Hitman 2

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus paired with the Intel Arc B370 integrated graphics produces a severely constrained gaming experience in Hitman 2. Benchmark results show this combination ranks 2768th out of 3001 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 8% of all systems measured. The data indicates a fundamental imbalance: the 24-core, 24-thread CPU is a top-tier processor, while the Arc B370's integrated graphics solution delivers performance that sits at the 5th percentile among all GPUs. This disparity defines every measurable result, with frame rates that range from playable at 1080p Low to essentially slideshow territory at 4K Ultra.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this system?

A: The only configuration that achieves a consistently playable frame rate is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which produces an average of 73 FPS. Moving to Medium at the same resolution drops the average to 54 FPS, while High and Ultra fall to 41 FPS and 30 FPS respectively, indicating that Low is the only reliable choice for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has an average benchmark score of 93785, placing it at the 96th percentile among all CPUs. Its closest competitor, the Intel Xeon 6520P, scores 93786 with a 0% delta, while the AMD EPYC 4564P scores 95183 (1.5% higher), the EPYC 9175F scores 95615 (1.9% higher), and the EPYC 4565P scores 95764 (2.1% higher).

Q: Is the Arc B370's performance competitive with discrete GPUs?

A: No. The Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it at the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186, 0.2% higher), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190, 0.5% higher), AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192, 0.7% higher), and AMD FirePro M2000 (1168, 1.4% lower), all of which are legacy mobile or entry-level desktop parts.

Q: What memory configuration does this system use?

A: The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and 115.2 GB/s bandwidth, and it supports ECC memory. The GPU, however, uses system shared memory, meaning its bandwidth is system dependent rather than having dedicated VRAM.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its single-threaded performance?

A: In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 44253 in multicore and 2439 in single-core, showing strong scaling across its 24 cores. Passmark results reinforce this, with a multithread score of 68574 versus a single-thread score of 5068, indicating the processor excels in heavily threaded workloads.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the system averages 54 FPS with a range of 46-63 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 19 FPS with a range of 16-21 FPS, representing a 35 FPS reduction that strongly indicates the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for setting choices across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, Low settings deliver 73 FPS average, which is the only configuration that comfortably exceeds the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Medium settings at 54 FPS are borderline acceptable for less demanding players, but the drop to 41 FPS on High and 30 FPS on Ultra makes those presets difficult to recommend for anything beyond static scenes or slow-paced stealth sections.

At 2560x1440, the situation deteriorates significantly. Low settings produce 46 FPS, which is playable but not ideal, while Medium drops to 35 FPS and High falls to 26 FPS. Ultra at this resolution manages only 19 FPS, making it effectively unplayable for any real-time action. The 4K results are uniformly poor: Low yields 25 FPS, Medium 19 FPS, High 14 FPS, and Ultra 10 FPS, none of which approach playability for a stealth game requiring responsive controls.

The optimal experience, balancing visual fidelity and frame rate, is 1080p with Medium settings if the user can tolerate 54 FPS, but the data strongly suggests that 1080p Low at 73 FPS is the only preset that provides a consistently smooth experience. For users prioritizing visual quality over frame rate, 1440p Low at 46 FPS is the highest resolution that remains marginally playable, though it requires significant compromise on graphical detail.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz, which is a substantial frequency range that allows it to scale performance when thermal headroom permits. The GPU has 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster output pipelines, along with 10 ray tracing cores, though these specifications translate to modest real-world performance given its 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 throughput.

Critically, the Arc B370 uses system shared memory rather than dedicated VRAM, with memory type, bus width, and bandwidth all listed as system dependent. This architecture means the GPU competes with the CPU for memory bandwidth, which is shared across the dual-channel DDR5 interface. The 115.2 GB/s theoretical bandwidth is split between processing tasks, and the integrated nature of the GPU means it cannot access the same bandwidth as a discrete solution. The 25 W TDP further constrains performance, as the GPU must operate within a very tight power envelope alongside the CPU.

The benchmark results confirm these limitations. The Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it at the 5th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all legacy parts: the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000. This places the integrated solution firmly in entry-level territory from over a decade ago, which explains why Hitman 2 frame rates are so low even at 1080p Medium settings. The GPU role in this system is fundamentally limiting, and no amount of CPU headroom can compensate for the graphics processing deficit.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Arc B370 ranks 2768th out of 3001 tested combos in Hitman 2, placing it in the bottom 7.8% of all systems measured. This ranking reflects the severe mismatch between the CPU and GPU components: the processor is a high-end desktop part with a 96th percentile average benchmark score, while the graphics solution sits at the 5th percentile, creating one of the most unbalanced configurations possible.

The ranking position is driven almost entirely by the GPU's limitations. The CPU's raw performance is exceptional for its class, but Hitman 2 is a graphically demanding title that requires substantial pixel throughput. The Arc B370's 48.00 GPixel/s pixel rate and 96.00 GTexel/s texture rate are simply insufficient for modern game rendering, particularly at higher resolutions. The combo rank of 2768 out of 3001 indicates that the vast majority of tested systems, including those with far weaker CPUs, outperform this configuration because they pair those CPUs with more capable graphics solutions.

This ranking has practical implications for users. The data shows that this combo is positioned in the bottom 10% of all tested systems, meaning it will struggle with any modern game, not just Hitman 2. While the CPU can handle the most demanding computational workloads, the integrated GPU bottleneck ensures that gaming performance remains severely limited across the board.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, built on Arrow Lake Refresh architecture using a 3 nm process from TSMC. It operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, and its 125 W TDP indicates a power-hungry but high-performance desktop part. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and 115.2 GB/s bandwidth, and it has a substantial cache hierarchy including 192 KB L1 per core, 3 MB L2 per core, and 36 MB shared L3.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates exceptional performance. Cinebench R23 multicore scores 44253, while single-core scores 2439, showing strong scaling across its 24 cores. Passmark results reinforce this, with a multithread score of 68574 and a single-thread score of 5068. The CPU's average benchmark score of 93785 places it at the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Xeon 6520P (93786, 0% delta), AMD EPYC 4564P (95183, -1.5%), AMD EPYC 9175F (95615, -1.9%), and AMD EPYC 4565P (95764, -2.1%).

In Hitman 2, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI, which it does with substantial headroom. The Passmark physics score of 4064 and data compression score of 804322 indicate strong computational capability that is far beyond what this game requires. However, the CPU's performance is largely wasted in this configuration because the GPU becomes the limiting factor at every resolution and setting. The data shows that frame rates scale more with settings changes than with resolution changes, which is unusual and indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint even at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its best results across all settings. Low settings yield an average of 73 FPS, which is the only playable configuration. Medium settings drop to 54 FPS with a range of 46-63 FPS, High settings fall to 41 FPS, and Ultra settings bottom out at 30 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 43 FPS reduction, demonstrating that the GPU struggles significantly with increased graphical fidelity even at the lowest resolution.

At 2560x1440, performance declines notably. Low settings produce 46 FPS, Medium drops to 35 FPS with a range of 30-40 FPS, High falls to 26 FPS, and Ultra manages only 19 FPS. The 1440p results show a 27 FPS difference between Low and Ultra, which is less pronounced than at 1080p but still substantial. The Medium setting at 1440p provides a 30 FPS minimum, which is the bare minimum for playability, but the average of 35 FPS leaves little room for frame time consistency.

At 3840x2160, performance collapses. Low settings average 25 FPS, Medium averages 19 FPS with a range of 16-21 FPS, High averages 14 FPS, and Ultra averages just 10 FPS. The 4K results are uniformly unplayable, with even the lowest settings failing to reach 30 FPS. The 15 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is the smallest of any resolution, suggesting that the GPU is so heavily constrained that settings changes have diminishing returns.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At Low settings, the transition from 1080p (73 FPS) to 1440p (46 FPS) represents a 37% reduction, and the further drop to 4K (25 FPS) represents another 46% reduction from the 1440p figure. This scaling is consistent with a GPU that is overwhelmed by pixel count, as the integrated Arc B370 must process four times as many pixels at 4K compared to 1080p.

At Medium settings, the scaling follows a similar pattern: 1080p averages 54 FPS, 1440p averages 35 FPS (35% reduction), and 4K averages 19 FPS (46% reduction from 1440p). The High settings show 41 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction), and 14 FPS at 4K (46% reduction). Ultra settings demonstrate the same trend: 30 FPS at 1080p, 19 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction), and 10 FPS at 4K (47% reduction).

The consistent ~37% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~46% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at every configuration. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the scaling would be less consistent and would show smaller differences at higher resolutions. Instead, the linear degradation with pixel count confirms that the Arc B370's throughput is the primary constraint, and the powerful CPU remains underutilized throughout the entire resolution range. The data suggests that users seeking better performance would need to either reduce resolution further or accept that this integrated graphics solution is fundamentally insufficient for Hitman 2 beyond 1080p Low settings.