Evolve

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER delivers a surprisingly capable 1080p experience in Evolve, but the data reveals a sharp performance cliff as resolution and quality settings climb. This combination lands in the 12th percentile of tested configurations, ranking 1486 out of 1695 combos, which places it firmly in the lower-mid tier for this title. The measured results show a system that can produce smooth, high-refresh gameplay at 1080p with moderate settings, yet struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra, indicating a clear GPU bottleneck in the most demanding scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

For 1920x1080, the data strongly favors the High preset. The measured 76.1 FPS average at High represents a sweet spot, offering a 19% improvement over the 63.2 FPS seen at Medium while staying comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. The jump to Ultra costs a significant 21.2 FPS (dropping to 54.9 FPS), which breaks the smoothness barrier and makes High the most balanced choice. Low settings do push the average to 125.5 FPS, but the visual compromise is substantial for a game that relies on environmental readability.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more nuanced. The Low preset achieves 84.6 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play, but High drops to 50.1 FPS and Medium sits at 63.2 FPS. The Medium preset is the recommended pick here, as 63.2 FPS maintains fluid motion while retaining more visual fidelity than Low. Ultra at 33.8 FPS is nearly unplayable, so avoiding it entirely is advised. The 30 FPS average at 4K High is technically playable for cinematic experiences, but the 20.1 FPS at 4K Ultra is a slideshow and should be avoided.

The data suggests that users targeting 60 FPS should stick to 1080p High or 1440p Medium. The 4K resolution is best reserved for Low settings, where 48.7 FPS is achievable, though the fidelity loss makes this a niche option. Across all resolutions, the Ultra preset consistently delivers the worst frame pacing relative to its visual gains, making it the least efficient choice.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for maintaining 60+ FPS with this combo?

A: The 1920x1080 resolution with High settings produces 76.1 FPS, and 2560x1440 with Medium settings produces 63.2 FPS. Both configurations exceed the 60 FPS target, making them the primary options for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1080p?

A: Ultra drops performance from 76.1 FPS to 54.9 FPS at 1080p, a reduction of 21.2 FPS (approximately 28%). This substantial loss occurs for marginal visual improvements, making High the more practical choice.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this hardware?

A: At 3840x2160, Low settings yield 48.7 FPS, Medium yields 37.5 FPS, and High yields 30 FPS. Only Low approaches playability, and even then, the experience is below the 60 FPS standard. Ultra is effectively unplayable at 20.1 FPS.

Q: Why does the combo rank so low (1486 of 1695) despite decent 1080p numbers?

A: The ranking reflects performance across all tested resolutions and settings. While 1080p performance is solid, the severe drop-off at 1440p and 4K drags the overall standing down, as many competing combos handle higher resolutions more gracefully.

Q: What does the 1440p data reveal about the system's balance?

A: The spread from 84.6 FPS at Low to 33.8 FPS at Ultra shows a 50.8 FPS range, indicating that the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU has headroom, but the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot sustain high-quality 1440p rendering.

Q: Is there a settings preset that works well at all three resolutions?

A: Low is the only preset that exceeds 45 FPS at every resolution, with 125.5 FPS at 1080p, 84.6 FPS at 1440p, and 48.7 FPS at 4K. However, the visual quality is heavily compromised, so most users will prefer resolution-specific adjustments.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a clear pattern: moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings reduces performance from 76.1 FPS to 50.1 FPS, a 26 FPS drop (approximately 34%). The subsequent step to 3840x2160 at High brings the average down to 30 FPS, another 20.1 FPS loss (approximately 40%). This consistent proportional decline suggests that resolution scaling is the dominant factor in performance degradation.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is even more punishing. The 1080p Ultra result of 54.9 FPS falls to 33.8 FPS at 1440p (a 21.1 FPS drop) and then to 20.1 FPS at 4K (a 13.7 FPS drop). The 4K Ultra figure is less than 37% of the 1080p Ultra figure, demonstrating that the GPU's memory bandwidth and fill rate are being saturated at higher pixel counts. The GTX 1660 SUPER's 336.0 GB/s bandwidth and 85.68 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply insufficient for 4K Ultra workloads in Evolve.

The scaling behavior indicates that the limiting component is the GPU, not the CPU. If the processor were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively flat across resolutions as the rendering load shifts. Instead, the pronounced FPS decline with each resolution increase is a textbook GPU-bound signature. The 6-core, 12-thread i5-10400F has sufficient compute headroom, as evidenced by the 125.5 FPS at 1080p Low, which suggests the CPU can feed frames quickly but the GPU cannot keep pace at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame of 1486 out of 1695 places this configuration in the bottom 12% of all tested combinations for Evolve. This low ranking is somewhat misleading given the respectable 1080p performance, but it reflects the hardware's limitations at higher resolutions where many competing combos excel. The rank suggests that most other tested systems achieve better overall frame rates across the full resolution and settings matrix.

The ranking context becomes clearer when examining the individual component benchmarks. The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 73 indicates it outperforms 73% of all tested processors, while the GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 55 shows it beats only 55% of tested graphics cards. This imbalance—a stronger CPU paired with a mid-range GPU—explains why the combo underperforms relative to systems with more balanced pairings. The GPU is the weak link, and at 4K Ultra, the 20.1 FPS result is among the lowest in the database.

This rank also implies that users with similar CPU performance but faster GPUs will see dramatically better results, particularly at 1440p and 4K. The 1486th position out of 1695 is a warning that this combo is not future-proof for Evolve, especially as the game's requirements scale with resolution. However, for 1080p-centric play, the rank undersells the experience, as the High preset delivers a smooth 76.1 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads to the table, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Comet Lake architecture processor has a 12 MB shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth. The benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10297 and a Geekbench multicore score of 5783.

In Evolve, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. The 1080p Low setting achieves 125.5 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's frame delivery limit, but the processor never prevents the GPU from reaching its potential at higher settings. The single-thread performance, with a Cinebench R20 single-core score of 610 and a Passmark single-thread score of 2541, is adequate for the game's logic and physics, but the data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking at 1080p High (76.1 FPS) or even 1440p Medium (63.2 FPS).

The CPU's 73rd percentile ranking among all processors indicates it is a competent mid-tier chip. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.4% faster) and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.8% slower), showing it sits in a crowded performance band. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 4748 versus the max-thread score of 4735 suggests that the 12 threads are fully utilized, but Evolve likely does not demand all of them. The processor's 65W TDP and 14 nm process node are typical for this generation, and the data implies that upgrading the GPU would yield larger gains than upgrading the CPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results span a wide range. Low settings produce 125.5 FPS, Medium drops to 93.9 FPS, High settles at 76.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 54.9 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 31.6 FPS reduction, while the step from Medium to High is a 17.8 FPS reduction, and High to Ultra costs 21.2 FPS. The diminishing returns are evident, with each quality tier offering less visual improvement for a steeper performance penalty.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 84.6 FPS for Low, 63.2 FPS for Medium, 50.1 FPS for High, and 33.8 FPS for Ultra. The delta between Low and Medium is 21.4 FPS, Medium to High is 13.1 FPS, and High to Ultra is 16.3 FPS. The pattern mirrors 1080p but with proportionally lower absolute numbers, suggesting consistent GPU scaling.

At 3840x2160, the results compress dramatically: 48.7 FPS for Low, 37.5 FPS for Medium, 30 FPS for High, and 20.1 FPS for Ultra. The Low to Medium drop is 11.2 FPS, Medium to High is 7.5 FPS, and High to Ultra is 9.9 FPS. The 4K data reveals that even Low settings struggle to reach 60 FPS, and Ultra is a mere fraction of the 1080p Low performance. The overall dataset shows a clear hierarchy: resolution has a larger impact on FPS than settings at the high end, while settings have a larger impact at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with the TU116 chip, featuring 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 14 Gbps effective across a 192-bit bus, delivering 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1530 MHz with a boost clock of 1785 MHz, achieving 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

The GPU's 55th percentile ranking among all graphics cards places it in the middle of the pack. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (0.2% slower) and the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (0.2% slower), showing that the GTX 1660 SUPER is barely ahead of integrated solutions in synthetic benchmarks. However, in Evolve, the GPU's limitations become apparent at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 20.1 FPS is likely constrained by the 6 GB VRAM capacity and the 192-bit memory bus, which cannot handle the texture and geometry loads at that resolution.

The GPU's pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s indicate its fill capabilities, but the data shows these are insufficient for 4K. The drop from 48.7 FPS at 4K Low to 20.1 FPS at 4K Ultra is a 58.7% reduction, highlighting how the GPU's shading units become overwhelmed by advanced effects. The 12 nm process node and 125W TDP place it as an efficient mid-range part, but for Evolve, the GPU is the definitive bottleneck. Users seeking higher resolutions would need a GPU with more memory bandwidth and compute throughput, as the GTX 1660 SUPER's performance ceiling is clearly reached at 1440p High.