Hitman 2

Hitman 2 paired with the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is a lopsided combination: a modern Blackwell-class desktop GPU bolted to a Meteor Lake mobile processor with a 28 W TDP. The benchmark data shows exactly what that mismatch produces. Frame rates are strong at 1080p and 1440p, but the CPU's ceiling shows up at low settings and low resolution, where the Ultra 5 135H runs out of headroom before the RTX 5070 does. The combo ranks 2058 out of 3711 tested configurations in this game, placing it in the middle of the pack — respectable, but far from the top of the leaderboard for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling story across resolutions is unusually flat at the low end, and that flatness is the tell. At Low settings, the average frame rate goes from 169 FPS at 1920x1080, to 108 FPS at 2560x1440, to 57 FPS at 3840x2160. A pure GPU-bound game would typically lose far more performance than this when quadrupling the pixel count from 1080p to 4K. Instead, the 1080p Low figure of 169 FPS represents a hard ceiling that the Core Ultra 5 135H — with its 14 cores, 18 threads, and 4.60 GHz boost clock under a 28 W envelope — simply cannot push past.

The picture changes as resolution climbs. At Medium settings, frame rates fall from 127 FPS at 1080p to 81 FPS at 1440p and 43 FPS at 4K, with min/max spread of 108-146 at 1080p, 69-93 at 1440p, and 37-50 at 4K. Those minima are worth watching: the 1%-style dips track fairly close to the averages, indicating consistent frame pacing rather than stutter-inducing spikes, which matters in a stealth game where a dropped frame mid-assassination can ruin a run.

At High and Ultra settings the workload shifts decisively to the GPU. High runs at 96 FPS at 1080p, 61 FPS at 1440p, and 33 FPS at 4K; Ultra drops to 70, 45, and 24 FPS respectively. The gap between resolutions narrows further here — the GPU is now the limiting component at every resolution, and the CPU's contribution to the bottleneck effectively disappears. In short: CPU-bound at Low and Medium at 1080p, GPU-bound everywhere else.

How This Combo Ranks

The pairing ranks 2058 out of 3711 tested CPU/GPU combinations in Hitman 2. That puts it above the median configuration for this game but well outside leaderboard territory. The reason is straightforward: Hitman 2, released in 2018, is a title that rewards strong single-threaded CPU performance, and the Ultra 5 135H — despite decent aggregate benchmark scores — is a mobile part designed for efficiency, not for maximum gaming throughput.

Contextualizing the CPU: the Ultra 5 135H sits in the 81st percentile versus all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 29093. Its nearest rivals by aggregate score are the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (29123, a delta of -0.1 percent), the Intel Xeon Phi 7210 (29245, -0.5 percent), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT (28940, +0.5 percent), and the Intel Core i5-13500HX (29270, -0.6 percent). In other words, its multi-threaded muscle is essentially indistinguishable from these parts. But its single-thread results — 244 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 1105 in R20, 1700 in R23, and 3521 in PassMark single-thread — reflect a mobile 28 W design, and Hitman 2's engine leans on that single-thread throughput for its crowd simulation and AI.

The GPU, meanwhile, ranks in the 82nd percentile versus all GPUs with an average score of 40377, including 29137 in PassMark G3D and 5077 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12). The GPU is pulling its weight; the rank of this combo reflects the processor dragging it down at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 brings serious silicon to a 2018 game. Built on the GB205 chip using TSMC's 5 nm process, it packs 31,100 million transistors into a 263 mm² die — a density of 118.3 million transistors per square millimeter. It has 6144 shading units, 192 TMUs, 80 ROPs, 48 RT cores, and 192 tensor cores, with a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz. Raw throughput stands at 30.87 TFLOPS FP32 (with FP16 at a 1:1 rate), 201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate, and 482.3 GTexel/s texture rate.

Memory is where the 5070 has breathing room to spare for this title: 12 GB of GDDR7 on a 192-bit bus, running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) for 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Hitman 2 launched in 2018 and simply does not demand that kind of capacity or bandwidth. The data backs this up — moving from High to Ultra only costs frame rate in proportion to the added rendering load (96 to 70 at 1080p, 61 to 45 at 1440p, 33 to 24 at 4K), with no sudden collapse that would suggest VRAM saturation or bandwidth starvation. The GPU's API support — DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, OpenGL 4.6, via PCIe 5.0 x16 — comfortably covers everything the game's engine asks for.

One caveat: the RTX 5070's launch MSRP was 549 USD, it carries a 250 W TDP, uses a single 16-pin power connector, and NVIDIA suggests a 600 W PSU — none of which changes how it scores here, but all of which frames it as a lot of hardware for a game of this vintage. Its nearest rivals by average score include the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (40318, +0.1 percent), the Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40063, +0.8 percent), the Radeon Pro 5300 (40870, -1.2 percent), and the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (39568, +2 percent) — a mixed field of professional parts clustered tightly around it in aggregate score, though the 5070's modern feature set and ray-tracing hardware place it in a different class for gaming workloads like this one.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures below are measured average frame rates from the database, flagged as measured data rather than estimates.

1920x1080:

• Low: 169 FPS (average)
• Medium: 127 FPS average, min 108, max 146
• High: 96 FPS (average)
• Ultra: 70 FPS (average)

2560x1440:

• Low: 108 FPS (average)
• Medium: 81 FPS average, min 69, max 93
• High: 61 FPS (average)
• Ultra: 45 FPS (average)

3840x2160:

• Low: 57 FPS (average)
• Medium: 43 FPS average, min 37, max 50
• High: 33 FPS (average)
• Ultra: 24 FPS (average)

The 1080p numbers are the most playable across the board: even Ultra delivers 70 FPS, and Medium's floor of 108 FPS makes it a smooth experience throughout. At 1440p, Medium and High remain comfortably above 60 FPS on average, with Medium never dipping below 69. Ultra at 1440p at 45 FPS is playable but no longer smooth under stress. 4K is where the experience degrades: Medium's minimum of 37 FPS and High's average of 33 FPS sit below common refresh thresholds, and Ultra at 24 FPS average is not a viable way to play a precision stealth game. The Medium min/max spreads at every resolution are notably tight relative to their averages, which points to stable frame delivery rather than erratic performance.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Hitman 2 at 4K comfortably?

A: Not really. At 3840x2160, averages are 57 FPS on Low, 43 FPS on Medium (with a minimum of 37), 33 FPS on High, and 24 FPS on Ultra. Only the Low preset approaches what most players would consider smooth at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the bottleneck?

A: It depends on the resolution and settings. The flat Low-settings scaling (169 FPS at 1080p versus 57 FPS at 4K) indicates the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H is the limit at low resolution and settings. At High and Ultra presets, the RTX 5070 becomes the limiting component at every resolution.

Q: What is the best settings combination for high frame rates?

A: 1080p Medium: 127 FPS average with a minimum of 108 and a maximum of 146. It offers high frame rates with quality above Low while keeping frame delivery consistent.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 compare to rival GPUs in the database?

A: By average benchmark score (40377), it sits within a tight cluster: marginally ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (40318, +0.1 percent) and Radeon Pro WX 7100 (40063, +0.8 percent), and behind the Radeon Pro 5300 (40870, -1.2 percent) while leading the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (39568, +2 percent). It ranks in the 82nd percentile among all GPUs.

Q: How does the Core Ultra 5 135H stack up against comparable CPUs?

A: Its average benchmark score of 29093 is effectively tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (29123, -0.1 percent) and within a hair of the Intel Core i5-13500HX (29270, -0.6 percent) and AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT (28940, +0.5 percent). It sits in the 81st percentile versus all CPUs.

Q: Where does this pairing rank among tested configurations in Hitman 2?

A: Rank 2058 out of 3711 tested CPU/GPU combinations — above the median but not near the top, reflecting the mobile CPU paired against a desktop-class GPU.

CPU Role

The Core Ultra 5 135H is the defining constraint of this configuration. It is a Meteor Lake mobile processor on Intel's 7 nm process, launched December 2023, with 14 cores and 18 threads, a 3.60 GHz base clock, a 4.60 GHz boost clock, and a 28 W TDP in an Intel BGA 2049 socket. Its cache hierarchy — 112 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 — and its dual-channel DDR5 memory support delivering 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth are solid for its class, and its multiplier is locked.

For Hitman 2, the relevant numbers are the single-thread results: 244 in Cinebench R15, 1105 in R20, 1700 in R23, and 3521 in PassMark single-thread. Hitman 2's engine is known for dense crowd simulation and per-NPC logic that runs heavily on a few fast threads, and a 28 W mobile part cannot sustain the per-thread performance of higher-power desktop rivals — even ones it matches in aggregate multi-threaded score, like the Ryzen 7 5800X. The multi-threaded credentials are real (1718 in R15 multi, 7834 in R20, 11875.5 in R23, 22422 in PassMark multithread, plus 1482 in PassMark physics), but they matter less here than raw single-thread grunt.

The practical consequence shows up directly in the measured data: the 169 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low. Below that point, more GPU power buys nothing. Above roughly High settings or 1440p resolution, the RTX 5070 takes over as the limiter and the CPU stops mattering. That makes this pairing coherent in one specific sense — the GPU is strong enough to ensure the CPU is only the bottleneck at settings where frame rates are already very high — but the mid-table rank of 2058 out of 3711 confirms that, for Hitman 2 specifically, a stronger processor would unlock meaningfully more of what the RTX 5070 can deliver.