Hitman 2

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT delivers a solid 1080p experience in Hitman 2, but the data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution climbs. For the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 is the clear recommendation, offering 109.9 FPS average—a 37% improvement over High settings while still providing a substantial visual upgrade over Low. At 2560x1440, Medium remains the sweet spot at 71.7 FPS, though High at 51.8 FPS is also playable for those prioritizing image quality. The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p, where 62.1 FPS just clears the 60 FPS threshold, but its 36.2 FPS result at 1440p and 18.7 FPS at 4K make it impractical for anything beyond the lowest resolution. Low settings push the combo to 142.2 FPS at 1080p and 90.9 FPS at 1440p, which suits high-refresh monitors but sacrifices too much visual detail for most players.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium as the optimal preset for this combination. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 109.9 FPS, which is more than 60 FPS above the Ultra preset’s 62.1 FPS and still 30 FPS ahead of High’s 80.3 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs only 32.3 FPS (from 142.2 to 109.9 FPS), but the visual improvement in a stealth game—where spotting distant guards and reading environmental details matters—is worth the trade. At 2560x1440, Medium’s 71.7 FPS keeps the experience smooth, while High drops to 51.8 FPS, which can feel sluggish during fast camera pans. For 4K, no preset is truly comfortable: Low hits 51.1 FPS, Medium drops to 38.1 FPS, and High falls to 26.3 FPS. Players with 4K displays should stick to Low or consider lowering the resolution. The Ultra preset is the outlier—it provides marginal graphical gains over High but exacts a brutal performance penalty, making it the worst choice at every resolution.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Hitman 2 at 60 FPS on 1080p Ultra?

A: Yes, but barely. The Ultra preset at 1920x1080 averages 62.1 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS mark with minimal headroom. However, the 18.7 FPS result at 4K Ultra shows how quickly this setting becomes unplayable at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the best resolution for this setup?

A: 1920x1080 is the only resolution where every preset except Ultra at 4K stays above 60 FPS. Medium at 1080p provides 109.9 FPS, giving plenty of margin for demanding scenes. At 1440p, only Low and Medium exceed 60 FPS, with 90.9 FPS and 71.7 FPS respectively.

Q: How much performance is lost going from 1080p to 1440p?

A: The drop is steep but manageable. At Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 109.9 at 1080p to 71.7 at 1440p—a 35% reduction. At High settings, the drop is from 80.3 to 51.8 FPS, a 35% loss that pushes the frame rate below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth using at any resolution?

A: Only at 1080p, where it averages 62.1 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 36.2 FPS, and at 4K it collapses to 18.7 FPS. The visual differences between High and Ultra are rarely worth halving the frame rate.

Q: How does 4K performance compare to 1440p?

A: At every settings tier, 4K delivers roughly half the frame rate of 1440p. For example, Low settings go from 90.9 FPS at 1440p to 51.1 FPS at 4K, and Medium goes from 71.7 to 38.1 FPS. This indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K.

Q: What frame rate can I expect with Low settings at 1080p?

A: The combo achieves 142.2 FPS at 1920x1080 Low, which is the highest measured result in the dataset. This makes it suitable for high-refresh-rate monitors, though the reduced visual quality may hinder spotting enemies in Hitman 2’s dense environments.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average FPS drops by roughly 35% across all settings—for instance, Medium falls from 109.9 to 71.7 FPS, and High from 80.3 to 51.8 FPS. This consistent ratio suggests the RX 5700 XT is the limiting factor, as the i5-12400F has sufficient headroom to feed the GPU at these resolutions. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is even more punishing: Medium drops from 71.7 to 38.1 FPS (a 47% reduction), and Low falls from 90.9 to 51.1 FPS (a 44% reduction). At 4K, the GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are overwhelmed, especially with the 2560 shading units working at 1905 MHz boost. The fact that Ultra at 1080p (62.1 FPS) performs similar to Low at 4K (51.1 FPS) underscores how resolution scaling taxes the GPU far more than settings changes. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are likely not the constraint here, as the consistent FPS drops track with pixel count rather than scene complexity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range is playable. Low settings produce 142.2 FPS, Medium 109.9 FPS, High 80.3 FPS, and Ultra 62.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 32.3 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 18.2 FPS, showing diminishing returns as settings increase. At 2560x1440, performance drops to 90.9 FPS on Low, 71.7 FPS on Medium, 51.8 FPS on High, and 36.2 FPS on Ultra. Only Low and Medium remain above 60 FPS, making High a marginal choice for 1440p gaming. At 3840x2160, the results are 51.1 FPS on Low, 38.1 FPS on Medium, 26.3 FPS on High, and 18.7 FPS on Ultra. None of these are ideal for smooth gameplay, though Low might be tolerable for slower stealth sections. The data shows a consistent pattern: each settings tier costs roughly 20-30 FPS at 1080p, but the absolute FPS loss becomes more damaging as resolution increases. The 4K Ultra result of 18.7 FPS is a stark warning against pushing this combo beyond its comfort zone.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 1350 out of 1795 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the lower-mid tier of the database. The percentile ranking reflects that while the i5-12400F is a strong CPU (77th percentile among all CPUs), the RX 5700 XT sits lower at the 68th percentile among all GPUs, which drags the combo down. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 19221 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210, deltaPct 0.1), meaning the i5-12400F offers comparable processing power to a much older flagship. However, the GPU’s average score of 24731 is only 0.1% below the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (24763), yet 0.6% above the RTX 5060 Mobile (24592), indicating the RX 5700 XT is competitive with mid-range modern GPUs. In Hitman 2 specifically, the combo’s 1350th rank out of 1795 suggests that the game’s engine favors NVIDIA hardware or that the GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions limits the CPU’s potential. For context, the combo sits ahead of roughly 25% of tested systems, which is respectable for a mid-range pairing but not exceptional for demanding titles.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F features 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its 18 MB of shared L3 cache and support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory make it a flexible platform, though the game’s performance is clearly GPU-limited at 4K. The CPU’s benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance—Cinebench R23 multicore scores 16518, and Geekbench multicore hits 9138—but its single-thread scores (Cinebench R23 singlecore 2332, Geekbench singlecore 2221) are more moderate. In Hitman 2, which is a stealth game with crowd AI and complex lighting, the CPU’s single-thread performance matters for physics and AI calculations. The measured FPS scaling suggests the CPU is not the bottleneck: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 142.2 FPS, which would require significant CPU throughput, but the GPU still delivers frame rates that scale predictably with resolution. The i5-12400F’s 65W TDP and 10nm process make it efficient, and its 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs means it outperforms the vast majority of processors, though it trails slightly behind the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (deltaPct -0.7) and the EPYC 7773X (deltaPct 1.3) in raw benchmarks. For Hitman 2, the CPU provides ample headroom; the RX 5700 XT’s 225W TDP and 9.754 TFLOPS FP32 performance are what limit the experience at higher resolutions. Players with this combo should focus on GPU-bound settings like resolution and texture quality, while keeping CPU-heavy settings like crowd density at medium or high, as the i5-12400F can handle them without significant frame drops.