Hitman 2

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 delivers a playable experience in Hitman 2 only at 1080p with lower settings, and the data suggests that the GPU is the primary constraint across all tested configurations. The measured frame rates show a clear hierarchy: at 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 70.7 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset drops to 50.1 FPS, while High falls to 40.4 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 27.1 FPS. At higher resolutions, the situation deteriorates sharply, with 1440p High averaging 24.3 FPS and 4K High averaging only 13.4 FPS. For a smooth experience, the data indicates that 1080p Low is the only viable option, while 1080p Medium offers a middle ground for those prioritizing visual fidelity over frame rate.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results for Hitman 2 with this hardware combination reveal a steep performance cliff as settings are raised. At 1920x1080, the Low preset provides the best experience, delivering an average of 70.7 FPS, which is more than 40% higher than the Medium preset’s 50.1 FPS. This gap suggests that the Low preset is the sweet spot for maintaining fluid gameplay, especially in a stealth title where quick reactions and smooth camera movement are essential. The High preset at 1080p yields 40.4 FPS, which is still technically playable but may feel less responsive during crowded crowd scenes or fast-paced chases. The Ultra preset at 1080p, with an average of 27.1 FPS, is not recommended for anything beyond static observation, as the frame rate falls below the threshold for comfortable action sequences.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more restrictive. The Low preset averages 42.5 FPS, which is the only 1440p setting that approaches playability, while Medium drops to 35.2 FPS and High falls to 24.3 FPS. At 3840x2160, all settings are effectively unplayable, with Low averaging 23.5 FPS and Ultra averaging just 11.8 FPS. The data strongly suggests that users should stick to 1080p and select either Low or Medium, depending on their tolerance for reduced visual effects. The Low preset at 1080p offers the best balance, as it nearly triples the frame rate of the Ultra preset at the same resolution, indicating that the rendering load scales dramatically with settings quality.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its performance in synthetic benchmarks places it in the 75th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17,181. In Hitman 2, the CPU’s role appears secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 70.7 FPS, but at 1440p Low, the frame rate drops to 42.5 FPS, a reduction of roughly 40%. This pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU’s workload does not increase proportionally with resolution.

The processor’s multi-threaded capabilities, reflected in a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14,372, are sufficient to feed the GTX 1650 at lower resolutions. However, the data shows that even at 1080p Ultra, the frame rate collapses to 27.1 FPS, suggesting that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this scenario either. The CPU’s single-thread performance, with a Geekbench single-core score of 1,979, is adequate for the game’s AI and physics calculations, but the overall system performance is constrained by the graphics card. The i5-11400F’s 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support provide a solid foundation, but the measured FPS figures across all settings and resolutions consistently point to the GPU as the dominant constraint.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s. Its base clock is 1485 MHz, with a boost clock of 1665 MHz, and it offers 896 shading units. The GPU’s synthetic benchmark performance places it in the 43rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 8,713. In Hitman 2, the GPU’s limitations are starkly visible. At 1080p Low, the card produces 70.7 FPS, but this figure falls to 23.5 FPS at 4K Low, a reduction of over 66%. This dramatic scaling with resolution confirms that the GTX 1650 is the primary bottleneck, as its 4 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory interface struggle with the higher pixel counts.

The GPU’s performance relative to its nearest rivals is telling. The data shows the GTX 1650 with a delta of -0.4% compared to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile and the AMD Radeon 550X, and a +0.5% delta versus the NVIDIA Quadro P2200. These negligible differences indicate that the GTX 1650 is positioned at the lower end of the performance spectrum, which aligns with its 43rd percentile ranking. In-game, the GPU’s pixel rate of 53.28 GPixel/s and texture rate of 93.24 GTexel/s are insufficient for high-resolution rendering, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra average of just 11.8 FPS. The card’s 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is simply not enough to handle Hitman 2’s detailed environments at higher settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 1732 out of 1795 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the bottom 3.5% of all systems. This low ranking is consistent with the GPU’s 43rd percentile standing, but it is notably worse than the CPU’s 75th percentile ranking, reinforcing that the graphics card drags down the overall system performance. The combo’s rank suggests that the majority of tested configurations outperform this pairing, even those with older or less capable CPUs. The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor, as its synthetic scores are respectable, but the GPU’s low frame rates across all settings and resolutions cap the system’s potential.

When compared to other combos, this pairing is likely hindered by the GTX 1650’s 4 GB VRAM, which is insufficient for Hitman 2’s texture-heavy levels at higher resolutions. The measured FPS at 1440p Ultra (17.0 FPS) and 4K Ultra (11.8 FPS) are among the lowest in any dataset, confirming that the combo is only suitable for 1080p gaming. The rank of 1732 out of 1795 implies that users would need to significantly lower settings or resolution to achieve playable frame rates, and even then, the experience would be subpar compared to mid-range systems. The CPU’s strong multi-threading scores, such as 14,372 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, do not translate into gaming performance when paired with such a weak GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K in Hitman 2 reveals a clear GPU-bound system. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 70.7 at 1920x1080 to 42.5 at 2560x1440, a 40% reduction, and then to 23.5 at 3840x2160, a further 45% reduction. This near-linear scaling with pixel count is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, where the CPU has ample headroom to feed the graphics card at lower resolutions but the card cannot keep up as the pixel load increases. At High settings, the drop is even steeper: from 40.4 FPS at 1080p to 24.3 FPS at 1440p (a 40% drop) and then to 13.4 FPS at 4K (a 45% drop). The consistency of these percentage drops across different settings strongly suggests that resolution, not settings complexity, is the primary performance killer.

The scaling also indicates that the GTX 1650’s memory bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s is a critical constraint. As resolution increases, the demand for texture data and framebuffer bandwidth grows, and the 128-bit bus cannot deliver the necessary throughput. The 4 GB VRAM further exacerbates this issue, as higher resolutions require more memory for geometry and textures, likely causing the card to spill into system memory. The data shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens at higher resolutions: at 1080p, the difference is 43.6 FPS (70.7 vs 27.1), but at 4K, the difference shrinks to 11.7 FPS (23.5 vs 11.8). This narrowing suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so overwhelmed that settings have less impact on the final frame rate, as the card is already at its computational limit.