Hitman 2

Hitman 2 with the Intel Core i5-9400 and Intel Arc B370 produces a narrow band of playable results, and the data suggests that users should prioritize settings over resolution when seeking a smooth experience. The measured frames per second (FPS) across all tested configurations show that the combination is best suited for 1080p gaming, with the Low preset delivering the only consistently fluid result. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 73 FPS, which is the highest recorded figure in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at the same resolution drops to 54 FPS average, with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 63 FPS, which remains acceptable for most gameplay. High settings at 1080p yield 41 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 30 FPS average. Given that the game is a stealth title where reaction times matter but twitch reflexes are less critical, the Medium preset at 1080p offers the best balance between visual fidelity and performance, as it stays above the 30 FPS threshold even in its minimum frame time. For users who demand higher frame rates, Low at 1080p is the only configuration that approaches the 60+ FPS mark, but the visual compromise is significant. At 2560x1440, no preset reaches 60 FPS, with Low averaging 46 FPS, Medium at 35 FPS, High at 26 FPS, and Ultra at 19 FPS. At 3840x2160, all presets fall below 30 FPS, with Low averaging 25 FPS, Medium at 19 FPS, High at 14 FPS, and Ultra at 10 FPS. The recommendation is clear: run the game at 1920x1080 with Medium settings for a playable experience that preserves some graphical detail, or drop to Low if frame rate stability is the primary concern.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B370 ranks 3428 out of 3711 tested combos for Hitman 2, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. This percentile position reflects the GPU’s extremely low benchmark standing, as the Arc B370 sits at the 5th percentile among all GPUs in the database. The CPU, by contrast, is more capable, ranking at the 47th percentile among all CPUs, which suggests that the graphics card is the primary bottleneck in this pairing. The combo’s rank in the game specifically is not flattering, but it is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows playable performance only at 1080p with lower presets. The nearest GPU rivals in terms of average benchmark score are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000, all of which have average scores within 1.4% of the Arc B370’s 1184 score. These are all legacy parts from over a decade ago, which underscores how far behind the Arc B370 is in raw compute performance. The CPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, Intel Core i7-10710U, AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500, and Intel Core i3-10305, with average scores within 0.4% of the i5-9400’s 2254 average. This indicates that the CPU is competitive with mid-range chips from its era, but the GPU drags the entire system down to the bottom tier of gaming performance. The data suggests that this combo is only suitable for older or less demanding titles, and even then, only at lower resolutions and settings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is a mobile-class integrated graphics solution built on the Xe3-LPG architecture with a 3 nm process node. It features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 render output units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. The base clock runs at 300 MHz, boosting to 2400 MHz, which gives it a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is rated at 6.144 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 12.29 TFLOPS (2:1). The GPU uses system shared memory, meaning its VRAM size, type, bus width, and bandwidth are all system dependent, which is a significant limitation for gaming. In Hitman 2, the GPU’s performance is the deciding factor in nearly every resolution and settings combination. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark score of 1184 places it at the 5th percentile overall, just barely above the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, -0.2% delta) and below the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, -0.5% delta). The shared memory architecture means that the GPU must compete with the CPU for the same memory bandwidth, which is capped at 42.7 GB/s for the i5-9400’s dual-channel DDR4 setup. This explains why the FPS drops so sharply as resolution increases, as the GPU must access more data per frame but has no dedicated high-bandwidth VRAM. The TDP of 25 W is extremely low, confirming that this is not designed for demanding workloads. In practice, the Arc B370 can handle Hitman 2 at 1080p Low with 73 FPS, but at 4K Ultra it collapses to 10 FPS, which is a 86% reduction. The GPU’s low RO count of 20 also limits fill-rate-bound scenarios, which is evident in the steep drop from Medium to Ultra settings at any given resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), for a total of 12 configurations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 73 FPS, which is the only result above 60 FPS in the entire dataset. Medium at 1080p averages 54 FPS, with a minimum of 46 and a maximum of 63, indicating some frame time variance but generally smooth gameplay. High at 1080p averages 41 FPS, and Ultra drops to 30 FPS average. Stepping up to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 46 FPS, Medium averages 35 FPS (minimum 30, maximum 40), High averages 26 FPS, and Ultra averages 19 FPS. At 3840x2160, performance becomes marginal across the board: Low averages 25 FPS, Medium averages 19 FPS (minimum 16, maximum 21), High averages 14 FPS, and Ultra averages 10 FPS. The data reveals a consistent pattern: each step up in settings reduces FPS by roughly 25-30%, regardless of resolution. For example, at 1080p, moving from Low to Medium costs 19 FPS (73 to 54), Medium to High costs 13 FPS (54 to 41), and High to Ultra costs 11 FPS (41 to 30). This consistent scaling suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor at all settings, as a CPU-bound scenario would show diminishing returns at higher resolutions. The minimum FPS data is only available for Medium settings, where 1080p shows 46 FPS, 1440p shows 30 FPS, and 4K shows 16 FPS. These minimums indicate that the game does not experience severe stutters, but the overall averages are too low for competitive play at 1440p or 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p and then to 4K is steep and reveals that the system is heavily GPU-bound. At 1080p Low, the average is 73 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, the average drops to 46 FPS, a 37% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 25 FPS, a 66% reduction from 1080p. For Medium settings, the progression is 54 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p (35% drop), and 19 FPS at 4K (65% drop). High settings show 41 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p (37% drop), and 14 FPS at 4K (66% drop). Ultra settings are 30 FPS at 1080p, 19 FPS at 1440p (37% drop), and 10 FPS at 4K (67% drop). The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings presets is telling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would not scale so linearly with resolution, as the CPU workload would remain roughly constant while the GPU workload increases. Instead, the near-identical percentage drops across all presets indicate that the GPU is maxed out even at 1080p Low, and every additional pixel requires proportionally more GPU work. The shared memory architecture exacerbates this, as the GPU’s memory bandwidth is system dependent and likely becomes a severe constraint at higher resolutions. The data suggests that 1080p is the only viable resolution for this combo, and even then, users must accept either lower settings or lower frame rates. At 1440p, the best case is 46 FPS on Low, which is playable but not ideal. At 4K, the entire experience is sub-30 FPS, making it unsuitable for action-oriented stealth gameplay.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It has a 9 MB shared L3 cache, with 64 KB L1 and 256 KB L2 per core. The CPU supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s, and it uses the Intel Socket 1151 with PCIe Gen 3 (16 lanes). In benchmark tests, it scores 668 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 94 in single-core, 2784 in Cinebench R20 multi-core, 392 in single-core, 6629 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 935 in single-core, 5141 in Geekbench multi-core, and 1389 in single-core. Its average benchmark score is 2254, placing it at the 47th percentile among all CPUs. The nearest CPU rivals are the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259, -0.2% delta), Intel Core i7-10710U (2248, 0.3% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (2246, 0.4% delta), and Intel Core i3-10305 (2264, -0.4% delta). These scores indicate that the i5-9400 is a mid-range processor from 2018, capable of handling modern games’ CPU demands but not exceptional. In Hitman 2, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the consistent FPS scaling with resolution. However, the CPU’s 6 threads are sufficient for the game’s AI and physics systems, as the game does not appear to be thread-limited based on the data. The boost clock of 4.10 GHz provides adequate single-thread performance for game logic, and the 9 MB L3 cache helps with data locality. The CPU’s TDP of 65 W is modest, and its production status is end-of-life, but this does not affect its current performance. The key observation is that the CPU is not the bottleneck, as the FPS drops at higher resolutions are purely attributable to the GPU. If the CPU were struggling, we would see similar FPS numbers across resolutions, but instead the 4K results are roughly one-third of the 1080p results, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in Hitman 2?

A: The highest average FPS is 73, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Is this combo capable of running Hitman 2 at 4K resolution?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160, the best average FPS is 25 on Low settings, which is below the 30 FPS threshold typically considered playable. Ultra settings at 4K produce only 10 FPS average.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B370 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B370 has an average benchmark score of 1184, which is within 1.4% of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190), AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192), and AMD FirePro M2000 (1168). It ranks at the 5th percentile among all GPUs.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested configurations for Hitman 2?

A: The combo ranks 3428 out of 3711 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more in this game?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. The FPS drops by roughly 37% from 1080p to 1440p and 66% from 1080p to 4K across all settings, which indicates GPU-bound scaling. The CPU’s percentile rank (47th) is much higher than the GPU’s (5th).

Q: Which settings preset provides the best balance of frame rate and visual quality?

A: At 1920x1080, the Medium preset offers an average of 54 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS, which is the highest average above 30 FPS that retains some graphical detail. Low at 1080p is the only preset to exceed 60 FPS, averaging 73 FPS.