Hitman 2

The Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT combination delivers a playable but demanding experience in Hitman 2, with the data showing that the Ultra preset is largely out of reach for smooth gameplay. The most balanced experience is found at Medium settings, which provides a significant performance uplift over High while maintaining acceptable visual quality. Across all resolutions, the Medium preset offers the best compromise between frame rate and fidelity, with the 1080p Medium row showing a robust 106 FPS average. The Ultra preset, by contrast, consistently produces the lowest frame rates, dropping to 20 FPS at 4K, which is below the threshold for comfortable play. For users prioritizing frame rate over visual detail, the Low preset delivers exceptional performance, but the Medium preset is the recommended starting point for most players.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data clearly indicates that the Medium preset is the optimal choice for this hardware combination in Hitman 2. At 1080p, the Medium preset achieves an average of 106 FPS, which is 26 FPS higher than the High preset’s 80 FPS and 47 FPS higher than the Ultra preset’s 59 FPS. This substantial gap means that the step from Medium to High costs a 24.5% performance drop, while the step from High to Ultra costs another 26.3% drop. The Medium preset also shows a minimum FPS of 90, ensuring that even demanding scenes remain fluid, whereas the High and Ultra presets lack reported minimums, suggesting potential frame dips below their averages.

At 1440p, the Medium preset again proves superior, delivering 68 FPS average with a minimum of 58 FPS. This is a 33.3% improvement over High’s 51 FPS and a 79% improvement over Ultra’s 38 FPS. The 1440p Medium result is particularly noteworthy because it maintains a playable frame rate while the High preset dips below 60 FPS, which is often considered the baseline for smooth action. For 4K gaming, the situation becomes more constrained; the Medium preset’s 36 FPS average is the only preset that remains marginally playable, though it falls short of the 60 FPS target. The High preset at 4K drops to 27 FPS, and Ultra falls to 20 FPS, making both unsuitable for serious play.

The Low preset, while offering the highest frame rates across all resolutions (141 FPS at 1080p, 90 FPS at 1440p, and 48 FPS at 4K), sacrifices too much visual fidelity to be recommended as the default. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot, providing a 32.5% performance increase over High at 1080p while presumably retaining most of the visual enhancements that make Hitman 2’s environments so detailed. For users with high refresh rate monitors, the Low preset at 1080p could be viable, but for the majority of players, Medium offers the best experience per the measured rows.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the primary driver of performance in Hitman 2 for this combination, particularly at higher resolutions. The GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game’s texture-heavy environments at 1080p and 1440p. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, or 14 Gbps effective, and the GPU’s base clock of 1605 MHz boosts to 1905 MHz, with a game clock of 1755 MHz. These clock speeds are directly reflected in the benchmark results: at 1080p Ultra, the GPU manages 59 FPS, but this drops to 38 FPS at 1440p Ultra and 20 FPS at 4K Ultra, showing a clear scaling pattern that tracks with pixel count.

The GPU’s 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s. These specifications translate to a theoretical FP32 performance of 9.754 TFLOPS, which places the card in the 59th percentile of all GPUs in the benchmark database. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RX 5700 XT’s average benchmark score of 16361 is essentially tied with the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351, 0.1% faster) and the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (16408, 0.3% slower), indicating that this GPU is competitively positioned for its class. The passmark G3D score of 16277 further confirms its mid-range standing, with the DirectX 12 score of 64 suggesting that the card is capable of handling modern APIs.

The GPU’s 225 W TDP means that it requires adequate cooling, and the dual-slot design with a 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin power connector suggests a substantial power draw. The PCIe 4.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth for the card’s data transfer needs. In Hitman 2, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases; the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p to 4K at the same settings is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering load outpaces the CPU’s ability to feed frames. The data shows that the RX 5700 XT is the limiting factor at 4K, where even the Low preset only achieves 48 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound in Hitman 2. At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 106 at 1080p to 68 at 1440p (a 35.8% decrease) and then to 36 at 4K (a 47.1% decrease from 1440p). This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, where doubling the pixel count approximately halves the frame rate. The same pattern holds for High settings: 80 FPS at 1080p drops to 51 FPS at 1440p (36.3% decrease) and to 27 FPS at 4K (47.1% decrease). The Low preset shows a similar trend, with 141 FPS at 1080p falling to 90 FPS at 1440p (36.2% decrease) and 48 FPS at 4K (46.7% decrease).

The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets strongly indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is capable of maintaining high frame rates at 1080p, as evidenced by the 141 FPS Low result, but the GPU cannot sustain that performance as resolution increases. The 4K results are particularly telling: the Ultra preset’s 20 FPS and High preset’s 27 FPS are both below playable thresholds, while Medium’s 36 FPS is only marginally acceptable. This suggests that 4K gaming on this combination is only feasible with the Low preset, and even then, the 48 FPS average leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

The scaling also highlights that the system is not CPU-limited at any resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively constant across resolutions, but the data shows a clear decline with each step up in resolution. The 1080p results, where the CPU has more headroom, show the highest FPS, confirming that the CPU can push more frames than the GPU can render. For users aiming for 1440p, the Medium preset’s 68 FPS is the best balance, while 1080p users can comfortably use High or even Ultra with the RX 5700 XT, though the 59 FPS Ultra result is borderline.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 60 FPS gaming on this hardware?

A: At 1080p, the High preset delivers 80 FPS, but the Ultra preset drops to 59 FPS, which is just below 60 FPS. For a consistent 60 FPS target, the Medium preset at 1080p (106 FPS) or 1440p (68 FPS) is the recommended choice, as the High preset at 1440p only achieves 51 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Hitman 2?

A: The data shows that 4K is only marginally playable with the Medium preset (36 FPS) and Low preset (48 FPS). The High (27 FPS) and Ultra (20 FPS) presets are not recommended for 4K due to frame rates below 30 FPS. Users seeking 4K should consider the Low preset for playable performance.

Q: How does the RX 5700 XT compare to its closest rivals in the database?

A: The RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 16361, which is 0.1% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351) and 0.3% lower than the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (16408). This places it in a tight competitive group, with the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 (16415) being 0.3% faster.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in Hitman 2?

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU is the primary bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions. The FPS drops significantly from 1080p to 4K (e.g., Medium preset: 106 FPS to 36 FPS), which is a classic sign of GPU limitation. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to avoid bottlenecking at 1080p.

Q: What are the minimum FPS figures for the Medium preset?

A: The Medium preset reports minimum FPS values for all resolutions: 90 FPS at 1080p, 58 FPS at 1440p, and 31 FPS at 4K. These minimums indicate that the frame rate remains relatively stable, with the 4K minimum falling below the average for the High preset at that resolution.

Q: How does the CPU’s benchmark performance compare to its rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 18683, which is 0.1% slower than the AMD EPYC 7643 (18697) and 0.3% slower than the Intel Core i7-1355U (18730). It is 0.9% faster than the Intel Core i3-14100F (18519), showing that it is competitive in its segment.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 provides a solid foundation for Hitman 2, with its 6 cores and 12 threads delivering strong multi-threaded performance. The CPU’s base clock of 2.50 GHz boosts to 4.40 GHz, and its 18 MB of shared L3 cache helps with data-heavy game logic. In the 3DMark tests, the CPU scores 5873 with 16 threads and 910 in single-thread, indicating that it has both multi-core muscle and solid single-core performance. The Cinebench R23 results reinforce this, with a multicore score of 15989 and a singlecore score of 2257, placing the CPU in the 72nd percentile of all CPUs in the database.

The CPU’s role in Hitman 2 is to feed the GPU with frames, and the data shows it does this effectively at 1080p. The 141 FPS result at Low settings demonstrates that the CPU can push well beyond 100 FPS, and the 106 FPS at Medium suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor at this resolution. However, at 4K, the CPU’s workload decreases relative to the GPU, and the FPS is constrained by the RX 5700 XT’s rendering capabilities. The 3DMark multi-threaded scores, such as 5890 at max threads and 4745 at 8 threads, indicate that the CPU scales well with additional threads, which is beneficial for games that utilize multiple cores.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the i5-12400’s average benchmark score of 18683 is nearly identical to the AMD EPYC 7643 (18697, -0.1% difference) and the Intel Core i7-1355U (18730, -0.3% difference). It is slightly faster than the Intel Core i3-14100F (18519, 0.9% faster), suggesting that the i5-12400 sits at the top of its performance tier. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory make it a versatile choice, and its UHD Graphics 730 integrated GPU provides a fallback, though the discrete RX 5700 XT handles all gaming workloads. The benchmark results show that the CPU is not a bottleneck in Hitman 2, as the FPS scaling is entirely dependent on resolution and settings, not CPU clock speed or core count.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Hitman 2 with the Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT spans four presets and three resolutions. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves the highest average FPS of 141, followed by Medium at 106 FPS (with a minimum of 90 FPS and maximum of 122 FPS), High at 80 FPS, and Ultra at 59 FPS. These results show a clear performance hierarchy, with the Ultra preset barely reaching 60 FPS, making it a marginal choice for 1080p gaming. The Medium preset’s minimum of 90 FPS ensures that even the most demanding scenes in Hitman 2 remain fluid, whereas the High and Ultra presets lack reported minimums, indicating potential frame dips that could affect gameplay.

At 1440p, the FPS drops across all presets. The Low preset averages 90 FPS, which is a 36.2% decrease from 1080p. The Medium preset averages 68 FPS, with a minimum of 58 FPS and maximum of 78 FPS, maintaining playability. The High preset falls to 51 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target, and the Ultra preset drops to 38 FPS, making it difficult to play smoothly. The 1440p results suggest that the Medium preset is the highest setting that can maintain a consistent 60+ FPS experience, while High and Ultra require a compromise on frame rate.

At 4K, the performance is significantly constrained. The Low preset achieves 48 FPS, which is the only playable option, though it is still below 60 FPS. The Medium preset averages 36 FPS, with a minimum of 31 FPS and maximum of 42 FPS, which is borderline playable but may struggle in intense action sequences. The High preset drops to 27 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 20 FPS, both of which are below acceptable thresholds for smooth gameplay. The 4K data confirms that this hardware combination is not suited for high-fidelity 4K gaming, with even the Low preset struggling to maintain a stable frame rate.

The delta between 1080p and 1440p averages approximately 36% across all presets, and the delta between 1440p and 4K averages approximately 47%, indicating a consistent GPU-bound scaling pattern. The Medium preset is the most versatile, providing 106 FPS at 1080p, 68 FPS at 1440p, and 36 FPS at 4K, making it the recommended choice for users who want to balance visual quality and performance across multiple resolutions. The Ultra preset, by contrast, is only viable at 1080p with a 59 FPS average, and its 20 FPS at 4K is nearly unplayable.