Hitman 2

Intel Core i5-12600KF and Intel Arc B570 present a pairing that lands in the lower quartile of tested configurations for Hitman 2, with a combo rank of 2399 out of 3001. Benchmark results indicate that this system is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions, while the CPU demonstrates sufficient headroom to push frame rates at 1080p. The data reveals a clear performance hierarchy: the Arc B570 struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra, but the combination shows a respectable capability at 1440p Medium and 1080p High, making it a configuration that favors esports-style settings over maximum fidelity.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a dramatic and predictable decline as resolution increases, and the pattern strongly indicates that the Intel Arc B570 is the limiting component in this pairing. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 123 FPS, which drops to 79 FPS at 1440p Low—a 36% reduction—and then falls further to 42 FPS at 4K Low, representing a 66% drop from the 1080p baseline. This scaling behavior is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering workload grows with pixel count and the graphics card's 10 GB VRAM and 160-bit memory bus become increasingly taxed.

The scaling becomes even more pronounced at higher settings. Moving from 1080p Ultra at 52 FPS to 1440p Ultra at 33 FPS shows a 37% decrease, while 4K Ultra collapses to just 18 FPS—a 65% reduction from 1080p Ultra. This non-linear degradation suggests that the Arc B570's 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 380.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth are insufficient for the combined demands of 4K resolution and high-quality effects. The fact that 4K High (24 FPS) is only marginally better than 4K Ultra (18 FPS) while 4K Low (42 FPS) is nearly double that of 4K High further confirms that the GPU's raw throughput, not the CPU, is the bottleneck.

Interestingly, the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (123 FPS) and Ultra (52 FPS) is 71 FPS, but at 4K, that gap shrinks to 24 FPS (42 vs. 18). This compression indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that even reducing settings cannot fully compensate for the pixel-count overhead, whereas at 1080p, lowering settings allows the GPU to feed frames fast enough to approach the CPU's limit. For a 60 FPS target, the data shows that only 1080p Medium (93 FPS) and 1080p Low (123 FPS) comfortably exceed it, while 1440p Medium (59 FPS) sits just below the threshold, and 4K is entirely out of reach for smooth gameplay.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this CPU-GPU pair in Hitman 2?

A: Based on the measured data, 1080p Medium provides the best balance, achieving 93 FPS average with a minimum of 79 FPS and maximum of 106 FPS. This is the highest setting level that maintains a consistent frame rate above 60 FPS.

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

A: No. At 4K, the average FPS ranges from 18 FPS at Ultra to 42 FPS at Low. Even the 4K Medium setting only delivers 32 FPS average (min 27, max 36), which falls well below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B570's average benchmark score of 20556 places it within 0.1% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and Intel Arc A750 (20582), showing near-identical overall performance. It also sits 0.4% above the Quadro M4000M (20480) and 0.5% below the Radeon R9 M390X (20662).

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-12600KF a bottleneck at 1080p for this game?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at any resolution. The 123 FPS result at 1080p Low indicates that the processor can feed frames well above typical monitor refresh rates, and the percentile rank of 79 for all CPUs confirms strong multi-threaded capability.

Q: What kind of frame pacing can be expected at 1440p Medium?

A: The 1440p Medium preset shows an average of 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and maximum of 68 FPS. This indicates reasonably consistent frame pacing, though the occasional dips below 60 FPS may be noticeable in crowded stealth scenarios.

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

A: The combination ranks 2399 out of 3001 tested combos for Hitman 2, placing it in the 80th percentile from the bottom. This suggests that while the system is functional, it sits below the median performance level for this specific title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF brings a 10-core, 16-thread Alder Lake design with a 3.70 GHz base clock and 4.90 GHz boost clock to this pairing. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance, scoring 23391 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 27575 in Passmark multithread, with a percentile rank of 79 against all CPUs. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 provide solid foundations for gaming workloads, though Hitman 2's stealth gameplay typically relies more on single-thread performance than massive parallel scaling.

The single-thread capabilities of the 12600KF are respectable, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3302 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2157. These figures indicate that the CPU can handle the AI-driven NPC behaviors and physics calculations common in Hitman 2's sandbox levels without becoming a limiting factor. The 3DMark scores across thread counts—1995 for 2 threads, 3806 for 4 threads, 6128 for 8 threads, and 7956 for 16 threads—show good scaling, but the game's engine appears to benefit most from the high boost clock rather than the full thread count.

This CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, 0.3% lower), AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (27896, 0.3% lower), and AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (27887, 0.3% lower), all of which sit within a fraction of a percent. The 12600KF's own average benchmark score of 27799 places it in a tight competitive cluster, and in this game, the CPU's role is clearly to provide enough headroom for the Arc B570 to be the deciding factor. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1080p Low, where GPU load is minimal, the system hits 123 FPS, but this is still far below what the CPU could theoretically deliver, suggesting the game's engine or driver overhead may impose its own limits.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 2399 out of 3001 tested combinations for Hitman 2, this pairing sits in the bottom 20% of all configurations. This ranking indicates that while the individual components are mid-range performers, their combination does not synergize particularly well for this title. The CPU's 79th percentile ranking among all processors contrasts sharply with the GPU's 65th percentile ranking among all graphics cards, and the overall combo falls to the 20th percentile, suggesting that the Arc B570 drags down the system's gaming performance more than its synthetic benchmark scores would suggest.

The discrepancy between component-level and system-level rankings highlights a critical insight: Hitman 2 appears to favor NVIDIA and AMD GPUs with more mature driver support, as the Arc B570's architecture (Xe2-HPG, Battlemage) may not be fully optimized for this 2018 title. The GPU's nearest rivals—the RTX 3070 Mobile, Arc A750, Quadro M4000M, and R9 M390X—all have similar average benchmark scores, yet the combo rank of 2399 suggests that real-world gaming performance may lag behind synthetic expectations. This is a case where the component benchmarks overstate the actual gaming experience, as the 4K Ultra result of 18 FPS is particularly weak for a GPU that scores 14195 in Passmark G3D.

When compared to other combos in the database, this pairing performs better than approximately 20% of all tested configurations, which places it in the lower-middle tier. For context, the 3001 total combos include many high-end pairings, so a rank of 2399 does not necessarily indicate a broken experience—it simply means that most other tested systems deliver higher frame rates. The data suggests that users who own this specific CPU-GPU combination should focus on 1080p or 1440p gaming with medium settings to achieve acceptable performance, as the system's ceiling is clearly defined by the graphics card's capabilities.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture (Battlemage generation) using a 5 nm TSMC process, with 19.6 billion transistors on a 272 mm² die. Its specifications include 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, with 18 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a fixed 2500 MHz clock for both base and boost, which is a unique characteristic that simplifies power delivery but also caps peak performance. The 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus provides 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but becomes a limiting factor at 4K where texture data and frame buffers demand more memory throughput.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Arc B570 scores 14195 in Passmark G3D and 2649 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, with a percentile rank of 65 among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 20556 places it in a very tight competitive cluster: within 0.1% of the RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and Arc A750 (20582), and within 0.5% of the Quadro M4000M and R9 M390X. However, the measured FPS in Hitman 2 reveals that the GPU's real-world gaming performance is less impressive than these synthetic scores imply, particularly at higher resolutions and settings.

The Arc B570's role in this pairing is clearly the performance limiter. The data shows that at 1080p, the GPU can deliver playable frame rates (52-123 FPS depending on settings), but at 1440p, only the Low preset (79 FPS) and Medium preset (59 FPS) approach playability, while High (45 FPS) and Ultra (33 FPS) fall short. At 4K, all settings result in sub-30 FPS averages, with Ultra at just 18 FPS. This pattern suggests that the GPU's 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the demands of 4K gaming in this title, and even 1440p Ultra pushes the hardware beyond its comfort zone. The fixed 2500 MHz clock means there is no boost headroom to compensate for heavy loads, which may explain the steep performance cliff at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its best performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 123 FPS, Medium achieves 93 FPS (min 79, max 106), High yields 70 FPS, and Ultra drops to 52 FPS. The 71 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p indicates that the GPU has enough headroom at this resolution to respond to settings changes, but the step from Medium to High (23 FPS drop) is steeper than from Low to Medium (30 FPS drop), suggesting that High settings introduce effects that disproportionately tax the Arc B570.

At 2560x1440, performance falls off noticeably. Low settings still manage 79 FPS, but Medium drops to 59 FPS (min 50, max 68), High falls to 45 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 33 FPS. The minimum FPS of 50 at 1440p Medium is concerning for competitive play, as dips below 60 FPS can cause perceptible stutter. The 1440p results show a 46 FPS spread between Low and Ultra, which is narrower than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is becoming the bottleneck and settings changes have diminishing returns.

At 3840x2160, the system is clearly overmatched. Low settings deliver 42 FPS, Medium drops to 32 FPS (min 27, max 36), High falls to 24 FPS, and Ultra manages only 18 FPS. The 4K Medium result, with its 27 FPS minimum, is particularly telling—it shows that even the mid-range preset cannot maintain a stable frame rate, and the 18 FPS at Ultra is effectively unplayable. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at the same settings shows severe degradation: High drops from 45 to 24 FPS (47% reduction), Medium from 59 to 32 FPS (46% reduction), and Low from 79 to 42 FPS (47% reduction). This consistent ~47% reduction across settings at 4K confirms that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the limiting factor, with the 10 GB VRAM and 160-bit bus unable to handle the increased memory pressure of 4K textures and higher pixel counts. The data paints a clear picture: this combination is best suited for 1080p gaming at Medium or High settings, with 1440p viable only at Low or Medium, and 4K entirely out of reach for smooth gameplay.