Evolve

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers a broad performance envelope in Evolve, with measured frame rates ranging from a demanding 41.2 FPS at 4K Ultra to a fluid 245.6 FPS at 1080p Low. The data indicates a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the 14-core processor provides ample headroom at 1080p. Across all twelve measured configurations, the combination ranks 1097th out of 3700 tested combos, placing it in the top 29.6% of all systems tested for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo produces its highest raw performance. The Low preset yields an average of 245.6 FPS, which drops to 192.3 FPS on Medium. The High preset maintains an average of 149.3 FPS, while the Ultra preset settles at 103.9 FPS. Every setting at this resolution clears the 60 FPS playability threshold by a wide margin, with even the most demanding preset delivering 73% more frames than the threshold.

Moving to 2560x1440, the scaling pattern shifts predictably but remains strong. Low settings produce 164 FPS on average, followed by 127.7 FPS on Medium. The High preset averages 101.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 70.5 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 26.1 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 31.1 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a significant load increase over High.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor. The Low preset averages 95.1 FPS, which is still well above the playable threshold. Medium settings drop to 76.1 FPS, and High falls to 58.5 FPS, just 1.5 FPS below the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset is the only configuration that falls decisively below playability, averaging 41.2 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 53.9 FPS, a 56.7% reduction in average frame rate.

The data shows consistent scaling across resolutions. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drop across all presets is roughly 31% to 33%. From 1440p to 4K, the drop is more severe, ranging from 42% at Low to 41.5% at Ultra, confirming that the 4K resolution multiplies the GPU workload substantially.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data demonstrates a clear division of labor between the Intel Core i5-14600KF and the AMD Radeon RX 9070. At 1920x1080, the processor's capabilities are more prominent. The difference between Low and Ultra settings is 141.7 FPS, which suggests that the GPU is not saturated at lower presets and the CPU's 20 threads can feed frames rapidly. The jump from Medium to High costs 43 FPS, while High to Ultra costs 45.4 FPS, indicating that each preset tier adds a significant GPU workload.

At 2560x1440, the GPU begins to dominate. The delta between Low and Ultra is 93.5 FPS, down from 141.7 FPS at 1080p. This narrowing spread indicates that the RX 9070 is becoming the bottleneck, as the increased pixel count consumes more of its shading units and memory bandwidth. The 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, is sufficient for all presets at this resolution, but the compute load per frame rises sharply with each preset.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's role is unequivocal. The spread between Low and Ultra narrows further to 53.9 FPS, and the absolute frame rates drop below 60 FPS at High and Ultra. The RX 9070's 3584 shading units and 128 ROPs are being pushed to their limits. The CPU's role diminishes to almost nothing at 4K, as the frame rate is dictated almost entirely by the GPU's 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The fact that 4K Low (95.1 FPS) outperforms 1440p Ultra (70.5 FPS) by 34.8% shows that the GPU has headroom at lower resolutions but runs out of compute at 4K with higher presets.

The scaling between presets at each resolution reinforces this. At 1080p, each preset step costs roughly 45-50 FPS. At 1440p, each step costs roughly 30-35 FPS. At 4K, each step costs roughly 17-20 FPS. This progressive narrowing is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario, where the incremental cost of each preset becomes a smaller percentage of the total frame time as the resolution increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1097 out of 3700 tested combinations places it in the 70th percentile of all systems tested for Evolve. This means that roughly 30% of tested combos outperform it, while 70% fall below. Given the hardware pairing, this is a strong result. The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 90 places it in the top decile of all processors, while the GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 69 places it in the upper third of all graphics cards.

The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, has an average benchmark score of 49228, which is 0.3% lower than the i5-14600KF's 49394. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G and Intel Core Ultra 5 245 are 0.4% and 0.8% lower respectively, while the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 is 0.8% higher. These deltas are negligible in gaming terms, meaning the CPU is unlikely to be the differentiating factor in Evolve's frame rates.

On the GPU side, the AMD Radeon RX 9070's nearest rivals show a similar pattern. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z is 0.6% higher in average benchmark score, while the AMD Radeon RX 6800S is 0.8% lower. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile is 1.1% higher, and the RTX 2080 SUPER is 1.2% lower. These sub-1.5% differences suggest that swapping to any of these GPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates in Evolve, all else being equal.

The combination of a top-decile CPU and an upper-third GPU yields a top-30% overall ranking. This is consistent with the measured frame rates, which show excellent performance at 1080p and 1440p, with only 4K Ultra falling below 60 FPS.

The Verdict

This system can run Evolve with playable performance at every resolution and preset combination except for 3840x2160 at High and Ultra settings. At 1920x1080, all four presets clear 60 FPS, with the lowest (Ultra) averaging 103.9 FPS. At 2560x1440, all four presets also clear 60 FPS, with Ultra averaging 70.5 FPS. The verdict is a clear "yes" for 1080p and 1440p gaming at any quality level.

At 3840x2160, the situation is more nuanced. The Low preset averages 95.1 FPS and Medium averages 76.1 FPS, both comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. However, the High preset drops to 58.5 FPS, which is 1.5 FPS below the playable threshold. The Ultra preset averages 41.2 FPS, which is 31.3% below the threshold. For 4K gaming, users must restrict themselves to Low or Medium settings to maintain smooth frame rates.

The data indicates that the RX 9070 is the limiting factor at 4K. The GPU's 16 GB memory capacity is not the issue, as even the Ultra preset's memory footprint is well within the 16 GB allocation. The bottleneck is raw compute throughput. The 36.13 TFLOPS FP32 figure is insufficient for 4K Ultra in Evolve, which is a 2015 title with heavy particle effects and dynamic lighting.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the CPU, the nearest rivals are all within 0.8% of the i5-14600KF's average benchmark score. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (0.3% lower) and AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (0.4% lower) would produce virtually identical frame rates in Evolve at all resolutions. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (0.8% lower) is also a close match. The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (0.8% higher) would offer a marginal improvement, but the difference is within measurement noise.

For the GPU, the situation is similar. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (0.6% higher) and RTX 3080 Mobile (1.1% higher) would both yield frame rates within 1-2 FPS of the RX 9070 at any given resolution and preset. The AMD Radeon RX 6800S (0.8% lower) and RTX 2080 SUPER (1.2% lower) would perform almost identically. None of these alternatives would change the verdict at any resolution; the 4K High and Ultra presets would still fall below 60 FPS.

The practical implication is that users with any of these rival GPUs should expect the same playability envelope. The 4K Medium preset at 76.1 FPS represents the ceiling for 4K playability, and this would hold across all listed rivals. At 1440p, the Ultra preset at 70.5 FPS would be achievable with any of these GPUs.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Evolve at 4K with High settings?

A: No. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 High is 58.5 FPS, which is 1.5 FPS below the 60 FPS playability threshold. The Ultra preset at this resolution averages 41.2 FPS.

Q: What is the best preset for 2560x1440?

A: The Ultra preset is fully playable at 1440p, averaging 70.5 FPS. This is the highest quality setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS at this resolution.

Q: How much faster is 1080p Low compared to 4K Ultra?

A: The 1080p Low preset averages 245.6 FPS, while 4K Ultra averages 41.2 FPS. The difference is 204.4 FPS, meaning 1080p Low is 5.96 times faster in average frame rate.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game?

A: At 1920x1080, the CPU matters more, as the frame rate spread between Low and Ultra is 141.7 FPS. At 3840x2160, the GPU dominates, with the spread narrowing to 53.9 FPS. The system becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution increases.

Q: Does the 16 GB GPU memory cause any issues in Evolve?

A: No. The AMD Radeon RX 9070's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory is more than sufficient for all tested presets. The frame rate drops at 4K High and Ultra are caused by compute limits, not memory capacity.

Q: How does this combo compare to using an RTX 2080 SUPER?

A: The RX 9070 has an average benchmark score 1.2% higher than the RTX 2080 SUPER. In Evolve, this translates to a negligible difference of roughly 0.5-1.5 FPS across all resolutions and presets. Both GPUs would classify 4K High as unplayable.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that maintains an average of at least 60 FPS is Medium, with a measured average of 76.1 FPS. The next step up, High, falls to 58.5 FPS, so Medium is the maximum quality setting for playable 4K performance.

At 2560x1440, all presets clear 60 FPS. The best setting is Ultra, which averages 70.5 FPS. This provides the highest visual quality while still delivering 10.5 FPS of headroom above the playability threshold.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset is the best choice, averaging 103.9 FPS. This is 43.9 FPS above the threshold and represents the maximum quality the game offers at this resolution. The Large frame rate headroom at 1080p Ultra suggests that users could enable additional GPU-heavy features without dropping below 60 FPS, though the data does not include such configurations.