Hitman 2

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Hitman 2 with the Intel Core i7-14700K and Intel Arc B570 show a clear and expected progression as resolution increases, but the rate of decline reveals important characteristics about this specific pairing. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 70 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops that to 45 FPS, a reduction of roughly 36%. Pushing further to 3840x2160 yields just 24 FPS, which represents another 47% decline from the 1440p result and a total drop of about 66% from the 1080p baseline.

This scaling pattern strongly suggests the GPU becomes the dominant limiting factor as resolution climbs. The Arc B570, with its 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus delivering 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, appears to be increasingly strained at higher pixel counts. The compute resources — 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 80 ROPs — are fixed, and the data indicates that the 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is insufficient to maintain playable rates at 4K with this game's High preset.

Looking at the Low preset scaling tells a similar story but with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 123 FPS. At 1440p Low, it falls to 79 FPS, a 36% drop. At 4K Low, it reaches 42 FPS, which is a 47% decline from 1440p and a 66% drop from 1080p. The consistent percentage drops across presets suggest that the scaling is resolution-driven rather than settings-driven, reinforcing the conclusion that the GPU is the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The Ultra preset, by contrast, shows the most severe degradation. The 1080p Ultra result of 52 FPS falls to 33 FPS at 1440p and 18 FPS at 4K. This 65% total reduction from 1080p to 4K on Ultra is nearly identical to the percentage drop seen on High and Low presets, which indicates that the GPU's memory subsystem and shading throughput are being taxed proportionally regardless of quality level. The data shows a system where the i7-14700K is more than capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions, but the Arc B570's architectural limits become the hard ceiling once pixel count increases.

FAQ

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between 1080p and 4K on High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 High, the combo delivers 70 FPS. At 3840x2160 High, it drops to 24 FPS, a reduction of 46 FPS or approximately 66% lower performance.

Q: Does the Intel Arc B570 maintain playable frame rates at 1440p in Hitman 2?

A: The data shows 45 FPS on High, 59 FPS on Medium, and 79 FPS on Low at 2560x1440. The Medium preset at 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS is the only 1440p row that consistently stays above 60 FPS territory, though it does not reach it on average.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at the same resolution?

A: At 1080p, Ultra yields 52 FPS versus 70 FPS on High, a 26% reduction. At 1440p, Ultra gives 33 FPS versus 45 FPS on High, a 27% reduction. At 4K, Ultra produces 18 FPS versus 24 FPS on High, a 25% reduction.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo based on measured results?

A: The only resolution where all four presets remain above 30 FPS is 1920x1080, where even the Ultra preset averages 52 FPS. At 1440p, the Ultra preset falls to 33 FPS, and at 4K, only the Low preset (42 FPS) manages to stay above 30 FPS.

Q: Is the i7-14700K or the Arc B570 the limiting factor in this game?

A: The resolution scaling data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The consistent percentage drops from 1080p to 4K across all presets, combined with the CPU's high benchmark scores, point to the Arc B570's fixed compute and memory resources as the constraint.

Q: What minimum FPS can be expected at 1080p Medium settings?

A: The measured minimum for 1920x1080 Medium is 79 FPS, with an average of 93 FPS and a maximum of 106 FPS.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570's specifications directly explain the measured performance in Hitman 2. This GPU, built on the Xe2-HPG architecture and manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC, has a base and boost clock of 2500 MHz. The memory configuration consists of 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus, providing 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 2375 MHz, which translates to 19 Gbps effective.

The pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s are the throughput figures that matter most for a game like Hitman 2, which renders complex indoor environments with many reflective surfaces and crowds. The 18 ray tracing cores are present in the architecture, but the standard rasterization performance appears to be the primary driver of the measured results. The FP32 compute of 11.52 TFLOPS places this GPU in a specific performance tier, and the benchmark results reflect that positioning.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 65 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20556, places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Arc A750 (20582, deltaPct -0.1). The proximity of these scores — within 0.1% of the RTX 3070 Mobile and -0.1% of the Arc A750 — indicates that the B570 sits in a narrow performance band. The measured Hitman 2 results are consistent with a GPU that competes at this level: capable at 1080p, adequate at 1440p with settings compromises, and marginal at 4K.

The 10 GB memory capacity becomes relevant at higher resolutions and quality settings. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 18 suggests that both memory bandwidth and capacity are being pushed hard. The 160-bit bus is narrower than what higher-tier GPUs use, and the 380.0 GB/s bandwidth is a hard ceiling that cannot be overcome by the 2500 MHz clock speed. The data shows that the GPU's resources are exhausted by the combination of high resolution and high settings, making the Ultra preset at 4K essentially unplayable.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700K and Intel Arc B570 ranks 2986 out of 3711 tested combos for Hitman 2. This places the pairing in the lower portion of the overall distribution — roughly the 20th percentile of all tested combinations. The rank reflects the GPU's mid-tier positioning more than the CPU's strength, as the i7-14700K is a high-end processor in its own right.

To contextualize this rank, the CPU's benchmark percentile is 94 among all CPUs, while the GPU's percentile is 65 among all GPUs. The 29-point gap between these percentiles indicates a significant imbalance in this pairing. The CPU is capable of much higher frame rates in GPU-bound scenarios, but the Arc B570 holds the system back. The combo rank of 2986 out of 3711 suggests that many other pairings — likely those with stronger GPUs and weaker CPUs — outperform this specific configuration in Hitman 2.

The CPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the AMD EPYC 9115 (deltaPct 0.1), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (deltaPct -0.2), AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (deltaPct -0.7), and AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (deltaPct -0.9). These deltas are all under 1%, indicating that the i7-14700K is statistically tied with these processors in average benchmark score. The GPU's nearest rivals, as noted, are similarly close in aggregate performance. This means the combo's rank is not a function of an unusually weak CPU or GPU individually, but rather the specific pairing of two mid-to-high-tier components where the GPU caps the gaming performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings produces a spread from 52 to 123 FPS. The Low preset averages 123 FPS, making it the only row in the entire dataset to exceed 120 FPS. The Medium preset averages 93 FPS with a minimum of 79 FPS and a maximum of 106 FPS. The High preset averages 70 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 52 FPS. This resolution is the only one where every preset maintains an average above 50 FPS, and it is the only resolution where the Ultra preset remains above 30 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the averages compress downward. Low averages 79 FPS, Medium averages 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS, High averages 45 FPS, and Ultra averages 33 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 50 FPS is notable because it indicates that even the minimum frame time stays above the 30 FPS playability threshold, though it does dip below 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 33 FPS is barely above what many would consider playable, and the High preset at 45 FPS is smoother but still below 60.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely suboptimal. Low averages 42 FPS, Medium averages 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 36 FPS, High averages 24 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 27 FPS falls below the 30 FPS threshold, and the High and Ultra presets are both below 25 FPS on average. Only the Low preset at 4K achieves an average above 30 FPS.

The data shows a linear relationship between settings and FPS at each resolution. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 71 FPS. At 1440p, that gap narrows to 46 FPS. At 4K, it shrinks to 24 FPS. This narrowing indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU is so saturated that changing settings has less impact on performance because the pixel fill rate becomes the dominant cost.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data provides only one viable option: 1920x1080 with the Low preset, which averages 123 FPS, or the Medium preset at 93 FPS. The Medium preset is the highest quality setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS, and its minimum of 79 FPS ensures that even the worst frame times stay well above the target. The High preset at 1080p averages 70 FPS, which is above 60 but with a narrower margin.

If the priority is visual quality over raw frame rate, the 1080p High preset at 70 FPS offers the best balance of the measured rows. It provides a substantial improvement over Medium without the steep cost of Ultra, which drops to 52 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p is playable but the 26% reduction from High makes it a less attractive choice given the diminishing visual returns typical of the Ultra tier.

At 1440p, no preset achieves an average of 60 FPS. The Medium preset at 59 FPS is the closest, with a minimum of 50 FPS. This is the recommended 1440p configuration for players who can tolerate occasional dips below 60. The Low preset at 79 FPS is the only 1440p option that exceeds 60 FPS on average, making it the choice for competitive play or high refresh rate monitors. The High preset at 45 FPS and Ultra at 33 FPS are both below the 60 FPS threshold and should be avoided by players sensitive to frame pacing.

At 4K, the only viable option is the Low preset at 42 FPS, and even that is below 60. The Medium preset at 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS is borderline playable but will exhibit noticeable stutter in busy scenes. The High and Ultra presets at 24 FPS and 18 FPS respectively are not recommended for any gameplay scenario. The data suggests that 4K gaming with this combo requires significant settings compromises that undermine the visual benefits of the higher resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on a 10 nm process. Its base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, which is critical for Hitman 2's game logic and AI systems. The cache hierarchy — 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 — supports the high boost clock with fast data access.

The CPU's benchmark results confirm its high-end positioning. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 33440.5 and single-core score of 2160 indicate strong performance in both heavily threaded and lightly threaded workloads. The Geekbench multicore score of 20767 and single-core score of 2569 further reinforce this. The PassMark multithread score of 52392 and single-thread score of 4472 place the processor in the top tier of desktop CPUs.

In the context of Hitman 2, the CPU's role is to maintain frame pacing and handle the game's simulation layer. The measured results show that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 123 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of driving frame rates well above 120 in this game when the GPU is not the constraint. The fact that the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher resolutions and settings is not a reflection of CPU weakness but rather a signal of the i7-14700K's headroom.

The CPU's percentile of 94 among all CPUs means it outperforms the vast majority of processors in aggregate benchmarks. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, is within 0.2% in average benchmark score, indicating that the i7-14700K is at parity with the best consumer processors from its generation. The data shows that in Hitman 2, the CPU is never the limiting factor in any measured configuration; the Arc B570's performance ceiling is reached long before the i7-14700K's capabilities are exhausted. This is evident from the resolution scaling, where FPS drops proportionally with pixel count rather than showing CPU-related stutters or inconsistent frame times.