Hitman 2

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor built on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. Its 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide substantial data locality for game logic, while the 115.2 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth ensures the CPU can feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck in most scenarios. In synthetic benchmarks, this chip posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,731 and a single-core score of 7,303, which places it at the 96th percentile among all CPUs.

For Hitman 2, a stealth game that simulates crowds, AI routines, and complex scripting, the single-thread performance is often more critical than raw multi-core throughput. The 5.80 GHz boost clock and the 736-point Cinebench R15 single-core result indicate the CPU excels at the kind of rapid decision-making that Hitman 2's NPCs require. The data supports this: at 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 342 FPS, which is a figure that only makes sense when the CPU is capable of issuing draw calls faster than the GPU can render frames. At 1080p Ultra, the average drops to 143 FPS, but even that represents a highly playable experience, suggesting the CPU is not the limiting factor at that resolution.

Comparing to its nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus edges out the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K by 0.2% in average benchmark score, with 84,003 versus 83,807. It also leads the AMD EPYC 4584PX by 1.1% and the AMD EPYC 9135 by 1.2%, while trailing the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%. These deltas are small, indicating that for a game like Hitman 2, the CPU's raw compute headroom is more than sufficient; the game's engine is not pushing against the limits of this processor at any resolution in the measured data. The PassMark multithread score of 60,860 and single-thread score of 4,823 reinforce this conclusion, as both are high enough to keep frame pacing consistent.

The 24 threads are relevant for background tasks and OS overhead, but Hitman 2 is not a heavily threaded title compared to modern strategy games. The benchmark results show that even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is heavily loaded, the CPU maintains a 49 FPS average, which is a playable figure for a stealth game that rewards patience over twitch reflexes. The processor's 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier suggest it is designed for enthusiasts who may overclock, but the measured data does not require that to achieve the FPS figures listed here.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured FPS data for this Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combo reveals a clear hierarchy across presets. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 342 FPS, Medium delivers 257 FPS, High delivers 194 FPS, and Ultra delivers 143 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 85 FPS (25% reduction), while the jump from Medium to High costs 63 FPS (25% reduction), and High to Ultra costs 51 FPS (26% reduction). This consistent scaling suggests that each preset tier introduces a similar incremental load on the GPU, with no single preset causing a disproportionate performance cliff.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts slightly. Low produces 219 FPS, Medium produces 164 FPS, High produces 124 FPS, and Ultra produces 91 FPS. The relative cost of Ultra is higher here: dropping from High to Ultra costs 33 FPS (27% reduction), but the absolute numbers remain well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. At 4K, the presets become more demanding: Low delivers 117 FPS, Medium delivers 87 FPS, High delivers 66 FPS, and Ultra drops to 49 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration in the entire measured set that falls below 60 FPS, making it a marginal choice for users with high-refresh-rate displays.

For the best experience, the data points to Medium or High presets depending on resolution. At 1080p, Medium offers 257 FPS, which is more than enough for any display and leaves headroom for frame pacing fluctuations. At 1440p, High at 124 FPS is the sweet spot, as it delivers a 60 FPS-plus buffer while still providing improved visual fidelity over Medium's 164 FPS. At 4K, High at 66 FPS is the recommended preset, as it stays above 60 FPS while Ultra dips to 49 FPS, which may cause noticeable stutter in crowded scenes. The Medium preset at 4K (87 FPS) is also viable, but High provides a better visual return for the 21 FPS cost.

The measured min FPS data, available only for Medium presets, shows 218 FPS at 1080p, 140 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K. These minimums are all well above playable thresholds, indicating that the Medium preset maintains consistent frame pacing across resolutions. For users who prioritize visual fidelity over raw FPS, the Ultra preset at 1080p (143 FPS) or 1440p (91 FPS) remains excellent, but at 4K, it is the only setting that fails to hit a 60 FPS average, making High the top recommendation.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data across resolutions provides a clear picture of where the bottleneck lies in this combo. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 342 at 1080p to 219 at 1440p (a 36% reduction) and then to 117 at 4K (a 47% reduction from 1440p). This steep decline at Low settings indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor, as the CPU has ample headroom at these low graphical loads. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively flat regardless of resolution; instead, the 4K result is less than a third of the 1080p result, which is a classic GPU-bound signature.

At Medium settings, the scaling is similar: 257 FPS at 1080p drops to 164 FPS at 1440p (36% reduction) and then to 87 FPS at 4K (47% reduction from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and Medium presets suggests that the game's rendering load scales uniformly with pixel count, and the RTX 5090's compute resources are being saturated at higher resolutions. At High settings, the pattern continues: 194 FPS at 1080p, 124 FPS at 1440p (36% reduction), and 66 FPS at 4K (47% reduction). This uniform scaling across presets is a strong indicator that the GPU is the limiting component at all measured settings and resolutions.

The Ultra preset shows the same trend but with lower absolute numbers: 143 FPS at 1080p, 91 FPS at 1440p (36% reduction), and 49 FPS at 4K (46% reduction from 1440p). The consistency of the 36-47% reduction range across all four presets is striking, as it confirms that resolution, not preset, is the dominant factor in performance scaling. This is typical for a game like Hitman 2, which relies heavily on pixel shading and post-processing effects that scale with resolution. The CPU's role becomes less relevant as resolution increases, and the data shows that even at 1080p Low (342 FPS), the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is not holding back the GPU, as the frame rate exceeds what most displays can show.

The implication is clear: if a user wants to increase FPS at 4K, reducing the preset from High to Medium (66 to 87 FPS) or to Low (117 FPS) is more effective than any CPU upgrade, as the CPU is not the limiting factor. Conversely, at 1080p, the ultra-high frame rates (143-342 FPS) suggest that the CPU is still capable of feeding the GPU, and the bottleneck is solely the GPU's rendering throughput at those settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain over 100 FPS on High settings?

A: At 1080p High, the combo achieves 194 FPS, and at 1440p High, it achieves 124 FPS. At 4K High, the average drops to 66 FPS, so 1440p is the highest resolution that keeps High preset above 100 FPS.

Q: Does the Ultra preset at 4K provide a playable experience?

A: The data shows a 49 FPS average at 4K Ultra, which is below the 60 FPS threshold typically considered smooth. The Medium preset at 4K offers 87 FPS, making it a better choice for sustained playability.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rival in overall benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84,003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (83,807) and 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX (83,090). It trails the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor in Hitman 2 at 4K?

A: The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent 36-47% reduction across all presets, indicating the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the limiting component at 4K. The CPU's 24 cores and 5.80 GHz boost clock are sufficient to maintain frame rates above 300 FPS at 1080p Low.

Q: What is the lowest FPS recorded in any measured configuration?

A: The lowest average FPS is 49, observed at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. The lowest minimum FPS is 74, recorded at 3840x2160 with Medium settings.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset compared to Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low delivers 342 FPS while Ultra delivers 143 FPS, making Low 2.39 times faster (a 139% increase in frame rate).

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB202 chip, featuring 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This is a massive amount of memory and bandwidth for a game like Hitman 2, which was released in 2018 and does not require anywhere near 32 GB of VRAM at the presets tested. The GPU's base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and it has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs. The 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate are far beyond what Hitman 2's engine can utilize, but they explain why the GPU can push 342 FPS at 1080p Low.

The RTX 5090's measured performance places it at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79,842. Its nearest rivals show small deltas: it is 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and 0.6% ahead of the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396), while trailing the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X by 1.4% (80,959). These comparisons are based on aggregate benchmark scores, not gaming FPS, but they indicate that the RTX 5090 is among the top-tier GPUs in general compute. In gaming, the data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as the FPS drops consistently with resolution increases.

The 32 GB VRAM is never a constraint in Hitman 2, as even the Ultra preset at 4K does not push the game's memory footprint to that level. The GPU's 176 ROPs handle pixel output efficiently, and the 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensures texture streaming is never a bottleneck. The boost clock of 2407 MHz is high for a flagship GPU, and it contributes to the strong 1080p performance, where the GPU is not memory-bound but compute-bound. The 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU indicate this is a power-hungry component, but the measured FPS data justifies the power draw for users seeking maximum frame rates.

In Hitman 2, the RTX 5090's role is to render the game's detailed environments, crowds, and lighting at high resolutions. At 4K High, it achieves 66 FPS, which is a solid result for a 2018 title with modern hardware. The GPU's performance scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent across presets, confirming that its compute units are the primary determinant of FPS. The fact that the GPU can deliver 117 FPS at 4K Low shows that even at the highest pixel count, it has headroom when graphical effects are reduced, making it a versatile choice for this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 342 FPS average
• Medium: 257 FPS average, 218 FPS minimum, 295 FPS maximum
• High: 194 FPS average
• Ultra: 143 FPS average

At 1080p, the combo is never challenged, with even Ultra exceeding 140 FPS. The Medium preset shows a 77 FPS range between minimum and maximum, indicating some frame pacing variation, but the 218 FPS minimum is still far above display refresh rates. The scaling from Low to Ultra is roughly linear, with each preset tier costing about 50-60 FPS.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 219 FPS average
• Medium: 164 FPS average, 140 FPS minimum, 189 FPS maximum
• High: 124 FPS average
• Ultra: 91 FPS average

At 1440p, the performance remains high, with all presets above 90 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 140 FPS ensures a smooth experience even during complex scenes. The drop from Low to Medium is 55 FPS, while Medium to High is 40 FPS, and High to Ultra is 33 FPS, showing that higher presets have diminishing FPS costs as the GPU becomes more efficiently utilized.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 117 FPS average
• Medium: 87 FPS average, 74 FPS minimum, 101 FPS maximum
• High: 66 FPS average
• Ultra: 49 FPS average

At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low still delivers 117 FPS, which is excellent for 4K, but Ultra drops to 49 FPS, below the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset's minimum of 74 FPS is the only measured minimum at 4K, and it indicates that even this preset maintains playable frame pacing. The gap between High and Ultra is 17 FPS, which is the largest relative drop at any resolution, suggesting that Ultra introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive at 4K pixel counts.

Across all resolutions, the data shows a consistent pattern: the RTX 5090 handles 1080p and 1440p with ease, while 4K requires preset compromises to stay above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that fails to hit 60 FPS, making it the sole marginal choice in the entire measured set. For users with 4K displays, the High preset at 66 FPS is the recommended balance, while Medium at 87 FPS offers additional headroom for those who prefer smoother motion over visual fidelity.