Ultra produces 47.3 FPS. The difference is 70.2 FPS, meaning Ultra delivers only 40.3% of the frame rate of Low.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 combination ranks 886th out of 1,795 tested combos in Hitman 2. This places it just below the median of the tested field, which is notable given the strong CPU performance. The RTX 5060 sits in the 73rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30,109 — nearly identical to the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (0% delta), and within 0.6% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile.

This mid-pack ranking reflects the GPU's positioning. The RTX 5060's nearest rivals in aggregate benchmarks are the RX 7700 XT (30,097 score, 0% delta), AMD Radeon RX 570 (30,158, -0.2% delta), NVIDIA Tesla M60 (29,969, 0.5% delta), and RTX 5070 Mobile (29,928, 0.6% delta). In Hitman 2 specifically, the measured FPS data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at higher settings, preventing the combo from climbing higher in the rankings despite the CPU's top-tier performance.

The discrepancy between CPU percentile (94th) and combo rank (49.4th percentile) highlights that Hitman 2's performance is heavily GPU-bound at the tested settings. The 12-core CPU provides far more processing capability than this game requires, while the GPU's 8 GB GDDR7 memory and 128-bit bus constrain performance at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a clear GPU bottleneck. At Low settings, performance drops from 181.3 FPS at 1080p to 117.5 FPS at 1440p (a 35.2% reduction) and further to 65.2 FPS at 4K (a 64.0% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-limited scenario, where pixel throughput becomes the primary constraint.

At High settings, the same pattern emerges: 103.2 FPS at 1080p, 66.9 FPS at 1440p (35.2% drop), and 37.5 FPS at 4K (63.7% drop from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests the rendering pipeline scales predictably with resolution.

The Ultra preset shows the most severe scaling: 74.7 FPS at 1080p, 47.3 FPS at 1440p (36.7% drop), and 25.4 FPS at 4K (66.0% drop). The 4K Ultra result of 25.4 FPS represents only 34.0% of the 1080p Ultra frame rate. This indicates that at Ultra settings, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth become increasingly strained, as higher resolutions demand more texture memory and fill rate.

The data suggests that the RTX 5060's 128-bit memory bus is a limiting factor at 4K, where the 448.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot sustain the throughput needed for smooth frame rates at higher quality presets. The GPU's 19.18 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 119.9 GPixel/s pixel rate are adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K results indicate diminishing returns beyond 2560x1440.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates are:

• Low: 181.3 FPS
• Medium: 134.8 FPS
• High: 103.2 FPS
• Ultra: 74.7 FPS

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 117.5 FPS
• Medium: 86.8 FPS
• High: 66.9 FPS
• Ultra: 47.3 FPS

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 65.2 FPS
• Medium: 46.1 FPS
• High: 37.5 FPS
• Ultra: 25.4 FPS

The transitions between settings show consistent patterns. From Low to Medium at 1080p, FPS drops by 46.5 (25.6%). From Medium to High at the same resolution, another 31.6 FPS is lost (23.4%). The High to Ultra transition is the most expensive at 28.5 FPS (27.6%). At 1440p, the Low-to-Medium drop is 30.7 FPS (26.1%), Medium-to-High is 19.9 FPS (22.9%), and High-to-Ultra is 19.6 FPS (29.3%). At 4K, the drops are 19.1 FPS (29.3%) from Low to Medium, 8.6 FPS (18.7%) from Medium to High, and 12.1 FPS (32.3%) from High to Ultra.

Resolution scaling at the same settings is equally telling. At Low, 1080p to 1440p costs 63.8 FPS, and 1440p to 4K costs another 52.3 FPS. At Medium, the drops are 48.0 and 40.7 FPS respectively. At High, they are 36.3 and 29.4 FPS. At Ultra, they are 27.4 and 21.9 FPS. The absolute FPS losses shrink as settings increase, but the percentage losses remain consistent.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB206 chip, provides the graphics muscle for this combo. It operates at a 2280 MHz base clock and boosts to 2497 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The 8 GB GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, which proves adequate for 1080p and 1440p but constrained at 4K.

The GPU's 3,840 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 48 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 119.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 299.6 GTexel/s. Compute performance is rated at 19.18 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16 (1:1 ratio). These specifications place the RTX 5060 in the 73rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30,109 — essentially tied with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (0% delta).

In Hitman 2, the GPU's role is decisive. The measured FPS data shows that the RTX 5060's 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for all tested settings at 1080p, where even Ultra (74.7 FPS) remains playable. At 1440p, the GPU can handle High settings at 66.9 FPS but struggles with Ultra at 47.3 FPS. The 4K results — particularly the 25.4 FPS at Ultra — suggest that the 448.0 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes a bottleneck, as the 128-bit bus limits the data throughput needed for high-resolution textures and effects.

The Passmark DirectX 12 score of 77 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 116,626 indicate solid API support for modern rendering paths. The GPU's 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for ray tracing and DLSS features, though Hitman 2's release predates widespread adoption of these technologies. The 145 W TDP and dual-slot design make this a relatively power-efficient card for 1080p and 1440p gaming.