Hitman 2

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination delivers a wide performance envelope in Hitman 2, with the data showing a clear transition from a CPU-bound state at lower resolutions to a GPU-bound state as resolution and settings increase. The measured frame rates reveal how this pairing scales across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, with the CPU’s massive thread count and the GPU’s substantial memory bandwidth each playing distinct roles depending on the workload. This analysis uses only the measured FPS data and hardware specifications provided, interpreting what the numbers indicate about the system's behavior in this specific stealth title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, but the pattern varies significantly by quality preset, revealing where the bottleneck shifts. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 321 FPS at 1920x1080 to 203.9 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 36.5%. Moving to 3840x2160 at Low, the average drops further to 112.9 FPS, representing a 64.8% decrease from the 1080p figure. This steep decline indicates that even at the lowest graphical load, the RTX 5080 is still heavily taxed by the pixel count increase, though the i9-14900K’s 24 cores and 32 threads keep the framerate high enough to avoid any CPU limitation.

At Medium settings, the scaling is similar: 237.7 FPS at 1080p, 156.7 FPS at 1440p, and 80.9 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K here is 66.0%, slightly steeper than at Low, suggesting that the additional shading work at Medium amplifies the GPU load. The High preset shows 181.2 FPS at 1080p, 116.6 FPS at 1440p, and 62.1 FPS at 4K, with a 65.7% reduction from 1080p to 4K. This consistency across presets—roughly a two-thirds loss from 1080p to 4K—indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, with the GPU’s 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 10752 shading units becoming the limiting component as pixel count rises.

Ultra settings present the most extreme case: 132.1 FPS at 1080p, 87.4 FPS at 1440p, and only 44.1 FPS at 4K. The 4K figure is 66.6% lower than the 1080p result, the largest proportional drop across all presets. This suggests that the Ultra preset’s additional effects—likely including higher-quality shadows and reflections—place a disproportionate burden on the GPU’s 112 ROPs and 336 TMUs at higher resolutions. Notably, the gap between 1080p and 1440p at Ultra is 33.8%, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 49.5%, showing that the scaling penalty accelerates as resolution increases. The data implies that at 1080p Ultra, the i9-14900K’s boost clock of 6.00 GHz still provides enough headroom to push beyond 130 FPS, but at 4K, the GPU’s raw throughput is the sole limiting factor.

The pattern across all presets shows that 1080p results are consistently high enough to suggest CPU involvement—especially at Low with 321 FPS—but the 4K results uniformly drop below 113 FPS, even at Low. This indicates that the GeForce RTX 5080, with its 256-bit memory bus, becomes the primary constraint at 4K, while the CPU’s 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 32 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions without becoming a significant barrier.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080’s performance in Hitman 2 is defined by its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and a 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, both of which are critical for handling the game’s large, detailed environments at high resolutions. The GPU’s boost clock of 2617 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz provide the computational throughput, with 10752 shading units and 112 ROPs determining the pixel fill rate (293.1 GPixel/s) and texture rate (879.3 GTexel/s). The measured FPS data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average of 44.1 FPS is well below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the GPU is saturated by the combination of high resolution and maximum settings. This is not a CPU limitation—the i9-14900K is far more capable than needed here—but rather the RTX 5080’s rendering pipeline being fully utilized.

Comparing to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the RTX 5080’s average benchmark score of 59188 places it 1.6% above the Intel Arc A570M (58239) and 2.5% above the Intel Arc A580 (57756), while sitting 1.9% below the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60326). These deltaPct values are small, suggesting that in synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5080 is not dramatically ahead of these competitors, though the Hitman 2 results at 4K (e.g., 62.1 FPS at High) demonstrate that its real-world gaming performance is strong. The GPU’s 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs further contextualizes its position—it is a high-end part, but not the absolute top, which aligns with the 4K Ultra result falling below 60 FPS.

The GPU’s memory subsystem is particularly relevant in Hitman 2, where large texture datasets and draw distances benefit from the 16 GB capacity. At 4K High, the 62.1 FPS average suggests that memory bandwidth is sufficient, but the drop to 44.1 FPS at Ultra indicates that the additional memory traffic from higher-quality assets exceeds what the 960.0 GB/s can efficiently handle without causing frame rate degradation. The 1875 MHz memory clock (30 Gbps effective) is a key specification here, as it directly feeds the 256-bit bus, and the data shows that this configuration is capable of 112.9 FPS at 4K Low, proving that the GPU is not inherently limited at 4K—only when settings increase does the load become prohibitive.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K’s role in this combination is to provide enough processing power to avoid becoming a bottleneck, and the data shows it succeeds admirably at 1080p but becomes less relevant at higher resolutions. With 24 cores and 32 threads, the CPU offers exceptional multi-threaded performance, reflected in a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 20370. Its boost clock of 6.00 GHz and base clock of 3.20 GHz ensure that single-threaded workloads, which Hitman 2 relies on for game logic and AI, are handled with minimal latency. The 1080p Low result of 321 FPS is a clear indicator that the CPU is not the limiting factor at lower resolutions, as this framerate far exceeds what most displays can show, and it demonstrates that the i9-14900K can feed the RTX 5080 with sufficient data to maintain high frame rates.

The CPU’s 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache are crucial for reducing memory latency in a game like Hitman 2, where the player moves through complex, NPC-filled levels. The 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs places the i9-14900K near the top of the performance hierarchy, and its nearest rivals show minimal deltas: it is 0.3% below the AMD EPYC 7413 (80041 avg score), and 0.7% above the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79245) and Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (79240). These tiny margins suggest that in CPU-bound scenarios, the i9-14900K is interchangeable with its closest competitors, but its high clock speeds give it an edge in gaming workloads that prioritize single-thread performance.

At 1080p Ultra, the CPU’s 6.00 GHz boost clock helps maintain 132.1 FPS, which is still high but 58.8% lower than the Low preset’s 321 FPS. This drop is primarily due to the GPU’s increased workload, but the CPU’s role in handling physics and AI remains constant. The implication is that the i9-14900K is more than adequate for Hitman 2—even at 4K Ultra, the 44.1 FPS result is not caused by CPU limitations, as the same CPU can produce 321 FPS at 1080p Low. Instead, the data shows that the CPU’s 32 threads and high cache capacity provide a stable foundation, with the GPU being the sole determinant of performance at higher resolutions and settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p High settings?

A: The measured average frame rate is 181.2 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings, which is well above typical display refresh rates and indicates that the CPU-GPU combination is not stressed at this resolution.

Q: How does performance change from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 Medium, the average FPS is 156.7, while at 3840x2160 Medium, it drops to 80.9 FPS. This represents a 48.4% reduction, showing that the GPU’s rendering load increases significantly with resolution.

Q: Is the Intel Core i9-14900K a bottleneck at 4K Ultra?

A: No. The 4K Ultra result of 44.1 FPS is primarily limited by the GPU, as the same CPU produces 321 FPS at 1080p Low, demonstrating that the CPU has ample headroom and the GPU is the constraining component.

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks in the 89th percentile among all GPUs, based on its average benchmark score of 59188, indicating it is a high-performance part but not the single fastest option.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-14900KF?

A: The i9-14900K has an average benchmark score of 79824, which is 0.7% higher than the i9-14900KF’s 79245, placing them within a negligible performance margin.

Q: What is the FPS drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low?

A: The average FPS falls from 321 at 1920x1080 Low to 112.9 at 3840x2160 Low, a decrease of 64.8%, showing the substantial impact of resolution even at minimal graphical settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 85th out of 1795 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the top 4.7% of all configurations in the database. This rank is notable because it reflects the balance between the CPU and GPU—the i9-14900K’s 97th percentile CPU score and the RTX 5080’s 89th percentile GPU score combine to produce a system that excels in this game, but does not dominate the top tier. The rank of 85 suggests that there are 84 other combinations that achieve higher average FPS in Hitman 2, likely involving even more powerful GPUs or CPUs that are better tuned for this specific title.

The data shows that this combo’s strongest performance is at 1080p, where it achieves 321 FPS at Low settings, but its 4K Ultra result of 44.1 FPS is below the 60 FPS target, which may explain why it does not rank higher. The GPU’s 1.6% deltaPct above the Intel Arc A570M in synthetic benchmarks indicates that the RTX 5080 is not overwhelmingly ahead of mid-range competitors, and in a game like Hitman 2 that is not overly demanding, the gap narrows further. Compared to the CPU’s rivals, the i9-14900K’s 0.7% lead over the i9-14900KF and Core Ultra 7 265KF is negligible, meaning that the combo rank is largely determined by the GPU’s performance.

The 85th rank out of 1795 combos reflects a system that is well above average, but not at the absolute pinnacle. For context, the top-ranked combos likely pair the RTX 5080 with a CPU that has even higher single-thread performance or with a more powerful GPU altogether. The measured FPS data confirms that this combo is capable of smooth gameplay at 1440p High (116.6 FPS) and acceptable performance at 4K Medium (80.9 FPS), but it struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra. This positioning suggests that the combination is best suited for high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming or 4K at reduced settings, and its rank of 85 reflects this balanced but not top-tier status. The percentile rankings of both components reinforce this: the CPU is near the top, but the GPU, while strong, is not the fastest available, resulting in a combo that is excellent for most users but not the ultimate choice for maximum 4K performance.