Hitman 2

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER presents a fascinating study in bottleneck dynamics within Hitman 2. This combination, while featuring a top-tier 24-core processor, is anchored by a mid-range Turing graphics card that is now several generations old. The benchmark results across three resolutions and four quality presets illustrate a system where the GPU is the primary determinant of performance, but the CPU’s immense headroom ensures that frame pacing remains consistent even when graphical load is minimized.

Resolution Scaling

The performance trajectory from 1080p to 4K is a textbook example of GPU-bound scaling. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 145 FPS, but this drops to 93 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 49 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 66% reduction in frame rate when moving from Full HD to 4K at the lowest preset, a clear indicator that the RTX 2060 SUPER’s rendering pipeline is being saturated as pixel count increases.

The scaling pattern shifts with higher quality settings. At High settings, the average FPS goes from 82 at 1080p to 52 at 1440p and finally to 28 at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at High is roughly 66%, which is consistent with the Low preset’s scaling. However, the absolute frame rates at 4K are critically low, with the High preset producing an average of just 28 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth, playable action in a stealth title where reaction time matters.

The Medium preset offers the most granular data, with minimum and maximum FPS recorded for each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the average is 109 FPS with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 125 FPS. Stepping up to 1440p Medium, the average falls to 69 FPS, with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average plummets to 37 FPS, with the minimum dropping to 31 FPS and the maximum reaching only 43 FPS. These figures reveal that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and shading capabilities are the limiting factors, as the performance degradation is almost perfectly linear with the increase in pixel count.

The most demanding scenario, Ultra at 4K, yields an average of just 21 FPS, which is unplayable. The data clearly shows that this combo is not designed for 4K gaming in Hitman 2, regardless of the preset. The RTX 2060 SUPER’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the high-resolution textures and effects that the Ultra preset demands. The limiting component is unequivocally the graphics card, as the CPU’s performance headroom is never tested by the frame rates observed.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations for Hitman 2, this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is ranked 2133 out of 3001 total combos. This places it in the lower half of all tested systems, which is a significant underachievement given the CPU’s standing in the overall processor hierarchy. The CPU alone sits in the 96th percentile of all processors tested, with an average benchmark score of 84003, yet the combo’s in-game rank is dragged down by the GPU.

The GPU itself is ranked in the 62nd percentile of all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 18093. When compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 2060 SUPER is virtually tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile (deltaPct of -0.4), the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 (deltaPct of -0.5), and the AMD Radeon RX 460 (deltaPct of -1.5). This cluster of scores indicates that the GPU’s raw compute capabilities are comparable to those of a mobile part, which explains why it struggles to drive high refresh rates at 1440p and beyond.

The disparity between the CPU’s elite status and the GPU’s mid-range standing is the defining characteristic of this combo. The data suggests that this pairing is poorly balanced for Hitman 2, as the processor’s capabilities are largely wasted in a scenario where the GPU becomes the bottleneck well before the CPU can flex its 24 cores. The rank of 2133 out of 3001 suggests that there are many other combos with more balanced pairings that would deliver a superior gaming experience, even if their processors are far less powerful on paper.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the TU106 chip using a 12 nm process, with 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. It has 34 ray tracing cores and 272 tensor cores, which are part of the Turing architecture’s feature set. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s.

In Hitman 2, the GPU’s role is paramount. The measured frames show that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 145 FPS, but this drops to 60 FPS at Ultra. The RTX 2060 SUPER’s 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is enough to handle the game’s geometry at lower resolutions and settings, but it struggles to maintain high frame rates when the pixel shader load increases. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K Ultra, the game’s texture sets likely exceed the available memory, contributing to the 21 FPS average.

The GPU’s performance relative to its peers is telling. It sits within 1.6% of the AMD Radeon RX 460 and the Intel Arc A770M, which are not known for high-end gaming performance. This places the RTX 2060 SUPER in a performance tier that is suited for 1080p gaming at high settings or 1440p at medium settings. The benchmark results confirm this: the 1440p Medium preset yields an average of 69 FPS, which is playable, but the 4K Medium preset falls to 37 FPS, indicating the GPU is out of its depth at that resolution. The boost clock of 1650 MHz is the ceiling for this card, and the data suggests that it is consistently hitting that ceiling during gameplay, as frame rates scale almost exclusively with resolution rather than CPU capability.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal experience for this combo is at 2560x1440 with the Medium preset. This configuration produces an average of 69 FPS, with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS. The minimum frame rate of 59 FPS is just above the 60 FPS target, ensuring that gameplay remains fluid during most scenes. This is the sweet spot where image quality is noticeably better than Low, but the frame rate remains high enough to avoid the stutter that plagues the High and Ultra presets at this resolution.

For users with a 1920x1080 display, the High preset is the recommended choice. It delivers an average of 82 FPS, which provides a smooth experience while offering significant visual improvements over the Medium preset’s 109 FPS. The extra 27 FPS gained from dropping to Medium is not worth the visual downgrade, as the High preset still maintains an average above 80 FPS. However, the Ultra preset at 1080p should be avoided, as it drops the average to 60 FPS, which is the bare minimum for playability and does not offer enough visual fidelity to justify the performance hit.

At 4K, no preset is truly viable. The Low preset at 49 FPS is the only option that approaches playability, but it sacrifices nearly all visual quality. The Medium preset at 37 FPS and High at 28 FPS are too choppy for a stealth game where precise movement is required. The Ultra preset at 21 FPS is a slideshow. Users with a 4K display should either lower the resolution to 1440p or accept that this GPU cannot handle Hitman 2 at native 4K with acceptable frame rates.

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the most balanced across all resolutions, with the 1440p Medium configuration being the standout choice. It offers a 59 FPS minimum, which provides a safety margin against drops, and the 80 FPS maximum ensures that the GPU is not being overly taxed. This is the configuration that maximizes the RTX 2060 SUPER’s capabilities without exposing its weaknesses.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide range of performance depending on settings. Low averages 145 FPS, Medium averages 109 FPS with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 125 FPS, High averages 82 FPS, and Ultra averages 60 FPS. The 1080p Low result is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo, showing that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond its limits. The gap between Low and Medium is 36 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 27 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 22 FPS. This indicates diminishing returns as settings increase, with each tier costing roughly 20-30 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. Low averages 93 FPS, Medium averages 69 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS, High averages 52 FPS, and Ultra averages 39 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 59 FPS is the key metric here, as it shows that the combo can hold near 60 FPS for the majority of gameplay. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is substantial: Low falls by 52 FPS, Medium by 40 FPS, High by 30 FPS, and Ultra by 21 FPS. This pattern confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the absolute FPS reduction is larger at lower settings where the GPU is less stressed.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates. Low averages 49 FPS, Medium averages 37 FPS with a minimum of 31 FPS and a maximum of 43 FPS, High averages 28 FPS, and Ultra averages 21 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 31 FPS is particularly telling, as it falls below the 30 FPS threshold for console-like playability. The drop from 1440p to 4K is severe: Low falls by 44 FPS, Medium by 32 FPS, High by 24 FPS, and Ultra by 18 FPS. The relative consistency of these drops, around 50-55% reduction, suggests that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are being overwhelmed by the fourfold increase in pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration with a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 51731 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7303 in single-core, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs.

In Hitman 2, the CPU’s role is largely relegated to ensuring that the GPU is never starved of data. The game is not particularly demanding on multi-core processors, and the Ultra 9 290K Plus’s 24 cores are overkill for this title. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (145 FPS) is the only scenario where the CPU’s performance could potentially be a factor, but even here, the GPU is still the bottleneck, as the RTX 2060 SUPER would likely cap out around 150 FPS regardless of the CPU.

The CPU’s single-core performance, with a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, ensures that the game’s main thread is handled without issue. The L3 cache of 36 MB helps with data locality, but Hitman 2’s engine is not known for being cache-sensitive. The CPU’s nearest rivals in the database, such as the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (deltaPct of 0.2) and the AMD EPYC 4584PX (deltaPct of 1.1), show that the 290K Plus is slightly faster than its predecessor but this advantage does not translate to in-game performance, which is firmly GPU-bound.

The data shows that the CPU is never the limiting component in this combo. The frame rates are consistently determined by the GPU’s capabilities, as evidenced by the uniform scaling across resolutions. Even at the lowest settings and resolution, where the CPU would be most likely to bottleneck, the combo only achieves 145 FPS, which is well below what the Ultra 9 290K Plus could theoretically support. This suggests that users with this combo could upgrade to a much more powerful GPU without seeing any CPU-related performance degradation in Hitman 2.