Evolve

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a study in imbalance for running Evolve, the 2015 asymmetric FPS. The CPU sits in the 94th percentile of all processors in the database, while the GPU lands at the 40th percentile. The recorded data confirms the obvious consequence: the graphics card is the limiting factor at every tested resolution, and the game is only comfortably playable at 1080p on Low settings.

How This Combo Ranks

Out of 3700 tested hardware combinations for Evolve, this pairing ranks 3511. That placement puts it in the bottom tier of the database for this title, and the reason is entirely the GPU. The i7-14700K posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33440.5, a single-core score of 2160, and a PassMark single-thread result of 4472, numbers that place it within a fraction of a percent of processors like the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and AMD EPYC 9115. A CPU at that level is not what holds framerates back in a game from 2015. The GTX 1650, with an average benchmark score of 7472, essentially matching the Intel UHD Graphics 750 and AMD Radeon HD 8850M in the database rankings, is the component setting the performance ceiling. Any similarly ranked combo in the 3500s range will almost certainly share the same trait: a top-tier CPU attached to entry-level graphics.

FAQ

Q: Can this setup run Evolve at 1080p?

A: Yes. At 1920x1080 on Low settings, the measured average is 79.6 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS playability threshold used in the database. Medium settings average 57.3 FPS, which falls just short of that threshold.

Q: Is 1440p playable?

A: No. Even at Low settings, 2560x1440 averages 52.6 FPS, below the 60 FPS threshold. Higher presets drop further, from 37.5 FPS on Medium down to 21.1 FPS on Ultra.

Q: Is 4K playable at all?

A: Not by any measure. At 3840x2160, framerates range from 30.1 FPS on Low down to 14.3 FPS on Ultra, roughly half of what is needed for smooth play.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck this game?

A: No. The i7-14700K with 20 cores and 28 threads ranks in the 94th percentile of all CPUs in the database. The GTX 1650 at the 40th percentile of GPUs is the clear limiting component at every resolution tested.

Q: What settings should be used for the best experience?

A: 1920x1080 at Low settings is the only configuration that clears 60 FPS in the recorded data, averaging 79.6 FPS. Dropping from Medium to Low at 1080p gains 22.3 FPS, the single largest settings improvement available.

Q: How much does raising settings cost in performance at 1080p?

A: Going from Low (79.6 FPS) to Medium costs 22.3 FPS, Medium to High costs another 12.9 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 9.4 FPS, landing at 35 FPS.

CPU and GPU Roles

At 1080p Low, the combo delivers 79.6 FPS, and the gap between the two components tells the story. A CPU sitting near the Ryzen 9 7950X in average benchmark score is more than capable of feeding game logic, physics, and draw calls for a 2015 title. The scaling data makes the GPU's role unmistakable: moving from 1080p Low to 1440p Low, where CPU load is essentially unchanged, drops the average from 79.6 to 52.6 FPS, a 34 percent reduction driven entirely by pixel count on a card with a 53.28 GPixel/s pixel fill rate and 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

Going from 1440p Low to 4K Low cuts the average again from 52.6 to 30.1 FPS, another steep drop that tracks the quadrupling of pixels from 1080p to 2160p. If the CPU were the constraint, resolution scaling would be much flatter. Instead, the data shows near-proportional losses, the classic signature of GPU-bound operation. The 128.1 GB/s memory bandwidth and 4 GB of GDDR5 on the GTX 1650 also limit how much texture and settings load the card can absorb, which explains why Medium settings alone cost over 20 FPS at 1080p. In short: at every resolution and preset tested in this configuration, the GPU is the component that matters, and the i7-14700K is never the reason a frame is late.

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the CPU side, swapping the i7-14700K for any of its nearest rivals in the database would change nothing about Evolve framerates. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (within 0.2 percent of its average benchmark score), AMD EPYC 9115 (0.1 percent), AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (0.7 percent), and AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (0.9 percent) all deliver effectively identical aggregate performance. Any of those processors paired with the same GTX 1650 would produce the same framerates in this GPU-bound scenario.

On the GPU side, the picture is more relevant since the graphics card is the deciding component. The GTX 1650's average score of 7472 sits within 1 percent of the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (0.3 percent delta), Intel UHD Graphics 750 (0.4 percent), AMD Radeon R7 350 (0.6 percent), and Intel Arc A310 (1 percent ahead of the 1650). A system built around any of those graphics solutions, even paired with a far weaker CPU, would land in the same performance neighborhood for Evolve. That is a useful diagnostic: this combo performs like its GPU, not its CPU. The i7-14700K's PassMark physics score of 2964 and multi-thread score of 52392 are effectively wasted headroom here.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All figures below are measured averages from the database for this exact pairing. Minimum and maximum framerate data were not recorded for these runs.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 79.6 FPS average
• Medium: 57.3 FPS average
• High: 44.4 FPS average
• Ultra: 35 FPS average

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 52.6 FPS average
• Medium: 37.5 FPS average
• High: 33 FPS average
• Ultra: 21.1 FPS average

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 30.1 FPS average
• Medium: 25.9 FPS average
• High: 18.4 FPS average
• Ultra: 14.3 FPS average

The pattern is consistent: each step up in resolution costs roughly a third of the framerate at the same preset, and each step up in preset costs between roughly 10 and 22 FPS at 1080p. The only result above 60 FPS anywhere in the table is 1080p Low. The 1080p Medium result of 57.3 FPS is close enough that sensitivity to settings tweaks might bridge the gap in some scenes, but the recorded average is what it is. At 4K Ultra, 14.3 FPS is slideshow territory, and even the best 4K result, 30.1 FPS on Low, sits at half the playability threshold.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC can run Evolve, but only in one specific configuration. At 1920x1080 on Low settings, the combo averages 79.6 FPS and clears the 60 FPS threshold with room to spare. No other tested combination works: 1080p Medium misses at 57.3 FPS, and both 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 have no playable settings at any preset according to the verdict data.

The practical takeaway is straightforward. The i7-14700K is massively overqualified for a 2015 shooter, ranking 3511 of 3700 tested combos almost entirely because of the GTX 1650 attached to it. Anyone running this pairing should play at 1080p Low, and anyone considering a GPU upgrade has an unusually clean upgrade path, since the processor will not bottleneck a far faster card in this title. As-is, the data describes a budget graphics experience wearing a high-end CPU's clothes: one playable configuration, achieved entirely by the settings slider, not the silicon.