Evolve

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti delivers a playable but resolution-sensitive experience in Evolve, a 2015 FPS. The benchmark data shows a clear progression from strong 1080p performance to a struggle at 4K, with the GPU emerging as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions and quality settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance curve as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 123.8 FPS, which drops to 100.1 FPS at Medium, 77.2 FPS at High, and further to 55.2 FPS at Ultra. This represents a 55.4% reduction in frame rate from Low to Ultra at 1080p, indicating that quality settings have a substantial impact even at the lowest resolution tested.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same pattern persists but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings produce 82.5 FPS, Medium delivers 66.8 FPS, High manages 48.9 FPS, and Ultra falls to 35.1 FPS. The drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low is 33.4%, while the Ultra setting sees a 36.4% reduction. This consistent scaling suggests the GPU is becoming more stressed as pixel count rises.

At 4K (3840x2160), the performance collapses further. Low settings yield 50.9 FPS, Medium drops to 36.7 FPS, High produces 31.6 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 22.1 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K at Low settings results in a 38.3% FPS loss, while at Ultra the loss is 37.0%. These figures indicate that 4K Ultra is essentially unplayable, as the frame rate falls below 30 FPS.

The scaling pattern—where FPS drops roughly 30-40% per resolution step—points to the GPU as the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively flat across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not scale with pixel count. Instead, the consistent decline with each resolution increase demonstrates that the GTX 1660 Ti's rendering throughput is the constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codename Vermeer). It operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts to 4.60 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The processor features a 32 MB L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. It was released on November 4, 2020, with a launch MSRP of $299.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 5600X posts a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 18578 and a single-core score of 2622. Its Geekbench multicore result is 8673, with a single-core score of 2111. The 3DMark single-thread test yields 917 points, while the 2-thread test produces 1793 and the 4-thread test reaches 3363. The 8-thread score is 4811, and the max-thread score is 5588.

The CPU's percentile ranking among all processors is 78, placing it in the upper quartile. Its average benchmark score of 20680 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals: the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT (20740, -0.3% delta), Intel Core i7-10700 (20746, -0.3% delta), and Intel Core i5-12490F (20794, -0.5% delta). The Intel Xeon 6325P trails slightly at 20538, a 0.7% deficit.

Given that Evolve is a 2015 title, the 5600X's 6 cores and 12 threads are more than sufficient to feed the GTX 1660 Ti at 1080p. The high single-thread performance (Cinebench R15 single-core score of 264) ensures that even older game engines that rely on one or two primary threads will not bottleneck this combination. At 1080p Low, where the GPU load is lighter, the CPU's capability allows the system to reach 123.8 FPS, but the GPU still limits further gains.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is built on the Turing architecture (TU116 chip) using a 12 nm process at TSMC. It has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1500 MHz and boosts to 1770 MHz, with memory running at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). Its TDP is 120 W, and it requires a single 8-pin power connector with a suggested 300 W PSU.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 1536 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. It delivers 5.437 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 10.87 TFLOPS of FP16 (2:1 ratio). The pixel rate is 84.96 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 169.9 GTexel/s. It uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface and was released on February 21, 2019, with a launch MSRP of 279 USD.

In benchmark tests, the GTX 1660 Ti scores 12871 in Passmark G3D, 103 in Passmark DirectX 11, and 51 in Passmark DirectX 12. Its Geekbench OpenCL score is 60863, and Vulkan score is 58014. The Passmark GPU compute test yields 5226. The GPU's percentile ranking among all GPUs is 55, and its average benchmark score is 13925.

The nearest rivals show how tightly grouped this GPU is: the AMD Radeon RX 570X scores 13871 (0.4% delta), the NVIDIA Tesla K10 scores 14029 (-0.7% delta), the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile scores 13821 (0.8% delta), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 scores 13812 (0.8% delta). This clustering means the GTX 1660 Ti is performance-neutral relative to its direct competitors.

The 6 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor in Evolve. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 22.1 FPS, which is below playable thresholds. Even at 4K Low (50.9 FPS), the GPU struggles to maintain fluid motion. The 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions, where texture data exceeds the VRAM's comfortable capacity. The boost clock of 1770 MHz helps at lower resolutions, but the fundamental compute throughput (5.437 TFLOPS) caps performance when pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 5600X and GTX 1660 Ti ranks 1455 out of 1695 tested combos in Evolve. This places it in the 14th percentile of all combinations, meaning roughly 86% of tested systems perform better in this specific game. The data is measured, not estimated, so these results reflect actual hardware behavior.

This ranking is notably lower than the individual component percentiles might suggest. The CPU sits at the 78th percentile among all processors, and the GPU at the 55th percentile among all GPUs. However, the combo's rank of 1455/1695 indicates that the GPU drags the overall performance down significantly. In a game like Evolve, which is GPU-bound at most settings, the GTX 1660 Ti's mid-range standing (55th percentile) dominates the outcome.

The gap between the combo rank and the CPU rank highlights the imbalance: a top-quartile CPU is paired with a mid-range GPU. At 1080p Medium, the system achieves 100.1 FPS, which is respectable, but at 4K Ultra the 22.1 FPS result is among the worst in the database. The CPU's 3DMark 16-thread score of 5582 and max-thread score of 5588 show ample headroom, but the GPU cannot translate that into high frame rates at demanding resolutions.

For context, the CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12490F, has an average score 0.5% higher, while the GPU's rival, the AMD Radeon RX 570X, is only 0.4% slower. These small deltas mean that swapping either component for a direct competitor would yield nearly identical game performance.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1080p Low delivers 123.8 FPS, which is the highest measured result. For a balance of quality and performance, 1080p Medium at 100.1 FPS or 1080p High at 77.2 FPS are both playable options.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Evolve?

A: At 4K, even Low settings produce only 50.9 FPS, while Medium drops to 36.7 FPS, High to 31.6 FPS, and Ultra falls to 22.1 FPS. Only 4K Low approaches playability, but the 4K Ultra result of 22.1 FPS is below acceptable thresholds.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in raw performance?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600X has an average benchmark score of 20680, which is 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT (20740) and 0.5% lower than the Intel Core i5-12490F (20794). It outperforms the Intel Xeon 6325P by 0.7% (20538).

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the primary bottleneck in this setup?

A: The GPU is the limiting component. The CPU's 78th percentile ranking and high multi-thread scores contrast with the GPU's 55th percentile. The FPS drops of 30-40% when moving from 1080p to 1440p and again to 4K confirm that the GTX 1660 Ti's rendering capacity is the constraint.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 Ti stack up against its immediate competitors?

A: The GPU's average score of 13925 is 0.4% above the AMD Radeon RX 570X (13871) and 0.8% above both the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (13821) and GeForce GTX 680 (13812). It trails the NVIDIA Tesla K10 by 0.7% (14029).

Q: What does the combo's rank of 1455 out of 1695 tell us?

A: This ranking places the system in the bottom 15% of all tested combinations for Evolve. Despite having a strong CPU, the mid-range GPU prevents the combo from achieving higher standing, as the game's performance scales heavily with GPU capability.