Hitman 2

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame-rate data for Hitman 2 with the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 shows a clear hierarchy across the four quality presets at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 131.7 FPS average, which is exceptionally fluid for a stealth title requiring precise timing. The Medium preset drops to 96.4 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while High yields 78 FPS and Ultra falls to 53.6 FPS. For players prioritizing smoothness at 1080p, Medium offers the best balance: it retains 96.4 FPS while providing substantially better visual fidelity than Low, and it sits 42.7% faster than High in raw frame-rate terms.

At 2560x1440, the picture shifts. Low produces 85.8 FPS, Medium drops to 61.1 FPS, High manages 47.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 35.8 FPS. Here, Medium is the only preset that keeps average framerates above 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice for 1440p displays. The gap between Low and Medium at this resolution is 24.7 FPS, which suggests the RTX 2060 has enough headroom to absorb the extra shading work without collapsing into stutter territory. High at 47.7 FPS is playable but risks dipping below 40 FPS in dense crowd scenes, which is problematic for a game where reaction speed matters.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 2060 is clearly overmatched. Low yields 43.2 FPS, Medium 32.9 FPS, High 25.9 FPS, and Ultra 20.3 FPS. None of these presets achieve 60 FPS, and even Low falls short of the 45 FPS minimum that many players consider acceptable for action. The data indicates that 4K is not a viable option for this combination, regardless of settings. The best experience across all resolutions is Medium at 1080p, which delivers 96.4 FPS — a 43.8% improvement over High at the same resolution while maintaining competitive visual quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is the limiting factor in this pairing, and the benchmark results make that evident. The GPU carries 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a modest capacity by modern standards, and Hitman 2's large, detailed environments can pressure VRAM at higher presets. The measured frames show that Ultra settings at 1080p drop to 53.6 FPS, a 44.4% reduction from Medium's 96.4 FPS. That steep decline suggests the RTX 2060's 1920 shading units and 48 ROPs are saturated by the Ultra preset's additional geometry and post-processing, not just memory constraints.

The GPU's clock behavior also matters. With a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost of 1680 MHz, the RTX 2060 maintains respectable frequency under load, but the Turing architecture's FP32 throughput of 6.451 TFLOPS is modest for a game released in 2018 that has received ongoing optimization. The 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present but largely irrelevant here, as Hitman 2 does not rely heavily on ray tracing or DLSS in its standard rendering path. The GPU's percentile rank of 58 among all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16074, places it near the mid-range. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 7600S, scores 15996 (0.5% lower), while the Radeon Pro 5700 scores 16351 (1.7% higher) — all within a tight band.

At 1440p, the RTX 2060's 6 GB frame buffer becomes a real constraint. The drop from Low's 85.8 FPS to Medium's 61.1 FPS is 24.7 FPS, but the further drop to High's 47.7 FPS indicates texture streaming and memory pressure. The GPU's 336.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for 1080p Medium but struggles to feed the higher-resolution buffers at Ultra, where 4K performance collapses to 20.3 FPS. The data strongly indicates that the RTX 2060's role in this combo is to deliver solid 1080p and playable 1440p performance, with no headroom for enthusiast-class settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 96.4 FPS. Moving to 1440p Medium drops that to 61.1 FPS, a 36.6% reduction. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 32.9 FPS, a further 46.2% decline from 1440p. This pattern is consistent with GPU-bound scaling — the RTX 2060's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth cannot keep pace with the 4x pixel count increase from 1080p to 4K. The CPU, a 24-core, 32-thread Intel Core i9-14900K with a boost clock of 6.00 GHz, is nowhere near saturation. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and single-core score of 7040 place it in the 97th percentile of all CPUs, far beyond what Hitman 2's engine demands.

The Low preset scaling tells the same story. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 131.7 FPS; at 1440p Low, 85.8 FPS (34.9% drop); at 4K Low, 43.2 FPS (49.7% drop). The consistent ~35-50% reductions across presets confirm that the GPU is the limiting component at every resolution above 1080p. At 1080p, the CPU's massive headroom — evidenced by its Passmark single-thread score of 4697 and multi-thread score of 58674 — ensures that even Ultra settings at 53.6 FPS are limited by the GPU, not the processor. This is a textbook case of a high-end CPU paired with a mid-range GPU, where resolution increases disproportionately penalize frame rates.

The data shows that 4K is effectively unplayable for this combo, with the best 4K result (Low at 43.2 FPS) still below the 60 FPS target. The 1440p results are borderline, with Medium being the only acceptable preset. For 1080p, the combo has surplus CPU capacity that goes unused, meaning future GPU upgrades would yield immediate FPS gains without CPU bottlenecks.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1080p on this combo?

A: Medium provides the best experience at 96.4 FPS average. It is 34.9% faster than High (78 FPS) and only 35.3 FPS slower than Low (131.7 FPS), while offering substantially better visual quality than Low.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Hitman 2?

A: No. The best 4K result is Low at 43.2 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. Ultra at 4K averages only 20.3 FPS, making it unplayable. The RTX 2060's 6 GB memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for 4K rendering.

Q: Is the Intel Core i9-14900K bottlenecking the RTX 2060?

A: No. The CPU is in the 97th percentile of all processors with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872, far exceeding Hitman 2's requirements. The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K are consistent with GPU limitation, not CPU constraint.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 16074. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 7600S, scores 15996 (0.5% lower), while the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 scores 16351 (1.7% higher). All are within a narrow performance band.

Q: What FPS can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 47.7 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold and may feel stuttery in action sequences. Medium at 61.1 FPS is the recommended 1440p preset for smoother gameplay.

Q: Does the GPU's VRAM capacity affect Ultra settings?

A: Yes. The 6 GB GDDR6 frame buffer, combined with 1920 shading units, causes Ultra settings to drop to 53.6 FPS at 1080p and 35.8 FPS at 1440p. The steep performance falls suggest memory bandwidth and capacity limits, not just compute saturation.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i9-14900K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 combination ranks 1484th out of 1795 tested combos for Hitman 2, placing it in the bottom 17.3% of all configurations. This low rank is almost entirely attributable to the GPU, not the CPU. The i9-14900K alone sits in the 97th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79824. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7413, scores 80041 (0.3% higher), while the Intel Core i9-14900KF scores 79245 (0.7% lower). The CPU is a top-tier part with no meaningful competition in this context.

The RTX 2060, by contrast, sits in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 16074. This mid-range positioning drags the combo's overall rank down. The measured frame rates confirm this imbalance: at 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 96.4 FPS, which is respectable but far below what the CPU could support if paired with a stronger GPU. The 1484th rank out of 1795 combos means that roughly 83% of tested configurations outperform this pairing in Hitman 2, even though many of those combos likely use weaker CPUs.

The data suggests that this combo is a poor match for Hitman 2 specifically because the GPU cannot leverage the CPU's extraordinary headroom. The i9-14900K's 24 cores and 32 threads, with a boost clock of 6.00 GHz, are designed for heavy multi-threaded workloads and high-refresh-rate gaming, but the RTX 2060's 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput caps the frame rate far below what the CPU could deliver. For players who own this combo, the practical takeaway is that upgrading the GPU would yield dramatic FPS improvements without any CPU-related bottleneck. The rank reflects a fundamental imbalance rather than a poorly performing component.