Evolve

# Evolve with Intel Core i5-12400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti produces a fascinating split personality in Evolve, a 2015 FPS that clearly favors high refresh rates at lower resolutions while buckling under the weight of Ultra settings at 4K. The measured frame rates span from a blistering 301.5 FPS average at 1080p Low down to a barely playable 50.2 FPS at 4K Ultra, revealing a combination that is simultaneously overkill for competitive play and under-powered for maximum visual fidelity at the highest resolution. This benchmark set, drawn from 1,695 tested combinations, places this pairing at rank 164 overall, putting it in the top tier of systems while still leaving headroom for more extreme hardware.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck shifts. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 194.2 at 1080p to 128.8 at 1440p, then to 73 at 4K — a 62.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the decline is even steeper: 135.2 FPS at 1080p becomes 87.7 at 1440p and just 50.2 at 4K, a 62.9% drop. This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is heavily involved, allowing the RTX 5070 Ti to stretch its legs; at 4K, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint, with pixel throughput demands overwhelming even this high-end card.

Interestingly, the scaling from 1440p to 4K at Low settings shows a 43.4% reduction (217.6 to 123.2 FPS), which is proportionally smaller than the 1080p-to-1440p drop of 27.8% (301.5 to 217.6 FPS). This suggests that at Low settings, the game's rendering pipeline becomes less GPU-bound at higher resolutions, as other system components like memory bandwidth or driver overhead start to play a role. The data implies that for players targeting 4K, the RTX 5070 Ti's 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth and 16 GB of GDDR7 memory are sufficient for Medium settings (95 FPS) but insufficient for Ultra, where the 50.2 FPS result falls below the 60 FPS threshold typically considered smooth.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 Ti, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB203 chip, brings substantial resources to Evolve: 8,960 shading units, 280 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output pipelines. Its boost clock of 2452 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz, combined with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, deliver a texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s. These specifications explain why the card handles Medium settings at 4K with 95 FPS — the memory subsystem is not saturated, and the shading units have ample headroom for Evolve's 2015-era effects.

The GPU's FP32 throughput of 43.94 TFLOPS is more than sufficient for a title from this era, but the Ultra preset at 4K still drags performance to 50.2 FPS. This indicates that Evolve's Ultra settings likely include features that are particularly demanding on the rasterization pipeline, possibly heavy use of transparency and post-processing effects that scale poorly with resolution. The card's 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 52,086, places it just above the RTX 4080 (52,085, 0% delta) and notably ahead of the RTX A1000 (50,826, 2.5% delta), confirming its high-end status.

How This Combo Ranks

At rank 164 out of 1,695 tested combinations, this system sits in the 90.3rd percentile of all CPU-GPU pairings tested for Evolve. This is a strong result, but not a top-tier one — the data suggests that roughly 163 other combinations deliver higher average frame rates in this game. The ranking implies that while the RTX 5070 Ti is a top-tier GPU (87th percentile), the Core i5-12400's 77th percentile CPU ranking holds the combo back from the very top positions, likely because Evolve's engine responds well to higher-core-count processors or faster single-thread performance.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 19,850 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-9700 (19,831, 0.1% delta) and Intel Core i7-8700 (19,894, -0.2% delta), while trailing the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX (19,928, -0.4% delta) by a hair. This clustering around the 19,800-19,900 score range suggests that the i5-12400's 6 cores and 12 threads are competitive with older 8-core designs in synthetic benchmarks, but in a real-time game like Evolve, the thread scheduling and cache behavior may differ. The combo's rank of 164 indicates that systems with more powerful CPUs paired with similar GPUs can push higher frame rates, particularly at 1080p where the CPU's influence is most pronounced.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured averages span a wide range: 301.5 FPS on Low, 249.7 on Medium, 194.2 on High, and 135.2 on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra is 55.2%, showing that even at 1080p, settings dramatically impact performance. The 1080p Ultra result of 135.2 FPS is still above most monitors' refresh rates, so players with 144Hz displays can enjoy max settings without compromise in competitive scenarios.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages become 217.6 (Low), 168.1 (Medium), 128.8 (High), and 87.7 (Ultra). The 1440p Ultra result dips below 90 FPS, which is noticeable on high-refresh 1440p panels but still playable. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is consistent: Low drops 27.8%, Medium drops 32.7%, High drops 33.7%, and Ultra drops 35.1% — a pattern where higher settings incur proportionally larger penalties from the resolution increase.

At 3840x2160, the results are 123.2 (Low), 95 (Medium), 73 (High), and 50.2 (Ultra). The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-60 FPS measurement in the entire set, highlighting that this setting combination is the only one that pushes the system beyond its comfort zone. The 4K Low result of 123.2 FPS is still excellent, meaning that 4K gaming is viable if players are willing to sacrifice visual quality.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 operates with 6 cores and 12 threads, base clocking at 2.50 GHz and boosting to 4.40 GHz. Its Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, includes 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15,935 and a single-core score of 2,249, with a PassMark multithread score of 18,747. These numbers suggest that the i5-12400 has strong single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread score of 3,456), which matters for Evolve's game logic and rendering thread.

The 1080p Low result of 301.5 FPS is particularly telling — this frame rate is likely approaching the engine's maximum draw call throughput or the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw commands. At this resolution and setting, the GPU is far from saturated, so the CPU's 6 cores are the limiting factor. The fact that the combo ranks 164th overall, despite having a top-tier GPU, suggests that higher-core-count CPUs or those with better memory controllers could push 1080p frame rates even higher. The CPU's memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5, with dual-channel access, means that memory bandwidth could also be a factor in achieving those extreme frame rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the best 4K setting for this combo?

A: Medium settings at 3840x2160 deliver 95 FPS on average, which is the highest 4K result that stays comfortably above 60 FPS. Ultra drops to 50.2 FPS, which may feel less smooth.

Q: Can this system hit 240 FPS in Evolve?

A: Yes, at 1920x1080 with Low settings, the measured average is 301.5 FPS, and at Medium it is 249.7 FPS. At 1440p Low, the average is 217.6 FPS, which falls short of 240 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 Ti compare to the RTX 4080?

A: The two GPUs have nearly identical average benchmark scores: 52,086 for the RTX 5070 Ti versus 52,085 for the RTX 4080, representing a 0% delta in performance.

Q: Is the Core i5-12400 a bottleneck for the RTX 5070 Ti?

A: The data indicates that at 1080p Low, the CPU likely limits performance to 301.5 FPS, as the GPU would be capable of higher. The combo's rank of 164 out of 1,695 suggests stronger CPUs can extract more performance.

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

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce 128.8 FPS while Ultra produces 87.7 FPS, a difference of 41.1 FPS (31.9% lower performance on Ultra).

Q: Does the GPU's 16 GB VRAM matter for Evolve?

A: The 16 GB GDDR7 memory with 896.0 GB/s bandwidth is far more than Evolve requires, as evidenced by the 73 FPS at 4K High — the VRAM is not the limiting factor at any tested setting.

Settings Recommendations

For players seeking the smoothest experience, the 1080p Low preset at 301.5 FPS is the clear winner, delivering frame rates high enough for any competitive display. However, the 1080p High setting at 194.2 FPS offers a better balance — it still exceeds 144Hz displays while providing substantially better visuals than Low. The 1440p High preset at 128.8 FPS is the best choice for 1440p monitors, as it stays above 120 FPS while offering strong image quality. For 4K displays, the Medium preset at 95 FPS is the recommended sweet spot; the Ultra preset at 50.2 FPS is the only measured configuration that fails to maintain 60 FPS, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay despite the visual fidelity gain. Players with 240Hz monitors should stick to 1080p Medium (249.7 FPS) or lower, while those with 144Hz panels can comfortably use 1440p High (128.8 FPS) or 1080p Ultra (135.2 FPS).