Evolve

Evolve, the 2015 FPS built on the CryEngine, presents an interesting stress profile for the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is heavily GPU-bound at high fidelity, but which also demonstrates surprising CPU headroom at lower settings. The data indicates a dual-nature performance envelope, where the RTX 4080 SUPER dominates at 4K Ultra, but the Ryzen 5 8400F becomes a more significant factor as resolution drops and frame rates climb past the 300 FPS mark.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K shows a classic and severe GPU bottleneck at higher settings, while the scaling at lower settings reveals the CPU's limits. At Ultra settings, the frame rate drops from 137.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 93.8 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 44.1 FPS, before falling further to 56.1 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 59.3% drop in performance from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting component, as its rendering workload scales with pixel count.

The scaling pattern shifts dramatically when settings are lowered to Low. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 323.2 FPS, which drops to 226.2 FPS at 1440p, and then to 127.1 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop of 97 FPS is significant, but the 1440p to 4K drop of 99.1 FPS is nearly identical in magnitude, suggesting that the CPU is beginning to cap the frame rate at the lower resolutions. This is a typical sign of a CPU bottleneck, where the graphics card is waiting for the processor to feed it draw calls.

The data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the main driver of performance at High and Ultra settings, where the frame rate is heavily influenced by the GPU's fill rate and shader performance. However, at Low and Medium settings, the Ryzen 5 8400F's 6 cores and 12 threads become a more prominent factor. The gap between 1080p Low (323.2 FPS) and 1080p Medium (258.4 FPS) is 64.8 FPS, which is a smaller relative drop than the 55.9% reduction seen between 1440p High and 1440p Ultra. This indicates that while the GPU is still the primary bottleneck at Medium, the CPU's single-thread performance is starting to influence the overall throughput.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides the bandwidth necessary for high-resolution textures. The memory clock runs at 1438 MHz, with an effective data rate of 23 Gbps, delivering a total bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. This is more than sufficient for Evolve's asset streaming, even at 4K Ultra, where the average frame rate still comfortably exceeds 56 FPS.

The GPU's clock speeds, with a base of 2295 MHz and a boost of 2550 MHz, are key to its performance. The 10240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs allow for massive parallel throughput, which is reflected in the benchmark results. The data shows that at 1440p Ultra, the card produces 93.8 FPS, while at 1440p High, it jumps to 136.6 FPS. This 42.8 FPS difference highlights how sensitive the card's performance is to shader complexity and texture filtering, rather than just raw pixel count.

The RTX 4080 SUPER's position in the market is confirmed by its PassMark G3D score of 34245, which places it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. This is a strong result, but the nearest rivals show just how tight the competition is at this tier. The data shows the RTX 4080 SUPER is only 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M. This suggests that while the card is a top-tier performer, its dominance is not absolute, and specific game optimizations will determine the final ranking.

FAQ

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 High, the system averages 204.1 FPS. At 3840x2160 High, the average drops to 80.1 FPS. This represents a 124 FPS reduction, or a 60.7% performance loss when moving from 1080p to 4K.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 SUPER's VRAM capacity impact Evolve performance?

A: The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is not a limiting factor in this game. The bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s allows for smooth texture streaming, as evidenced by the playable average of 56.1 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is the most demanding configuration.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 8400F compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 8400F has an average benchmark score of 25064, which puts it 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F. It is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, which scores 25057, showing a 0% delta.

Q: What is the frame rate at 1440p Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the average frame rate is 175.3 FPS. This is higher than the 4K High result of 80.1 FPS, indicating that resolution scaling has a more pronounced effect than modest settings changes.

Q: Is the system more CPU-bound at 1080p or 4K?

A: The data suggests the system is more CPU-bound at 1080p. At 1080p Low, the frame rate reaches 323.2 FPS, which is a high enough value to indicate the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are nearing their limit. At 4K, the GPU is the clear bottleneck.

Q: How does the combo rank in Evolve?

A: The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 108th out of 1695 tested combinations for this game. This places it in the top 6.4% of all hardware pairings, indicating a very strong setup.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a complete picture of the system's capabilities across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its highest performance, with the average FPS ranging from 323.2 at Low settings down to 137.9 at Ultra. The Medium setting yields 258.4 FPS, while High achieves 204.1 FPS. These numbers show a clear scaling curve where each step up in settings costs a significant amount of performance.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains high but shows the expected reduction from the 1080p results. The Low setting produces 226.2 FPS, while Medium drops to 175.3 FPS. High settings yield 136.6 FPS, and Ultra is the most demanding, with an average of 93.8 FPS. The relative performance gap between Low and Ultra is 132.4 FPS, which is a 58.5% reduction, slightly less pronounced than at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the system's performance is firmly in GPU-bound territory. The Low setting still achieves a respectable 127.1 FPS, but the scaling becomes steeper as settings increase. Medium produces 100.0 FPS, High drops to 80.1 FPS, and Ultra is the most demanding configuration, yielding an average of 56.1 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 71 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at lower resolutions, but the percentage reduction is larger at 55.9%.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F, based on the Zen 4 Phoenix architecture, provides a solid foundation for this GPU. With 6 cores and 12 threads running at a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, it offers strong single-thread performance, which is critical for games like Evolve. The CPU's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2943 indicates excellent per-thread performance, while the multi-core score of 20851 shows it can handle background tasks without impacting game performance.

The CPU's performance relative to its rivals is notable. The data shows it is 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F in average benchmark score, and essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X. This places it in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs, which is a strong result for a mainstream desktop processor. The 16 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth provide adequate data throughput for the CPU to feed the RTX 4080 SUPER.

The CPU's role becomes more apparent in the 1080p results. At 1080p Low, the system hits 323.2 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that suggests the CPU is approaching its limitations. The fact that the 4K Low result of 127.1 FPS is still quite high, while the 4K Ultra result drops to 56.1 FPS, confirms that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The benchmark results indicate that the Ryzen 5 8400F is a capable partner for the RTX 4080 SUPER, providing enough headroom to avoid limiting the GPU in most gaming scenarios, even if it shows signs of strain at extreme frame rates.