Hitman 2

The pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 in Hitman 2 produces a decidedly GPU-bound experience at higher resolutions, but the data reveals that the six-core processor becomes a limiting factor at 1080p. Benchmark results show this combination delivers playable frame rates across most settings, with the GPU’s massive 16 GB VRAM buffer and high pixel throughput carrying the load at 4K, while the CPU’s modest 2.90 GHz base clock and 4.10 GHz boost clock cap performance in lower-resolution scenarios. The measured frame rates indicate that users should prioritize resolution over graphical presets, as the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically as pixel count increases. For a game released in 2018, Hitman 2 responds predictably to hardware scaling, and the data suggests that this specific combo is best utilized at 1440p with High settings, where the average FPS of 110 provides a smooth experience without the steep performance penalty seen at 4K Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal settings for this configuration depend heavily on the target resolution, but the measured data points to 1440p High as the sweet spot for balancing visual fidelity and frame rate. At 2560x1440, High settings yield an average of 110 FPS, which is 29 FPS higher than the 81 FPS achieved at Ultra settings, representing a 35.8% improvement in frame rate for a modest reduction in graphical quality. The jump from High to Ultra at this resolution costs 29 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High only costs 35 FPS (from 145 to 110), meaning the High preset offers the best compromise between the two extremes. At 1080p, the story changes: the Medium preset delivers 192 FPS average, which is only 22 FPS less than Low’s 214 FPS, but High drops to 172 FPS and Ultra falls to 126 FPS. The 1080p Medium setting appears to be the most efficient choice, as it maintains a 192 FPS average with a minimum of 164 FPS and a maximum of 221 FPS, indicating consistent performance without the CPU bottleneck that plagues the Low preset’s higher average.

For 4K gaming, the data shows that High settings at 58 FPS average are barely playable, while Medium at 77 FPS provides a more comfortable margin. Ultra at 4K is not viable, with an average of 43 FPS that would feel sluggish in a stealth game requiring precise timing. The Low preset at 4K produces 103 FPS, which is surprisingly high for this resolution, but the graphical sacrifices are likely too severe for a visually-driven title like Hitman 2. The Medium preset at 4K, with a minimum FPS of 66 and maximum of 89, offers the best playable experience at that resolution, providing a 34% improvement over High’s 58 FPS while maintaining acceptable visual quality. The data suggests that the GPU is the dominant factor at 4K, as the RTX 4080’s 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth are sufficient to push Medium settings to 77 FPS, but the CPU’s limitations become apparent when comparing the scaling from 1080p to 4K across presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the clear performance driver in this pairing, and the measured FPS data reflects its capabilities. The GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus provides 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Hitman 2’s texture-heavy environments at any resolution. The core clocks of 2205 MHz base and 2505 MHz boost, combined with 9728 shading units, deliver a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s, explaining why 4K Medium achieves 77 FPS while 4K Ultra drops to 43 FPS. The 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for Hitman 2, which does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS in the measured data, but they contribute to the GPU’s overall benchmark standing. The RTX 4080 ranks in the 86th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 54247, placing it just 0.1% ahead of the RTX 4080 SUPER (score 54209) and 1.1% behind the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (score 54828).

The GPU’s memory configuration deserves attention in the context of Hitman 2’s large, detailed levels. The 16 GB VRAM buffer ensures that no texture streaming or asset loading bottlenecks occur at any resolution, which is evidenced by the consistent frame rate behavior across the measured settings. At 1080p, the GPU is underutilized, as the CPU limits performance, but at 1440p and 4K, the GPU’s raw compute power becomes the deciding factor. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567 and the Passmark G3D score of 34457 confirm the GPU’s strong DirectX 12 performance, which is relevant for a game that supports modern APIs. The GPU’s 320W TDP and 700W suggested PSU are worth noting for system builders, but the measured performance shows that the RTX 4080 can handle Hitman 2’s demands without thermal throttling, as evidenced by the stable frame rates across repeated runs in the data.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern, but with a notable CPU bottleneck emerging at lower resolutions. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 172 at 1080p to 110 at 1440p (a 36% reduction) and further to 58 at 4K (a 66% reduction from 1080p). This scaling is steeper than expected for a pure GPU limit, suggesting that the CPU contributes to the bottleneck even at 1440p. At Medium settings, the pattern is similar: 192 FPS at 1080p, 145 FPS at 1440p, and 77 FPS at 4K, representing a 24.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 59.9% drop from 1080p to 4K. The Low preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 214 FPS at 1080p, 184 FPS at 1440p, and 103 FPS at 4K, with the 1080p to 1440p drop of 14% indicating that the CPU is limiting performance at 1080p, as the GPU is capable of much higher frame rates.

The Ultra preset exhibits the worst scaling, with 126 FPS at 1080p, 81 FPS at 1440p, and 43 FPS at 4K. The 1080p Ultra result of 126 FPS is particularly telling: it is 46 FPS lower than the Medium preset’s 192 FPS at the same resolution, which is a 24% reduction. This suggests that Ultra settings impose a significant GPU load even at 1080p, but the fact that Low at 1080p only reaches 214 FPS (rather than exceeding 300 FPS) indicates the CPU is capping performance at around 214 FPS. The data shows that the i5-9400, with its 6 cores and 6 threads, cannot push frame rates beyond approximately 214 FPS in Hitman 2, regardless of how light the GPU load becomes. At 4K, the CPU is no longer a limiting factor, as the GPU’s rendering demands dominate, evidenced by the 103 FPS Low result versus 43 FPS Ultra result, a 140% difference that reflects pure GPU scaling.

FAQ

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

A: The data indicates that 1440p High settings provide the best overall experience, with an average FPS of 110. This delivers a 35.8% improvement over Ultra’s 81 FPS while maintaining visual quality. At 1080p, Medium settings are optimal at 192 FPS, while 4K Medium at 77 FPS is the only playable 4K option above the 58 FPS High result.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 bottlenecking the RTX 4080 in this game?

A: Yes, at 1080p the CPU is clearly limiting performance. The Low preset at 1080p averages 214 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s maximum frame rate cap. The fact that 1080p Medium (192 FPS) is only 22 FPS lower than Low (214 FPS) while 1080p Ultra (126 FPS) is 88 FPS lower than Medium suggests the GPU is not fully utilized at lower resolutions.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54247, placing it 0.1% above the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209) and 1.1% below the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828). It also outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55698) by 2.6% and the AMD Radeon 8060S (55757) by 2.7%, though these rivals have higher scores.

Q: Why does 4K Ultra perform so poorly at 43 FPS when 4K Medium achieves 77 FPS?

A: The 34 FPS difference between Medium and Ultra at 4K represents a 79% performance penalty. This is driven by the GPU’s rendering load, as Ultra settings increase pixel shading and texture complexity. The RTX 4080’s 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 performance is insufficient to maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra in Hitman 2, despite its 16 GB VRAM buffer.

Q: What is the CPU’s performance percentile and how does it affect gameplay?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 ranks in the 47th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2254. This places it just 0.2% below the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259) and 0.3% above the Intel Core i7-10710U (2248). In Hitman 2, this mid-range positioning explains the 1080p frame rate cap of approximately 214 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 4080’s 16 GB VRAM make a difference in Hitman 2?

A: The measured data shows no VRAM-related stuttering or frame drops, as the minimum FPS values (e.g., 66 FPS at 4K Medium) are consistent with average performance. The 16 GB GDDR6X buffer with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming never becomes a bottleneck, even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU’s compute limits are the primary constraint.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 plays a supporting role in this configuration, and the measured data reveals its limitations in Hitman 2. With 6 cores and 6 threads, a base clock of 2.90 GHz, and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, this Coffee Lake Refresh processor provides adequate single-thread performance for a stealth game that relies on AI routines and physics calculations. The Cinebench R23 scores of 6629 multi-core and 935 single-core, along with Geekbench scores of 5141 multi-core and 1389 single-core, place the CPU in the 47th percentile among all processors. This mid-range positioning is reflected in the game’s frame rates at 1080p, where the CPU becomes the limiting factor. The 214 FPS average at 1080p Low is likely near the CPU’s maximum achievable frame rate in Hitman 2, as the GPU could theoretically render many more frames at this low graphical load.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy, with 64 KB L1 per core, 256 KB L2 per core, and 9 MB shared L3, provides sufficient on-die storage for Hitman 2’s level data, but the lack of hyper-threading (6 threads for 6 cores) means that the CPU cannot efficiently handle multiple simultaneous tasks. This is evident in the frame rate scaling at 1080p: the difference between Low (214 FPS) and Medium (192 FPS) is only 22 FPS, suggesting that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this range, but the difference between Medium (192 FPS) and High (172 FPS) is also 20 FPS, indicating a gradual GPU load increase. However, at 1440p, the CPU’s influence diminishes: the gap between Low (184 FPS) and Medium (145 FPS) is 39 FPS, which is larger than the 1080p gap, signifying that the GPU is now the primary constraint. The CPU’s 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth and DDR4 dual-channel support are adequate for Hitman 2, but the processor’s 65W TDP and end-of-life production status suggest it is not designed for high-refresh-rate gaming at lower resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates show a clear progression from Low to Ultra, with the CPU limiting the upper bound. The Low preset averages 214 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium settings achieve 192 FPS with a minimum of 164 FPS and a maximum of 221 FPS, indicating stable performance with occasional spikes. High settings drop to 172 FPS average, while Ultra falls significantly to 126 FPS. The 1080p data reveals that the CPU caps performance at roughly 214 FPS, as the Low preset cannot exceed this value despite the GPU having ample headroom. The gap between Medium and Ultra at 1080p is 66 FPS (192 to 126), representing a 34.4% reduction, which is a steeper drop than the 20 FPS difference between Medium and High (192 to 172).

At 2560x1440, the GPU begins to assert dominance, but the CPU still contributes to the frame rate ceiling. Low settings average 184 FPS, which is 30 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result, indicating that the GPU is now partially bound. Medium settings achieve 145 FPS with a minimum of 123 FPS and a maximum of 167 FPS, providing a smooth experience for most displays. High settings average 110 FPS, which is a 24.1% reduction from Medium. Ultra settings drop to 81 FPS, representing a 44.1% reduction from Medium and a 55.9% reduction from Low. The 1440p data shows that the RTX 4080’s performance scales predictably with graphical load, but the CPU’s 6-thread limitation still prevents the Low preset from reaching the 214 FPS seen at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is the sole bottleneck, and the CPU’s influence is negligible. Low settings average 103 FPS, which is 81 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result, a 44% reduction. Medium settings achieve 77 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 89 FPS, providing the only 4K preset with a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. High settings average 58 FPS, which is borderline playable but subject to drops below 60 FPS. Ultra settings average 43 FPS, which is not recommended for gameplay. The 4K data reveals that the RTX 4080’s 16 GB VRAM and 280.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient for Medium settings, but the 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 compute is insufficient for Ultra. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at each preset shows a consistent pattern: Low drops by 111 FPS (214 to 103, a 51.9% reduction), Medium drops by 115 FPS (192 to 77, a 59.9% reduction), High drops by 114 FPS (172 to 58, a 66.3% reduction), and Ultra drops by 83 FPS (126 to 43, a 65.9% reduction). This data confirms that the GPU’s rendering load increases proportionally with resolution, and the CPU’s role diminishes to near-zero at 4K. The combination’s overall rank in Hitman 2 is 510 out of 3711 tested combos, placing it in the top 13.7% of all configurations, which is a strong result given the CPU’s mid-range positioning.