Evolve

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Evolve shows a steep and consistent penalty as resolution climbs from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, which is the classic signature of a GPU-bound workload at higher pixel counts. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 133.7 FPS at 1080p to 89.8 FPS at 1440p, then drops further to 47.7 FPS at 4K. That is a 64.3% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, a scaling curve that points squarely at the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070's rendering throughput as the limiting factor once pixel count increases.

The pattern becomes even more pronounced when moving between the Low and Ultra presets. At 4K, the gap between Low (84.1 FPS) and Ultra (34.1 FPS) is a massive 50 FPS, or roughly 59.5% lower performance at the highest settings. At 1080p, the same Low-to-Ultra spread is 216.8 FPS down to 89.4 FPS, a 127.4 FPS difference. The fact that the delta between presets grows with resolution confirms that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth — 448.0 GB/s on an 8 GB GDDR6 interface — are the primary constraints at 4K.

Interestingly, the scaling from Medium to High is relatively mild compared to the jump from High to Ultra. At 1440p, Medium delivers 114.4 FPS while High yields 89.8 FPS, a 24.6 FPS drop. But High to Ultra at the same resolution costs another 27.3 FPS, landing at 62.5 FPS. This nonlinear response suggests Ultra settings enable effects that disproportionately tax the RTX 3070's 96 ROPs and 184 TMUs, particularly at higher pixel densities.

At 1080p, the data reveals a different bottleneck. The jump from Low (216.8 FPS) to Medium (167.6 FPS) is a 49.2 FPS penalty, but the CPU's role becomes evident in the ceiling. The Intel Core i3-12100F, with its 4 cores and 8 threads, is likely preventing the frame rate from scaling even higher at Low settings, where GPU load is minimal. The 3dmark single-thread score of 893 and passmark single-thread score of 3444 indicate solid per-core performance, but Evolve's engine may not fully exploit the 4.30 GHz boost clock across all threads.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread part based on the Alder Lake-S architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz deliver respectable single-thread performance, as evidenced by the cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 and geekbench single-core score of 2224. In the context of Evolve, a 2015 FPS title, the game's engine was designed for an era when 4-core CPUs were the high-end standard, so this i3 is well-matched to the game's threading model.

The benchmark data supports this. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 216.8 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this title. The 3dmark 4-thread score of 2859 and 8-thread score of 4026 show that the CPU scales reasonably with additional threads, but the max-thread score of 4023 is nearly identical to the 8-thread result, indicating that beyond 8 threads there is no further headroom — not that it matters for a 4-core/8-thread chip. The passmark multithread score of 14015 places it in the 72nd percentile of all CPUs, which is respectable for a budget-focused part.

The CPU's cache hierarchy — 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 12 MB shared L3 — is sufficient for Evolve's data footprint. The game was released well before the era of massive open-world CPU demands, so the 12 MB L3 cache is unlikely to be a bottleneck at any resolution. The cinebench R20 multicore score of 5003 and R15 multicore score of 1200 further confirm that the CPU can sustain high throughput across all four cores, which matters for games that offload physics or AI to background threads.

In the nearestRivals comparison, the i3-12100F's average benchmark score of 13516 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (13534, delta -0.1%), which is remarkable given the Threadripper's vastly higher core count. This suggests that for Evolve's workload, single-thread performance dominates, and the i3's strong per-core showing (cinebench R23 single-core of 1681) compensates for its limited core count. The 0.4% lead over the Intel Core i7-1250U and 0.6% lead over the Intel Core i3-10105 further reinforce that this CPU is not the weak link in this pairing.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip, fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm process. It packs 17,400 million transistors across a 392 mm² die, with 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. The boost clock of 1725 MHz and base clock of 1500 MHz drive a pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s. The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is the key specification for high-resolution gaming.

In Evolve, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor at 1440p and 4K. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (34.1 FPS) and 4K High (47.7 FPS) are both below the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that the RTX 3070's 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput is insufficient for maxed-out settings at that resolution. The 1:1 FP16 ratio (20.31 TFLOPS) does not help here, as Evolve's engine likely does not leverage half-precision math for rendering.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for Evolve's textures, even at 4K Ultra, but the bandwidth becomes a limiting factor. The 448.0 GB/s is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, where the card delivers 89.4 FPS and 62.5 FPS at Ultra respectively, but at 4K the data rate required for high-res textures and post-processing effects exceeds what the memory subsystem can sustain. The passmark G3D score of 22214 and 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3162 place the card in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, but the nearestRivals comparison shows it is only 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1% ahead of the GTX 980 Ti — a tight grouping that underscores the competitive mid-range positioning.

The RTX 3070's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 API compatibility are more than sufficient for Evolve, which launched in 2015 and was designed for DirectX 11-era hardware. The 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores are unused by this title, but they contribute to the card's overall 28238 average benchmark score, which is 0.6% behind the AMD FirePro S7150 and 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon R9 M295X.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers playable to highly responsive frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 216.8 FPS, Medium 167.6 FPS, High 133.7 FPS, and Ultra 89.4 FPS. The 1080p Ultra result is still above 60 FPS, making it viable for high-refresh-rate displays, though the 127.4 FPS gap between Low and Ultra indicates that visual fidelity comes at a steep cost even at the lowest resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but begin to show GPU strain. Low hits 145.9 FPS, Medium 114.4 FPS, High 89.8 FPS, and Ultra 62.5 FPS. The Ultra setting at 1440p is just above the 60 FPS line, suggesting that players targeting 1440p should use High settings to maintain a comfortable margin above 90 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra at this resolution (27.3 FPS) is the largest single-preset penalty in the entire dataset.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low yields 84.1 FPS, Medium 65.3 FPS, High 47.7 FPS, and Ultra 34.1 FPS. Only the Low preset at 4K achieves a frame rate above 60 FPS, and even that is marginal. The Medium preset at 65.3 FPS is the only other 4K configuration that approaches playability, but the High and Ultra settings are effectively unusable for smooth gameplay. The 4K Ultra result of 34.1 FPS is a 61.7% reduction from the 1080p Ultra result of 89.4 FPS, quantifying the resolution scaling penalty.

The combo rank for this pairing is 765 out of 1695 tested combinations, placing it in the 55th percentile of all CPU-GPU pairings for Evolve. This mid-pack ranking reflects the balanced nature of the i3-12100F and RTX 3070 combination — neither component is a standout, but together they deliver consistent performance across most settings and resolutions.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 2560x1440 at High settings delivers 89.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining solid visual quality. For 4K, only Low (84.1 FPS) and Medium (65.3 FPS) are playable.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p Low?

A: At 1080p Low, the system hits 216.8 FPS, which is likely CPU-limited given the i3-12100F's 4-core/8-thread configuration. The GPU's passmark G3D score of 22214 and the game's 2015 release date suggest the CPU's per-core performance is the ceiling at this setting.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 compare to its closest rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 3070's average benchmark score of 28238 is 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1% ahead of the GTX 980 Ti, but 0.6% behind the AMD FirePro S7150 and 1.1% behind the Radeon R9 M295X.

Q: Can this system achieve 60 FPS at 4K Ultra?

A: No. The measured 4K Ultra average is 34.1 FPS, which is 25.9 FPS short of the 60 FPS target. The GPU's 448.0 GB/s bandwidth and 20.31 TFLOPS compute are insufficient for this workload.

Q: What is the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: The average FPS falls from 133.7 at 1080p to 47.7 at 4K, a reduction of 86 FPS or approximately 64.3% lower performance at the higher resolution.

Q: Is the i3-12100F a good match for the RTX 3070 in this game?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 13516 is within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX, showing that Evolve primarily relies on single-thread performance, which the i3 delivers with its 4.30 GHz boost clock and 1681 cinebench R23 single-core score.