Hitman 2

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers a distinctly CPU-favorable balance in Hitman 2, a stealth title from 2018 where the processor’s 16 cores and 24 threads provide substantial headroom. The chip’s base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz, built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 30 MB shared L3 cache, allow it to handle the game’s AI-driven crowd simulations and complex scripting without breaking a sweat. This is reflected in synthetic benchmarks like Cinebench R23, where the CPU scores 39,000 in multicore and 5,505 in single-core, while PassMark’s multithread test shows 45,887. The processor sits in the 93rd percentile versus all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 47,282 places it within a razor-thin margin of its nearest rivals: it trails the Intel Core i7-13700KF by only 0.1%, edges out the AMD EPYC 4364P by 0.3%, and leads the Intel Core i9-12900F by 0.4%. In Hitman 2, this CPU muscle ensures that even at lower resolutions where frame rates climb past 170 FPS, the processor is never the bottleneck, allowing the graphics card to operate at its full potential.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, with its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is the primary driver of Hitman 2’s visual output. Its RDNA 2.0 architecture, built on a 7 nm process by TSMC, includes 2,560 shading units and 40 ray accelerators, with boost clocks reaching 2581 MHz and a game clock of 2424 MHz. The card’s 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power makes it a robust performer for a 2018 title, though the data shows its limits at higher settings. In the GPU percentile rankings, it sits at 77th, with an average benchmark score of 33,721. Its nearest rivals are telling: the AMD Radeon RX 6800 scores 0.7% higher, while the NVIDIA RTX A5000 is 1.3% ahead, but the RX 6700 XT actually outperforms the older AMD Radeon HD 7950 and RX 480 by 1% each. In Hitman 2, the GPU’s 12 GB frame buffer proves sufficient even at 4K Ultra, but the card’s raw throughput becomes the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the GPU pushes 176.1 FPS, but by 1440p High it drops to 65.4 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to just 23 FPS, clearly indicating that the RX 6700 XT’s compute resources, not memory capacity, constrain performance in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frames per second across resolutions reveal a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, with the processor’s influence diminishing as pixel count rises. From 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average frame rate drops from 98.8 FPS to 65.4 FPS, a reduction of 33.8 FPS. Moving from 1440p to 4K at High, the frame rate falls from 65.4 FPS to 32.9 FPS, nearly halving again. This steep decline—from 98.8 FPS at 1080p to 32.9 FPS at 4K, a total drop of 65.9 FPS—indicates that the RX 6700 XT is the dominant constraint once resolution increases. The CPU’s role becomes clearer at lower resolutions: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 176.1 FPS, which is more than double the 4K High result, showing that the i7-13700K can feed the GPU ample frames but the card simply cannot render them at 4K. The scaling is consistent across settings, with Medium at 1080p hitting 131.1 FPS versus 43.9 FPS at 4K Medium, a 66.5% reduction. This pattern confirms that Hitman 2 at 4K is entirely GPU-limited, while at 1080p the balanced combo allows the CPU’s headroom to shine through, though even at 4K Low the 57.6 FPS result shows the GPU still holds its own when settings are dialed back.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured rows, the optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance occurs at Medium settings for most resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 131.1 FPS, which is comfortably above the 98.8 FPS of High while sacrificing minimal visual quality in a game where stealth mechanics rely more on environmental clarity than extreme detail. At 1440p, Medium produces 81.2 FPS, a strong result that keeps the gameplay smooth on high-refresh monitors, while High drops to 65.4 FPS and Ultra falls to 44.6 FPS, the latter being borderline for action sequences. For 4K users, Medium yields 43.9 FPS, which is playable but not ideal; High at 4K drops to 32.9 FPS, and Ultra becomes nearly unplayable at 23 FPS. Low settings, while boosting frame rates significantly—176.1 FPS at 1080p and 57.6 FPS at 4K—strip away the atmospheric lighting and shadow details that define Hitman 2’s stealth sandboxes. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot, offering a 33% improvement over High at 1080p (131.1 versus 98.8 FPS) and a 50% improvement at 4K (43.9 versus 32.9 FPS) without the harsh visual compromises of Low. Ultra, while technically available, is not recommended at any resolution given its performance floor of 73.8 FPS at 1080p and 23 FPS at 4K, making it suitable only for screenshot purposes rather than actual gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination ranks 1024th out of 1,795 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. This percentile position—roughly the 57th percentile—reflects a system that is solid but not exceptional for this specific title. The ranking is influenced by the GPU’s 77th percentile standing among all graphics cards, which is lower than the CPU’s 93rd percentile, indicating that the graphics card is the weaker link in this pairing. In practical terms, this means the combo excels at 1080p and 1440p gaming where the CPU can flex its strength, but it falls behind at 4K where the RX 6700 XT’s 13.21 TFLOPS cannot compete with higher-tier GPUs. The rank of 1024 out of 1795 suggests there are 771 combos that perform better, largely those with more powerful graphics cards like the RX 6800, which beats the RX 6700 XT by 0.7% in average score, or the RTX A5000, which leads by 1.3%. However, the combo still outperforms many others, and the data shows that in Hitman 2 specifically, the i7-13700K’s 5.40 GHz boost clock helps maintain high minimum frame rates in crowded scenes, even if the overall average FPS at 4K Ultra (23 FPS) drags down the ranking. For a stealth game requiring precise timing, the combo’s ability to hold 65.4 FPS at 1440p High is more relevant than raw 4K performance, and its 1024th rank reflects that it is a capable mid-range performer that trades top-tier 4K capability for strong 1080p and 1440p playability.