Hitman 2

The Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the Intel Arc B580 occupies the 1409th position out of 1795 tested combinations in Hitman 2. This places the combo in the lower-middle portion of the database, meaning the configuration trails a significant majority of other tested pairings. While the individual components have respectable standings in their respective categories, the in-game result for this specific title is modest. The data indicates that this pairing is not optimized for Hitman 2, and the benchmark results reflect a system that will require settings adjustments to deliver a smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1409 out of 1795 combos places this system in the 22nd percentile of all tested configurations for Hitman 2. This is a notably low standing, suggesting that the combination of the i7-14700F and Arc B580 is not well-suited to this particular game engine. The ranking is derived from the measured average FPS across all tested settings and resolutions, and the overall performance is dragged down by particularly weak results at higher resolutions and quality presets.

The CPU itself is a strong performer in general benchmarks, scoring 35443 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and ranking in the 94th percentile against all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (0.6% faster), the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D (1.1% faster), and the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (1.2% slower). The GPU also holds its own in synthetic tests, with a Passmark G3D score of 15748, placing it in the 66th percentile. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, is just 0.7% faster, indicating the Arc B580 is a competitive graphics card in a vacuum.

However, the synergy between these two components in Hitman 2 is poor. The disparity between the CPU’s high 94th percentile ranking and the combo’s 22nd percentile ranking in-game highlights a severe bottleneck or engine inefficiency. The benchmark results indicate that the Arc B580 struggles to translate its raw compute potential into frame rate in this title, especially when compared to its synthetic benchmark standing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of how the combo scales across quality presets, and the optimal settings depend entirely on the target resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an average of 141.4 FPS, which is more than sufficient for high-refresh-rate displays. The Medium preset still offers an excellent 103.2 FPS, while High drops to 78.9 FPS. Given the large gap between Medium and High, the Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot for 1080p, offering a strong balance of visual fidelity and performance.

For 1440p gaming, the situation changes. The Low preset averages 90.6 FPS, which is still very playable. Medium drops to 69.3 FPS, and High falls further to 52.6 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs over 21 FPS, which is a significant loss. For a consistent 60 FPS experience at 1440p, the Low preset is the safest choice, though Medium may be acceptable for those who prioritize visuals over a strict frame rate cap.

At 4K, none of the presets deliver a truly smooth experience. The Low preset is the only one that breaks 30 FPS, averaging 47 FPS. Medium averages 34 FPS, High drops to 25.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to a slideshow-like 18.1 FPS. The data suggests that 4K gaming is not viable with this combo in Hitman 2, even at the lowest settings. The best experience at 4K would be Low, but even then, the frame pacing will likely be inconsistent. The recommendation is to target 1080p Medium or 1440p Low for the best overall experience.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear pattern of the GPU becoming the primary limiting factor. At the High preset, the average FPS drops from 78.9 at 1080p to 52.6 at 1440p, a 33% reduction. Moving to 4K, the frame rate collapses to 25.2 FPS, a further 52% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline indicates that the Arc B580’s rendering capabilities are being overwhelmed by the increasing pixel count.

A similar trend is visible at the Medium preset, where the average FPS goes from 103.2 at 1080p to 69.3 at 1440p, and then to 34 at 4K. The 4K result is less than half of the 1440p result, which points to a severe bandwidth or fill-rate limitation. The Arc B580 has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s, but this is evidently insufficient to maintain performance at 4K with this game’s engine.

The scaling pattern across all presets strongly suggests a GPU bottleneck. The CPU’s high Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35443 and its 20 cores and 28 threads are not being fully utilized, as the frame rate is clearly constrained by the graphics card’s ability to process frames. The performance drop from 1080p to 1440p is substantial, but the drop from 1440p to 4K is catastrophic, indicating the GPU is running out of memory bandwidth or raw shading power at the higher resolution.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Hitman 2 with this combo?

A: The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where the combo delivers consistently high frame rates across multiple presets. At 1440p, only the Low preset exceeds 60 FPS, while at 4K, even the Low preset only manages 47 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset perform at 1440p?

A: The Ultra preset at 1440p averages 37.4 FPS. This is a playable but not ideal frame rate, and it represents a significant decrease from the High preset’s 52.6 FPS. The Ultra preset is likely too demanding for a smooth experience on this hardware.

Q: Is this combo better suited for CPU-intensive or GPU-intensive games?

A: The benchmark results indicate the CPU is far stronger relative to its peers (94th percentile) than the GPU (66th percentile). The combo’s poor ranking in Hitman 2 suggests the game is GPU-limited, so the system would likely perform better in CPU-bound scenarios.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the Low preset averages 141.4 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 55.7 FPS. This represents a significant 85.7 FPS difference, meaning the Ultra preset delivers roughly 60% less performance than Low.

Q: How does the Arc B580 compare to the RTX 4060 in synthetic benchmarks?

A: According to the data, the Arc B580 has an average benchmark score of 23021, while the RTX 4060 is 0.7% faster. This indicates they are very closely matched in general GPU performance, though their in-game performance may differ.

Q: Does the combo rank change significantly based on the settings used?

A: The combo rank of 1409 out of 1795 is an aggregate score. The measured FPS data shows that the combo can achieve a 141.4 FPS average at 1080p Low, but only 18.1 FPS at 4K Ultra, demonstrating the rank is heavily influenced by the very poor high-resolution results.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture and uses the BMG-G21 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It features 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. The GPU operates at a fixed clock speed of 2670 MHz for both base and boost, which is a relatively high frequency. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at an effective speed of 19 Gbps across a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s.

In Hitman 2, the GPU’s performance is underwhelming relative to its synthetic benchmark scores. The Passmark G3D score of 15748 places it in the 66th percentile, and it is nearly identical in performance to the AMD Radeon 760M (0.1% faster) and the NVIDIA P106-100 (0.3% faster). The measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor in this game, especially at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 18.1 FPS is particularly poor, suggesting that the GPU’s memory bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s is insufficient for the demands of the game at that resolution.

The GPU’s FP32 compute power of 13.67 TFLOPS is respectable, but the game appears to be sensitive to memory throughput rather than raw compute. The performance drop from 1440p to 4K is more severe than the pixel count increase would suggest, indicating that the 192-bit memory bus is a bottleneck. The GPU’s 20 ray tracing cores are present, but their impact on this title is not evident from the measured data, which focuses on traditional rasterization performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, specifically the Raptor Lake-R refresh. It has a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with 33 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU is manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory.

The CPU’s synthetic benchmark performance is excellent, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35443 and a single-core score of 5003. It ranks in the 94th percentile against all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 54097 places it just 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X. This indicates the i7-14700F is a top-tier processor for general and multi-threaded workloads.

However, in Hitman 2, the CPU’s influence on the final frame rate is minimal. The measured FPS data shows that the frame rate scales almost entirely with the GPU load, dropping dramatically as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the CPU can feed the GPU enough data to achieve 141.4 FPS, but the game does not appear to be CPU-limited at any tested setting. The CPU’s high boost clock of 5.40 GHz and strong single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5003) are more than adequate for the game’s engine. The 28 threads and 33 MB of L3 cache provide ample headroom, meaning the CPU is not the bottleneck in this configuration. The data suggests that a less powerful CPU would likely produce very similar frame rates in this game, as the GPU is the constraining factor across all resolutions and presets.