Evolve

# Evolve — Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080

Evolve, the 2015 asymmetrical FPS, presents an interesting stress test for this 6-core Intel processor paired with NVIDIA's Ampere flagship. The measured data shows a system that scales predictably across resolutions but reveals a distinct shift in bottleneck behavior as pixel count rises. At 1080p, the combo achieves a 252.1 FPS average on Low settings, suggesting ample headroom for high-refresh monitors, while the Ultra preset at 4K drops to 43.2 FPS, indicating a GPU-bound scenario at the highest fidelity. This pairing ranks 521st out of 1695 tested combos, placing it in the upper third of all configurations evaluated for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but not uniform across presets, which tells a compelling story about where the performance ceiling lives. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 sees average FPS fall from 252.1 to 96 — a 61.9% reduction. The Medium preset behaves similarly, dropping from 193.8 to 71.6, a 63.1% decline. High settings show a slightly smaller relative drop, from 151.4 to 57.2 (62.2%), while Ultra is the most punishing, falling from 107.5 to 43.2 (59.8%). These percentages cluster tightly, suggesting that the resolution scaling curve is consistent regardless of visual fidelity — a hallmark of a system where the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints as pixel count grows.

What's more revealing is the 1440p midpoint. At High settings, the combo delivers 100.1 FPS at 2560x1440, which drops to 57.2 at 4K — a 42.9% loss. But between 1080p and 1440p at High, the drop is only from 151.4 to 100.1 (33.9%). This non-linear degradation implies that the RTX 3080's 10 GB GDDR6X memory and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient at lower resolutions but start to feel the pressure as the 4K framebuffer demands more. The 320-bit bus width and 19 Gbps effective memory clock are clearly working hard at 3840x2160, where the Ultra preset's 43.2 FPS average indicates the GPU is the definitive limiting component.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, built on Samsung's 8 nm process with the GA102 chip, is the dominant force in this pairing. Its 8704 shading units, 272 TMUs, and 96 ROPs deliver substantial raw compute, evidenced by the 29.77 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 465.1 GTexel/s texture rate. The boost clock of 1710 MHz, up from a 1440 MHz base, allows the card to sustain high utilization across Evolve's environments. The 10 GB GDDR6X memory operates at 1188 MHz with 19 Gbps effective speed, providing the 760.3 GB/s bandwidth that becomes critical at 4K where the Ultra preset's 43.2 FPS average reveals the limits of this memory subsystem.

The GPU's benchmark standing is solid — it sits in the 80th percentile of all GPUs with an average score of 35787. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro Duo, scores 35860 (0.2% higher), while the AMD Radeon 880M trails by 0.4% with 35646. The RTX 3080 outpaces the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 0.9% (36101 vs 35787) and leads the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile by 1% (35435). This competitive positioning suggests that the GPU is not the weak link in this combo; rather, it's performing near the expected level for its class. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the 252.1 FPS average is likely constrained by the CPU's ability to feed the GPU, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU's 43.2 FPS is purely a function of its own rendering limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 achieves a rank of 521 out of 1695 tested combos for Evolve. This places the pairing in the 69.3rd percentile of all configurations — comfortably above the median but not among the elite top-tier setups. The rank reflects a balance where the CPU's 75th percentile standing (versus all CPUs) and the GPU's 80th percentile standing combine to produce a system that handles Evolve well but leaves performance on the table at lower resolutions.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution. The AMD Ryzen 7 5700U scores 17189, essentially matching the i5-11400F's 17181 (0% delta). The Intel Core i7-1260P and Core Ultra 7 164U both score slightly higher at 17212 and 17215, respectively (0.2% higher), while the Intel Core i5-1240U trails at 17141 (0.2% lower). This tight cluster indicates that the i5-11400F's 6 cores and 12 threads are competitive with newer mobile parts, but the 4.40 GHz boost clock and 12 MB L3 cache are not enough to push the combo higher in the rankings. The 521st rank suggests that many other CPU-GPU pairings — likely those with higher-core-count processors or newer architectures — achieve better frame rates in Evolve's multi-player scenarios.

FAQ

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

A: The 2560x1440 resolution at High settings delivers 100.1 FPS, which balances visual quality with smooth gameplay. At 1080p, the 151.4 FPS High average is excellent for high-refresh displays, while 4K High's 57.2 FPS is playable but not ideal for competitive play.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 3080's average benchmark score of 35787 places it 0.2% below the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (35860), 0.4% above the AMD Radeon 880M (35646), 0.9% above the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (36101), and 1% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (35435).

Q: Is the i5-11400F a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo achieves 252.1 FPS, but the CPU's single-thread score of 868 in 3DMark and Passmark single-thread score of 2981 indicate that the 6-core processor may limit frame rates in CPU-bound scenes, especially with the GPU capable of much higher output.

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking in Evolve?

A: The Intel Core i5-11400F + RTX 3080 ranks 521st out of 1695 tested combos, placing it in the upper 30% of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: How much FPS is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra, the average FPS drops from 107.5 at 1920x1080 to 43.2 at 3840x2160, a 59.8% reduction. This indicates that the GPU's 10 GB memory and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth are severely stressed at 4K with maxed settings.

Q: Does the GPU or CPU limit performance at 4K?

A: The 4K results are GPU-limited. The RTX 3080's 43.2 FPS at Ultra and 57.2 FPS at High show that the rendering load at 3840x2160 exceeds what the GPU can process, while the CPU's 12 threads are sufficient to keep up at these lower frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F, part of the Rocket Lake-S architecture on a 14 nm process, provides 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its 12 MB shared L3 cache and 80 KB L1 per core are modest by modern standards, but the 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth over a dual-channel DDR4 interface is adequate for feeding the GPU at most resolutions. The CPU's benchmark results show a single-thread score of 868 in 3DMark and 2029 in Cinebench R23, which place it in the 75th percentile of all CPUs — a respectable showing for a mid-range desktop part.

The CPU's role in Evolve becomes clear when examining the 1080p results. At Low settings, the 252.1 FPS average suggests that the CPU is the primary limiter, as the RTX 3080 is capable of far higher frame rates in lighter workloads. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5619 and max-thread score of 5652 indicate that the 12 threads are well-utilized in multi-threaded scenarios, but the single-thread score of 868 and Passmark find prime numbers score of 51 reveal a ceiling in per-core performance. This explains why the combo ranks 521st rather than higher — the CPU holds back the GPU at lower resolutions, while at 4K, the GPU's rendering load dominates.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to High settings as the optimal balance for this combo across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, High delivers 151.4 FPS, which is 43.2 FPS lower than Low (252.1) but 44.4 FPS higher than Ultra (107.5), offering a substantial visual upgrade over Low with only a 39.9% FPS penalty. At 2560x1440, High's 100.1 FPS is smooth for most displays, while Low's 169.4 FPS is only useful for esports-level refresh rates. The Medium preset at 1440p (129 FPS) is a viable alternative for those seeking higher frame rates without the visual austerity of Low.

For 4K, the choice is more constrained. High settings at 57.2 FPS is barely playable, while Medium's 71.6 FPS provides a more comfortable margin. Ultra at 43.2 FPS should be avoided unless visual fidelity is the sole priority. The data suggests that High is the sweet spot — it offers the best visual-per-frame-rate ratio across all resolutions, with the 57.2 FPS at 4K being the only scenario where users might consider dropping to Medium. Low settings at 4K (96 FPS) are an option for players who prioritize smoothness over everything, but the visual downgrade is significant relative to the modest FPS gain over Medium.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo produces 252.1 FPS on Low, 193.8 on Medium, 151.4 on High, and 107.5 on Ultra. The 144.6 FPS spread between Low and Ultra demonstrates the GPU's headroom at this resolution, with the CPU becoming the limiting factor at lower presets. The 2560x1440 results show 169.4 FPS on Low, 129 on Medium, 100.1 on High, and 69.6 on Ultra — a 99.8 FPS spread that narrows the gap between presets as the GPU load increases. At 3840x2160, the averages are 96 on Low, 71.6 on Medium, 57.2 on High, and 43.2 on Ultra, with a 52.8 FPS spread that confirms the GPU is the dominant constraint.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each preset shows a 32.8% drop on Low (252.1 to 169.4), 33.4% on Medium (193.8 to 129), 33.9% on High (151.4 to 100.1), and 35.3% on Ultra (107.5 to 69.6). Moving from 1440p to 4K, the drops are 43.3% on Low (169.4 to 96), 44.5% on Medium (129 to 71.6), 42.9% on High (100.1 to 57.2), and 37.9% on Ultra (69.6 to 43.2). These consistent patterns indicate that the RTX 3080's performance scales predictably with resolution, and the 10 GB frame buffer handles the transition from 1440p to 4K without catastrophic degradation, though the Ultra preset at 4K falls below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay.