Hitman 2

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti delivers a highly variable experience in Hitman 2, with performance dictated almost entirely by the graphics preset and resolution. The data reveals a system that can achieve smooth frame rates at lower settings but struggles to maintain playability at the highest visual quality, particularly at 4K.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake-R architecture, built on a 10 nm process. Its base clock runs at 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, and it carries 33 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor also supports dual-channel DDR4 and DDR5 memory, and features an integrated UHD Graphics 770 unit. In synthetic benchmarks, the chip posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44534 and a single-core score of 6287, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 18896 and a single-core score of 2932. Its Passmark multithread score reaches 52392, and it ranks in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70074.

In the context of Hitman 2, a stealth title from 2018, the CPU's role is substantial but not typically the primary constraint at higher resolutions. The game's engine is known to scale with both single-thread and multi-thread performance, and this processor offers ample headroom for both. The single-core performance, evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6287, ensures that game logic, AI pathfinding, and physics calculations are handled with minimal latency. The high boost clock of 5.60 GHz is particularly relevant for maintaining consistent frame pacing in scenes with dense crowds or complex scripting.

However, the measured FPS data suggests that the CPU is rarely the limiting factor in this pairing. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 147.9 FPS, which is a high enough frame rate to indicate that the processor is feeding the GPU effectively. The delta between the i7-14700K and its nearest rivals is negligible; for instance, it is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and 1.4% behind the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 in average benchmark scores. This means that swapping the CPU for a comparable part would likely produce nearly identical frame rates in Hitman 2, reinforcing that the GPU is the dominant performance variable in this setup.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip, fabricated on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's base clock is 1410 MHz with a boost clock of 1665 MHz, and it contains 4864 shading units, 152 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operations pipelines. Its compute capabilities include 16.20 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 38 ray tracing cores. In synthetic tests, the GPU scores 20349 in Passmark G3D and 10006 in Passmark GPU Compute, placing it in the 69th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 25120.

The RTX 3060 Ti's 8 GB VRAM is a critical factor in Hitman 2 at high resolutions. The game's levels are dense with geometry and textures, and at 4K Ultra settings, the memory capacity and bandwidth become significant. The measured FPS drops from 60.1 at 1080p Ultra to 22.5 at 4K Ultra, a decline of over 60%, which points to the GPU being overwhelmed by the pixel count and texture loads. The GPU's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6600 and AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, have nearly identical average scores with deltaPct values of -0.5% and -0.7% respectively, indicating that the RTX 3060 Ti's performance tier is well-established. But in Hitman 2, the 8 GB frame buffer appears to hit a wall at 4K, where even Medium settings yield only 36.1 FPS.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal balance between visual fidelity and playability is found at 1440p with High settings. This configuration yields 52.8 FPS, which is above the 50 FPS threshold generally considered playable for a stealth game. Moving to 1440p Ultra drops the frame rate to 39.4 FPS, which is noticeably less smooth and could compromise the precise timing required for stealth mechanics. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 82.3 FPS, offering a very fluid experience, but the visual upgrade to 1440p is substantial for a game that relies on environmental detail and shadow play.

For players prioritizing frame rate above all, 1080p Low settings achieve 147.9 FPS, which is far beyond what a 60 Hz or even 144 Hz monitor needs. However, this sacrifices too much visual quality. The Medium presets provide a compromise: 107.4 FPS at 1080p and 68.1 FPS at 1440p. The data suggests that 1440p High is the sweet spot. At 4K, no preset is truly viable; even Low settings only reach 48.6 FPS, and High and Ultra fall to 25.5 and 22.5 FPS respectively. Therefore, the recommendation is to use 1440p High for the best experience, as it maintains a playable frame rate while preserving the game's visual strengths.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

In the aggregate ranking of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Hitman 2, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti sits at rank 1320 out of 1795 combos. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the database, which is a surprising result given the individual components' benchmark standings. The CPU ranks in the 96th percentile among all processors, and the GPU is in the 69th percentile, yet the combined performance in this game does not place them in the top half of tested systems.

This discrepancy can be attributed to the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions, which drags down the overall ranking. The combo's rank of 1320 suggests that many other pairings, likely those with more powerful GPUs or less demanding CPUs, achieve better average frame rates across the tested settings. The data indicates that the RTX 3060 Ti is the bottleneck, especially at 4K, where its performance collapses. In contrast, a combo with a stronger GPU like the RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT would likely rank significantly higher, even with the same CPU. The ranking reflects the fact that Hitman 2 is heavily GPU-bound at high settings, and this GPU's 8 GB VRAM and mid-range compute power limit the overall experience.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The frame rate scaling across resolutions paints a clear picture of the system's balance. At 1080p High, the combo produces 82.3 FPS. Moving to 1440p High reduces this to 52.8 FPS, a drop of about 36%. Going further to 4K High yields 25.5 FPS, a further decline of over 50% from the 1440p result. This pattern is consistent across all settings presets. For example, at Ultra settings, the frame rates go from 60.1 FPS at 1080p to 39.4 FPS at 1440p and finally to 22.5 FPS at 4K. The scaling is not linear; the drop from 1440p to 4K is proportionally larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p.

This behavior indicates that the system is heavily GPU-limited. The CPU's performance is constant across resolutions, and its strong single-core scores suggest it can handle the game's logic at any frame rate. The GPU, however, must render four times the pixels at 4K compared to 1080p, and the RTX 3060 Ti's 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth and 16.20 TFLOPS of compute power are insufficient to maintain playable frame rates at that resolution. The fact that even Low settings at 4K struggle to reach 50 FPS confirms that the GPU is the primary constraint. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect similar frame rates across resolutions at the same settings, but the data shows a steep decline, proving that the GPU's rendering and memory subsystems are saturated.