Evolve

The data for Evolve with the Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti reveals a configuration that is heavily constrained by its graphics processor at higher resolutions, yet demonstrates a surprisingly capable CPU for this specific title. The measured frame rates show a clear and predictable progression as resolution scales, but the performance ceiling at 4K is notably low, indicating where the bottleneck lies.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression across resolutions is the defining characteristic of this combo's performance in Evolve. At 1080p, the system delivers playable to excellent results depending on settings. With Low settings, the average FPS reaches 125.9, which is more than sufficient for high-refresh-rate displays. Medium settings drop this to 96.7 FPS, and High settings bring it to 78.9 FPS. Even at Ultra, the 1080p average of 53.3 FPS remains comfortably within the playable range for a title like Evolve.

Moving to 1440p introduces a significant penalty. The Low setting average falls to 82 FPS, a drop of 43.9 FPS from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings yield 65.5 FPS, and High settings produce 51 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p averages just 37.9 FPS, which begins to feel sluggish for an FPS title. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is roughly linear, with the GPU load increasing as expected.

The 4K results are where this combination clearly struggles. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages only 21.3 FPS, which is barely interactive. High settings at 4K manage 27.5 FPS, while Medium settings reach 36.9 FPS. Even the Low preset at 4K, which produces 49.7 FPS, cannot maintain a solid 60 FPS target. The gap between 1440p and 4K is substantial; for instance, the High setting drops from 51 FPS at 1440p to 27.5 FPS at 4K, a reduction of 23.5 FPS. This steep decline strongly suggests that the GTX 1660 Ti's memory bandwidth and pixel throughput become the limiting factors at this resolution.

The data indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, as the frame rates across all settings are consistently low. Even reducing settings from Ultra to Low at 4K only yields a 28.4 FPS improvement, which is insufficient to achieve smooth gameplay. This pattern points to the GPU being saturated by the sheer pixel count, rather than the CPU being unable to feed the graphics card.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 provides a robust foundation for this game, with 6 cores and 12 threads running at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. The processor's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 and a single-core score of 2249. In the context of Evolve, a game released in 2015, this CPU is likely not the limiting factor until very high frame rates are achieved.

The CPU's performance relative to its peers is tight. Its average benchmark score of 19850 places it just 0.1% above the Intel Core i7-9700 and 0.4% above the Intel Core i5-11600K. It trails the Intel Core i7-8700 by 0.2% and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX by 0.4%. This clustering indicates that the i5-12400 is well-matched with other mid-range desktop processors from its era, and its 18 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide ample bandwidth for gaming workloads.

Given the measured FPS, the CPU's role appears to be secondary. At 1080p Low, where the frame rate hits 125.9 FPS, the CPU is likely still not fully taxed, as the GTX 1660 Ti is capable of rendering frames quickly at this low quality setting. However, at 4K, the CPU is almost certainly idle waiting for the GPU to complete its work. The PassMark multithread score of 18747 and single-thread score of 3456 indicate a processor that can handle the game logic and draw calls without becoming a bottleneck at the frame rates observed. The data suggests that the i5-12400 has headroom to spare, as Evolve is not a highly CPU-intensive title by modern standards.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall ranking of tested CPU and GPU combinations for Evolve, this pairing sits at rank 1464 out of 1695 combos. This places it in the lower percentile of systems tested, specifically the 1464th position. The percentileVsAllCpus for the i5-12400 is 77, which is relatively high, but the GPU's percentileVsAllGpus is only 55. This discrepancy between the CPU's strong standing and the GPU's more modest position explains the combo's low overall rank.

The combo rank indicates that while the CPU is a strong performer, the GTX 1660 Ti holds the system back in this game. The GPU's average benchmark score of 13925 is within 0.4% of the AMD Radeon RX 570X and 0.8% of the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile and GeForce GTX 680. This suggests that the GTX 1660 Ti is a mid-range card, and its performance in Evolve reflects that positioning. The rank of 1464 out of 1695 means that many other combinations of hardware will outperform this pairing, particularly those with more powerful GPUs.

The data implies that if the goal is to play Evolve at higher resolutions with this CPU, a GPU upgrade would be necessary to improve the ranking. Conversely, at 1080p, the combo is more competitive, but the overall rank still reflects the GPU's limitations across all resolutions. The measured FPS at 1080p Medium (96.7) and High (78.9) are solid, but the low 4K performance drags the overall assessment down.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Evolve with this combo?

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 is the only resolution where all settings produce playable frame rates. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 53.3 FPS, while 1440p Ultra drops to 37.9 FPS and 4K Ultra falls to 21.3 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. The frame rates are consistently low across all settings, from 21.3 FPS at Ultra to 49.7 FPS at Low, indicating that the GTX 1660 Ti cannot handle the pixel load. The CPU's high percentile rank and benchmark scores suggest it has ample headroom.

Q: How does the i5-12400 compare to its nearest rival, the i7-9700, in average benchmark score?

A: The i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 19850, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-9700's score of 19831. This is a negligible difference, indicating nearly identical overall performance.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p High and 1440p High?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 78.9 at 1080p to 51 at 1440p, a reduction of 27.9 FPS. This represents a 35.4% decrease in frame rate when moving up one resolution step.

Q: Does the GTX 1660 Ti perform similarly to any other GPUs in this benchmark database?

A: Yes, the GTX 1660 Ti's average benchmark score of 13925 is 0.4% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 570X (13871) and 0.8% higher than both the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (13821) and the GeForce GTX 680 (13812). The closest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla K10, which scores 14029, 0.7% higher.

Q: Can this combo achieve 60 FPS at 4K with any settings?

A: No. The highest 4K average FPS is 49.7 at Low settings, which falls short of the 60 FPS target. All other 4K settings produce averages below 37 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the primary determinant of performance in this Evolve configuration, particularly at higher resolutions. The card features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1500 MHz with a boost clock of 1770 MHz, and it offers 1536 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units. These specifications position it as a capable 1080p card from its generation, but the data shows it struggles with Evolve's demands at 1440p and 4K.

The GPU's benchmark results reinforce its mid-range status. Its PassMark G3D score is 12871, and its Geekbench OpenCL score is 60863. The pixel rate of 84.96 GPixel/s and texture rate of 169.9 GTexel/s are adequate for 1080p gaming, but the 4K resolution requires four times the pixel throughput, which this card cannot deliver. The FP32 performance of 5.437 TFLOPS is modest, and the 12 nm process node and 120 W TDP indicate a power-efficient but not high-end design.

In Evolve, the GPU's limitations are most apparent in the 4K results. The card's 6 GB of VRAM is sufficient for the textures used in this 2015 title, but the raw compute and memory bandwidth are insufficient. The benchmark results show that the GTX 1660 Ti is only 55th percentile among all GPUs, which aligns with the observed performance. The card's 288.0 GB/s bandwidth is the likely culprit at 4K, as the high pixel count saturates the memory subsystem. For users targeting 1080p, the GPU is a solid choice, but for 4K, it is clearly out of its depth. The data indicates that the GPU is the component to upgrade first if higher resolutions are desired for Evolve.