Hitman 2

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination delivers a highly playable Hitman 2 experience across most settings and resolutions, with the data indicating that the "High" preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate. At 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 62 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. While the 1080p High preset reaches 97 FPS, the jump to 1440p provides a significant increase in image clarity without sacrificing the 60 FPS floor, making it the sweet spot for this pairing. For users with high-refresh-rate 1080p displays, the Medium preset at 129 FPS is the optimal choice, as it delivers a substantial frame rate advantage over High while maintaining a reasonable level of visual quality. The "Ultra" preset, while available, should be avoided at all resolutions given the measured performance drops, as it pushes the system to 72 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, and a marginal 24 FPS at 4K, which is below the playable threshold for most users.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy of settings presets for this hardware configuration, with the "Medium" preset emerging as the most versatile option across all resolutions. At 1080p, the Medium preset delivers 129 FPS, which is 32 FPS higher than High and only 42 FPS lower than Low, making it an excellent choice for competitive or fast-paced play where frame rate matters most. The Medium preset also shows a minimum FPS of 109, ensuring that even during demanding scenes, the frame rate remains well above the 60 FPS mark. At 1440p, the Medium preset maintains 82 FPS with a minimum of 70 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth and provides a 20 FPS advantage over the High preset's 62 FPS. This makes Medium at 1440p the recommended configuration for users prioritizing a high and consistent frame rate with moderate visual enhancements.

For users who prefer maximum visual quality without compromising playability, the High preset at 1440p is the best choice, as it delivers 62 FPS average with no reported minimum FPS below 60. The High preset at 1080p is also a strong option at 97 FPS, but the relative gain in visual fidelity from High to Ultra does not justify the performance cost, as Ultra at 1080p drops to 72 FPS. The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates (171 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 58 FPS at 4K), should be reserved for users who prioritize frame rate above all else, as the visual downgrade is substantial. At 4K, the Medium preset is the only viable option for a playable experience, as it achieves 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 FPS, which is borderline but acceptable for slower-paced stealth gameplay; the High preset at 33 FPS and Low at 58 FPS represent the extremes, with Low being the only 4K option that maintains a smooth experience.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 serves as the primary rendering engine in this configuration, and its specifications directly explain the observed performance scaling in Hitman 2. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s, which is sufficient for the game's asset streaming at 1080p and 1440p but becomes a limiting factor at 4K. The GPU's boost clock of 2460 MHz, combined with its 3072 shading units and 48 ROPs, delivers a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s, which are the key metrics for rasterization-heavy games like Hitman 2. The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, enables the RTX 4060 to achieve a FP32 performance of 15.11 TFLOPS, which is more than adequate for this 2018 title.

The data shows that the RTX 4060's performance ceiling is reached at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 24, indicating that the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory interface are insufficient for the high-resolution textures and effects demanded by the Ultra preset. The transition from 1440p High (62 FPS) to 4K High (33 FPS) represents a 47% performance drop, which is steeper than the resolution scaling alone would suggest, pointing to memory bandwidth constraints. In contrast, the RTX 4060's performance at 1080p is exceptional, with the Low preset hitting 171 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions. The GPU's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present but largely unused in this game, as Hitman 2 does not support ray tracing or DLSS, meaning the raw rasterization performance is the sole determinant of frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 2018 out of 3711 tested combos for Hitman 2, placing it in the 54th percentile of all configurations. This ranking reflects a mid-pack position, which is surprising given the high-end CPU paired with a mid-range GPU. The ranking suggests that the RTX 4060's performance characteristics, particularly its 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus, hold back the overall combo in this game, preventing it from achieving a higher standing. The combo's rank is likely influenced by the fact that many other tested configurations feature higher-tier GPUs with more memory bandwidth, which are better suited to Hitman 2's demanding 4K Ultra settings.

The CPU's individual benchmark percentile is high, with the i9-14900K ranking in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, but this does not translate to a top-tier combo ranking in this game, as Hitman 2 is primarily GPU-bound at higher resolutions. The GPU's own percentile of 61 places it in the lower half of the performance distribution, and its nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the AMD Radeon HD 7790, which has an average score 0.2% lower, and the AMD Radeon 780M, which is 0.3% higher. This close grouping indicates that the RTX 4060's raw computational power is competitive with older and integrated graphics solutions, but its memory subsystem limitations are exposed in a game like Hitman 2 that scales well with memory bandwidth. The combo's rank of 2018 out of 3711 suggests that users should temper expectations for 4K gaming, but the performance at 1080p and 1440p is solid for the mid-range GPU class.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo provides a comprehensive picture of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 171 FPS, which is the highest frame rate measured for this configuration, and it drops to 129 FPS on Medium, 97 FPS on High, and 72 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 1080p shows a minimum FPS of 109 and a maximum of 148, indicating excellent frame time consistency. Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 110 FPS, Medium drops to 82 FPS with a minimum of 70 and maximum of 95, High produces 62 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46 FPS. The 1440p results show a clear pattern of diminishing returns as settings increase, with the gap between Low and Medium being 28 FPS, Medium to High being 20 FPS, and High to Ultra being 16 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance takes a significant hit, with the Low preset averaging 58 FPS, Medium at 44 FPS with a minimum of 37 and maximum of 50, High at 33 FPS, and Ultra at 24 FPS. The 4K Medium preset is the only 4K configuration that maintains a minimum FPS above 30, making it the only viable option for a consistent experience at that resolution. The data reveals a consistent pattern where the Medium preset offers the best FPS-per-setting ratio at all resolutions, as it captures most of the visual improvements over Low while avoiding the performance cliff associated with High and Ultra. The Ultra preset at 4K, with an average of 24 FPS, is unplayable by any standard, and even the High preset at 33 FPS is borderline for a stealth game that requires precise timing and visibility.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K provides critical insight into which component is the limiting factor in this configuration. At the Low preset, the frame rate drops from 171 FPS at 1080p to 110 FPS at 1440p (a 36% decrease) and then to 58 FPS at 4K (a 47% decrease from 1440p). This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as the CPU has ample headroom given its high single-core performance. The fact that the i9-14900K can deliver 171 FPS at 1080p Low suggests that the game is not CPU-limited at lower resolutions, and the frame rate drops are directly attributable to the RTX 4060's rendering workload increasing with pixel count.

At the High preset, the scaling is even more pronounced, with frame rates dropping from 97 FPS at 1080p to 62 FPS at 1440p (a 36% decrease) and then to 33 FPS at 4K (a 47% decrease from 1440p). This steeper decline at higher settings confirms that the GPU's memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s is insufficient to handle the increased texture and shading demands at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the most severe scaling, from 72 FPS at 1080p to 46 FPS at 1440p (a 36% decrease) and then to 24 FPS at 4K (a 48% decrease from 1440p). The consistent ~36% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~47% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the scaling is purely resolution-driven, with the GPU's compute and memory resources being the sole determinant of performance. This analysis strongly suggests that the RTX 4060 is the limiting component, and the CPU's 24 cores and 32 threads are more than sufficient for this game's demands.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K plays a supporting role in this configuration, but its specifications are critical for ensuring that the GPU is not bottlenecked at lower resolutions. The CPU features 24 cores (8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores) and 32 threads, with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. This high boost clock, combined with a large 36 MB L3 cache, ensures that the CPU can feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic data at frame rates exceeding 170 FPS. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multicore score of 39399.5 and single-core score of 2262.5 demonstrate its exceptional processing power, which is overkill for Hitman 2's requirements but provides headroom for background tasks and future games.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 171 FPS, which is the maximum frame rate measured, and this is likely close to the CPU's limit for this game. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4697 places it in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, confirming its ability to handle the game's single-threaded physics and AI calculations. However, the CPU's role becomes less significant as resolution increases, with the frame rate dropping to 58 FPS at 4K Low, which is a 66% reduction from 1080p. This indicates that the GPU is the sole limiting factor at 4K, as the CPU is capable of maintaining high frame rates but is starved by the GPU's inability to render frames faster. The i9-14900K's 125W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide flexibility for system builders, but the benchmark results clearly show that the RTX 4060 is the component that determines the overall gaming experience in Hitman 2.