Evolve

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER produces a dataset for Evolve that is defined by a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1080p, the combination delivers high refresh-rate capability, but moving to 4K reveals a substantial burden on the graphics subsystem. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, contextualizes the combo's standing among 1,695 tested configurations, and isolates the roles of the CPU and GPU in shaping these results.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Evolve shows a pronounced and predictable decline as resolution scales from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, indicating that the rendering load grows faster than the GPU's available throughput. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 105 FPS at 1080p to 73.1 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of approximately 30%, and then falls further to 40.7 FPS at 4K. This pattern is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, where the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth become increasingly taxed.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings is less severe, with average FPS going from 176.4 to 118.6, a 33% drop. However, the jump from 1440p to 4K at Low settings shows a more dramatic decline, from 118.6 to 67.9 FPS, a 43% reduction. This nonlinear scaling suggests that at 4K, even the lowest settings place a significant load on the GPU's pixel processing capabilities, which are rated at 113.3 GPixel/s. The data indicates that the limiting component shifts decisively toward the GPU as resolution increases, with the CPU's role diminishing.

At Ultra settings, the resolution scaling is steepest. The average FPS falls from 73.9 at 1080p to 49.1 at 1440p, a 34% drop, and then to 29 at 4K, another 41% reduction. This Ultra preset likely enables features that heavily stress the GPU, such as higher texture filtering and shadow quality. The 4K Ultra result of 29 FPS represents the lowest measured performance in the entire dataset, confirming that this combo is not suitable for maximum settings at 4K without significant compromises.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall ranking for Evolve, this specific CPU-GPU combination places at position 1,071 out of 1,695 tested combos. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the distribution, which is notable given the component specifications. The percentile data for the individual parts offers context: the CPU ranks in the 72nd percentile against all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 65th percentile against all GPUs. The combo's rank in-game, however, suggests that Evolve may not be fully leveraging the strengths of either component, or that the game's engine is particularly sensitive to a bottleneck.

The rank of 1,071 out of 1,695 means that roughly 63% of tested combos perform better in this specific title. This is a significant drop from what the individual component percentiles might predict, indicating that the pairing has a specific weakness in Evolve. The data suggests that while the i3-12100F has strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 893, the game may not be able to fully utilize its four cores and eight threads. Meanwhile, the RTX 2070 SUPER's 2,560 shading units and 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 performance are substantial, but the overall combo rank implies that other configurations with similar or lower component scores achieve better frame rates in this title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and support for dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory are typical for a modern desktop chip. In Evolve, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but its performance at 1080p is adequate to avoid being a primary bottleneck.

Benchmark data for the i3-12100F shows a multi-threaded score of 11,912 in Cinebench R23, which is strong for a 4-core part. The single-threaded score of 1,681 in the same test is particularly relevant for gaming, as many titles, including Evolve, rely heavily on single-thread performance. The 3DMark 4-thread score of 2,859 and 8-thread score of 4,026 indicate that the processor scales reasonably well with additional threads up to its 8-thread limit.

In the context of Evolve, the measured FPS at 1080p High (105 FPS) suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at this resolution. The jump to 176.4 FPS at Low settings indicates that the CPU has headroom to push higher frame rates when the GPU load is reduced. However, the fact that the combo ranks at 1,071 out of 1,695 suggests that the CPU's modest core count might limit performance in scenes with many simultaneous entities or complex physics. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-7700K, with an average score of 13,280 and a delta of 1.8%, demonstrates that even older quad-core processors with higher clocks can compete, but the i3-12100F's 4-core design is a limiting factor in a game that may utilize more than 8 threads.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers playable to excellent performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 176.4 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors. Medium settings yield 137.6 FPS, and High settings drop to 105 FPS. Ultra settings at 1080p result in 73.9 FPS, which is still smooth for most users. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the RTX 2070 SUPER is the dominant factor, but the CPU is not severely restricting performance, as the frame rates scale relatively linearly with graphical load.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance decreases are noticeable but manageable. Low settings average 118.6 FPS, maintaining a high refresh rate experience. Medium settings average 89.7 FPS, and High settings average 73.1 FPS. Ultra settings at 1440p drop to 49.1 FPS, which is borderline for competitive play but acceptable for slower-paced games. The 1440p data shows a clear GPU bottleneck, as the frame rate drops are consistent with the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes more constrained. Low settings average 67.9 FPS, which is playable, but Medium settings drop to 50.1 FPS, and High settings to 40.7 FPS. Ultra settings at 4K average only 29 FPS, making the game nearly unplayable at maximum quality. The 4K results highlight the limitations of the RTX 2070 SUPER, which, despite its 8 GB of memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, cannot maintain high frame rates at this resolution with demanding settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU104 chip, featuring 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. It has 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores, which are not likely to be heavily utilized in Evolve, a game released in 2015 before ray tracing became prevalent. The GPU's base clock is 1605 MHz with a boost clock of 1770 MHz, and its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operates at an effective speed of 14 Gbps across a 256-bit bus, resulting in 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

The GPU's role in Evolve is clearly dominant at higher resolutions. The measured FPS at 4K High (40.7 FPS) versus 1080p High (105 FPS) shows a 61% reduction, which is directly attributable to the GPU's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth constraints. The pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s are sufficient for 1080p but become limiting at 4K. The FP32 performance of 9.062 TFLOPS is adequate for the game's shader complexity, but the sheer number of pixels at 4K overwhelms the GPU.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 2070 SUPER sits slightly above the NVIDIA RTX A400 in average benchmark score, with a delta of -0.5%, and above the AMD Radeon RX 5700, with a delta of 2.5%. However, the in-game performance at 4K Ultra (29 FPS) suggests that the GPU's 8 GB VRAM may be a limiting factor, as higher texture settings at 4K can exceed this capacity. The low FPS at 4K Ultra compared to 4K High (40.7 FPS) indicates a significant performance hit from the Ultra preset, which likely increases memory pressure and shader complexity beyond what the GPU can handle efficiently.