Hitman 2

# Hitman 2 with Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER produces a compelling but resolution-sensitive experience in Hitman 2, with the data showing a system that excels at 1080p, remains playable at 1440p, and struggles to maintain smooth frame rates at 4K. This combination ranks 1725 out of 3001 tested combos in this game, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database, yet the measured results reveal a clear story about where the bottleneck shifts as pixel count increases.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about the limiting component in this pairing. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 90 at 1920x1080 to 58 at 2560x1440, then plummets to 31 at 3840x2160. That represents a 36% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 47% drop from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern suggests the GPU is increasingly the constraint as resolution rises, since the CPU workload in Hitman 2 does not scale proportionally with pixel count.

Looking at the Low preset, the scaling is even more revealing. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 159 FPS, which drops to 102 FPS at 1440p and 54 FPS at 4K. The fact that 4K Low still only produces 54 FPS—less than half the 1080p Low result—strongly indicates the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated at higher resolutions. The GPU's 1605 MHz base clock and 1770 MHz boost clock simply cannot sustain the fill rate demands of 3840x2160, even with reduced graphical fidelity.

The Medium preset provides the most complete data with min/max FPS values, and the scaling here confirms the GPU-bound nature at high resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the average is 120 FPS with a range of 102 to 137 FPS. At 1440p Medium, this falls to 76 FPS (65-88 FPS range), and at 4K Medium, it drops to 41 FPS (35-47 FPS range). The consistent downward pressure across all presets suggests that neither the CPU nor the GPU is idle—rather, the system is hitting a wall where the GPU's raw throughput (9.062 TFLOPS FP32) becomes insufficient for 4K rendering while still handling 1080p with relative ease.

Ultra settings amplify this trend dramatically. The system manages 67 FPS at 1080p Ultra, 43 FPS at 1440p Ultra, and only 23 FPS at 4K Ultra. The 4K Ultra result is below playable thresholds, and the gap between 1440p Ultra (43 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (67 FPS) reveals that even mid-range resolutions strain the GPU when all effects are enabled. The data implies that for 4K gaming, users would need to accept Low or Medium settings at best, and even then, the 54 FPS at 4K Low is marginal for smooth gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy of playable experiences across the three resolutions. At 1920x1080, every preset achieves playable frame rates, but the Medium preset stands out as the sweet spot. The 120 FPS average with a minimum of 102 FPS ensures consistent performance, while High at 90 FPS and Ultra at 67 FPS offer diminishing returns for the visual upgrade. Low at 159 FPS is certainly smooth, but the visual sacrifice is unnecessary given the headroom available.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again emerges as the recommended choice. The 76 FPS average with a 65 FPS minimum is comfortably within smooth gameplay territory, while High at 58 FPS is still playable but begins to show strain. Ultra at 43 FPS dips below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider ideal, and Low at 102 FPS, while fast, sacrifices too much visual quality for a game like Hitman 2 where stealth mechanics benefit from environmental detail.

For 3840x2160, the data presents a more challenging situation. Low at 54 FPS is the only preset that approaches playable frame rates, but even this is marginal. Medium at 41 FPS and High at 31 FPS are noticeably choppy, while Ultra at 23 FPS is effectively unplayable. The recommendation here is clear: if 4K is a priority, users must accept Low settings, or alternatively, consider dropping to 1440p where Medium delivers a far better balance of visual fidelity and performance.

The Medium preset's consistency across all resolutions—with the only complete min/max data in the dataset—suggests it is the most stable configuration for this hardware combination. The minimum FPS values at each resolution (102 at 1080p, 65 at 1440p, 35 at 4K) indicate that even during demanding scenes, the frame rate does not collapse entirely, which is crucial for a stealth game where sudden performance drops can disrupt gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 1725 out of 3001 tested combinations, this pairing sits in the 57th percentile of all tested systems for Hitman 2. This placement is somewhat surprising given the individual component rankings—the CPU sits in the 85th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 65th percentile among all GPUs. The combination performs worse than the average of its parts would suggest, which indicates that Hitman 2's specific engine characteristics may not favor this particular pairing.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (deltaPct 0), the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (deltaPct -0.2), and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (deltaPct -0.4). These processors all perform within 0.5% of the Core Ultra 5 225 in average benchmark scores, suggesting that the CPU is not a differentiator in this game's performance. The GPU's nearest rivals—the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (deltaPct -1), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (deltaPct -1.2), and the Intel Arc B570 (deltaPct -1.3)—also cluster closely, indicating the RTX 2070 SUPER is in a competitive tier where small performance differences are common.

The ranking data implies that while this combo is not exceptional for Hitman 2, it is far from the bottom of the barrel. The 1725th position out of 3001 means roughly 57% of tested combinations perform better, but the measured FPS data shows this pairing can still deliver enjoyable experiences at 1080p and 1440p with appropriate settings. The gap between the combo's rank and what the individual component percentiles suggest may reflect Hitman 2's engine being more sensitive to certain hardware characteristics, such as the GPU's 8 GB VRAM capacity or the CPU's 10-core/10-thread configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data reveals a consistent pattern across all resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 159 FPS on Low, 120 FPS on Medium (102-137 FPS range), 90 FPS on High, and 67 FPS on Ultra. These numbers show a clear progression where each step up in settings costs roughly 25-30% of performance, which is typical for a game with scalable graphical options.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates drop to 102 FPS on Low, 76 FPS on Medium (65-88 FPS range), 58 FPS on High, and 43 FPS on Ultra. The percentage drops from 1080p are consistent: approximately 36% for Low, 37% for Medium, 36% for High, and 36% for Ultra. This uniform scaling across all presets indicates that resolution is the dominant factor, independent of the specific graphical settings applied.

At 3840x2160, the system manages only 54 FPS on Low, 41 FPS on Medium (35-47 FPS range), 31 FPS on High, and 23 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper than the drop from 1080p to 1440p, with Low falling 47%, Medium falling 46%, High falling 47%, and Ultra falling 47%. This accelerated degradation at 4K strongly suggests the GPU is hitting a hard limit, likely related to memory bandwidth or fill rate constraints rather than raw compute power.

The Medium preset's min/max data provides additional insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p, the 102-137 FPS range shows a 35 FPS spread, which expands slightly to a 23 FPS spread at 1440p (65-88 FPS) and narrows to a 12 FPS spread at 4K (35-47 FPS). This narrowing at higher resolutions indicates that the system becomes more consistently GPU-bound, with less variation in frame times as the GPU becomes the sole limiting factor.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Hitman 2?

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 is the optimal resolution, delivering 90 FPS on High and 120 FPS on Medium. At 2560x1440, Medium achieves 76 FPS which is still playable, but 4K performance drops to 54 FPS even on Low settings.

Q: Can this system handle Ultra settings in Hitman 2?

A: At 1080p, Ultra runs at 67 FPS which is acceptable. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 43 FPS which is marginal, and at 4K, Ultra produces only 23 FPS which is not playable. The data suggests Medium is the highest preset that maintains smooth performance across most resolutions.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 20282, with its closest rival being the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M at 20480 (1% higher). The RTX 3070 Mobile is 1.2% faster, the Intel Arc B570 is 1.3% faster, and the Intel Arc A750 is 1.5% faster.

Q: What is the CPU's performance ranking relative to other processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 sits in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, scores 36945, which is essentially tied, while the Ryzen 5 5500X3D is 0.2% faster and the Intel Core i9-12900T is 0.5% faster.

Q: Is this combo better suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming?

A: The data shows 1080p is the clear sweet spot, with all presets achieving at least 67 FPS. At 1440p, only Low and Medium presets exceed 60 FPS, while High and Ultra fall below. For consistent 60+ FPS gameplay, 1080p with High settings or 1440p with Medium settings are the recommended configurations.

Q: How does the combo rank overall in this game?

A: This pairing ranks 1725 out of 3001 tested combinations for Hitman 2, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This is below what the individual component rankings (85th percentile CPU, 65th percentile GPU) might suggest, indicating the game's engine does not fully leverage this hardware combination.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 brings 10 cores and 10 threads to this pairing, running at a base clock of 3.30 GHz with a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. This Arrow Lake-S architecture processor, built on a 3 nm TSMC process, delivers strong single-thread performance as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655 and multi-core score of 25891. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data locality for game engines that rely on frequent memory access patterns.

In Hitman 2, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU based on the resolution scaling data. The fact that frame rates drop consistently across all resolutions and settings suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck—if it were, we would expect to see more consistent frame rates at lower resolutions where the GPU has less work to do. The 159 FPS result at 1080p Low indicates the CPU is capable of feeding frames at high rates, and the uniform percentage drops when moving to higher resolutions point to GPU limitations.

However, the CPU's 10-core/10-thread configuration without hyper-threading may limit performance in certain game scenarios. Hitman 2, released in 2018, likely benefits from higher clock speeds over additional cores, and the 4.90 GHz boost clock is well-suited to this workload. The PassMark single-thread score of 4412 places this CPU in a competitive position, though its nearest rivals all score within 0.5% in average benchmarks, indicating that processor choice makes minimal difference at this performance tier.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the dominant factor in this pairing's performance, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm TSMC process, includes 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores, give this GPU a solid feature set for 2019-era gaming hardware.

The 4K performance data clearly implicates the GPU as the limiting component. Even at Low settings, the GPU can only manage 54 FPS at 3840x2160, which represents a 66% drop from the 1080p Low result of 159 FPS. This dramatic reduction suggests the GPU's memory bandwidth and fill rate are insufficient for the pixel throughput required at 4K. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while respectable for its generation, is spread across 8.3 million pixels at 4K, resulting in significantly reduced effective performance per pixel.

The GPU's 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20282, places it in a competitive mid-range tier. Its nearest rivals all score within 1.5% of this figure, indicating that the RTX 2070 SUPER is well-matched against contemporary alternatives. The PassMark G3D score of 18169 and DirectX 12 score of 67 provide additional context for its DirectX 12 Ultimate capabilities, which Hitman 2 can leverage for improved visual effects. The 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 performance is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but falls short of what modern 4K titles demand.