Evolve

# Evolve: Intel Core i5-14600K + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti — Hardware Analysis

The pairing of Intel's 14th-generation Core i5-14600K with NVIDIA's Pascal-era GTX 1050 Ti creates one of the most lopsided combinations in the Evolve benchmark database. The CPU sits at the 90th percentile among all processors, while the GPU languishes at the 25th percentile among all graphics cards. This 65-percentile gap manifests clearly in the measured frame rates, which top out at a modest 62 FPS at 1080p Low and collapse to single digits at 4K Ultra. The data suggests a system where the processor has enormous headroom that the graphics card simply cannot exploit.

FAQ

Q: What is the best measured performance this combo achieves in Evolve?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 62 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. The next best result is 48 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 38 FPS at 1080p High.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Evolve?

A: This combination ranks 3,644 out of 3,700 tested combos in Evolve. It sits in the bottom 1.5% of all configurations, reflecting the severe bottleneck created by the GTX 1050 Ti.

Q: What is the 4K performance like for this pairing?

A: At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable. Low settings yield 24 FPS, Medium produces 18 FPS, High drops to 14 FPS, and Ultra falls to just 10 FPS. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 16 FPS and maximum of 21 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1050 Ti compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The GTX 1050 Ti's average benchmark score of 4,193 places it within 1.8% of several competitors. It is 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon R5 M330, 1% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro K2100M, 1.1% behind the NVIDIA Quadro K3000M, and 1.8% behind the AMD Radeon Vega 3.

Q: Does the CPU show any signs of being the limiting factor at lower resolutions?

A: No. The Core i5-14600K scores 24,491 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,064 in single-core, ranking in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. Even at 1080p Low where the GPU is least stressed, the frame rate caps at 62 FPS—far below what this processor could drive with a more capable graphics card.

Q: What is the frame rate variance at Medium settings across resolutions?

A: At 1080p Medium, the average is 48 FPS with a range of 41 to 55 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 32 FPS with a range of 27 to 37 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 18 FPS with a range of 16 to 21 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, drawing up to 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. This processor supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it offers PCIe Gen 5 with 16 CPU lanes.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-14600K demonstrates substantial compute capability. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24,491 and single-core score of 2,064 place it in the 90th percentile among all CPUs. The Geekbench multi-core result is 16,673, with a single-core score of 2,491. Passmark tests show strong performance in integer math (125,737), floating-point math (92,794), and multithreaded workloads (38,682). The processor's average benchmark score of 48,618 sits within 0.8% of its nearest rivals, including the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, AMD EPYC 4345P, and two Intel Core Ultra 5 variants.

For Evolve, a game released in early 2015, the i5-14600K represents an extraordinary amount of computational headroom. The game's engine was designed for processors available at that time, which typically featured far fewer cores and lower clock speeds. The measured frame rates across all settings and resolutions never approach a CPU-imposed ceiling—even at 1080p Low, where the graphics load is minimal, the system produces only 62 FPS. This suggests the CPU is never the limiting component in this configuration. The 14 cores and 20 threads, combined with the 5.30 GHz boost capability, would be capable of driving frame rates several times higher if paired with a more balanced GPU.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is built on the Pascal architecture using the GP107 chip, manufactured on Samsung's 14 nm process with 3,300 million transistors. It features 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation units. The card operates at a base clock of 1,291 MHz with a boost clock of 1,392 MHz. Memory consists of 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 112.1 GB/s of bandwidth with memory clocked at 1,752 MHz (7 Gbps effective). The GTX 1050 Ti supports DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

The GPU's benchmark results place it in the 25th percentile of all graphics cards, with an average score of 4,193. Its Passmark G3D score is 6,340, while the DirectX 11 score is 45 and DirectX 12 score is 26. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result is 305. These figures illustrate a card that was entry-level when released in late 2016 and has aged considerably since then.

In Evolve, the GTX 1050 Ti's limitations are immediately apparent. The 4 GB VRAM capacity and 112.1 GB/s bandwidth become increasingly strained as resolution and settings increase. The measured frame rates show a clear pattern: at 1080p Low, the card manages 62 FPS; at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 26 FPS. At 4K, even Low settings only produce 24 FPS, and Ultra falls to 10 FPS. The card's 2.138 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 44.54 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply insufficient for Evolve's demands at higher resolutions. The GPU is undeniably the bottleneck in this pairing, as evidenced by the fact that frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and graphics settings rather than showing any CPU-related plateau.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 3,644 out of 3,700 tested combos in Evolve, placing it in the bottom 1.5% of all configurations. This ranking is remarkably poor given the CPU's capabilities—the i5-14600K alone ranks in the 90th percentile of all processors. The disconnect between CPU and GPU capabilities creates a situation where the overall system performance is dictated almost entirely by the graphics card.

The rank of 3,644 implies that only 56 combinations in the entire database perform worse than this pairing. Given that the GPU sits at the 25th percentile, one might expect the combo to rank somewhat higher, but the specific demands of Evolve appear to disadvantage the GTX 1050 Ti more than average. The 4 GB VRAM buffer, which is small by modern standards, likely contributes to the poor showing at higher settings, where texture data exceeds what the card can efficiently handle.

In context, this pairing represents what happens when a high-end 2023 processor is mated with a budget 2016 graphics card. The CPU's average benchmark score of 48,618 is nearly twelve times higher than the GPU's average score of 4,193. This massive disparity in raw compute capability translates directly to the lopsided performance seen in Evolve, where the system's output is constrained by the slowest component.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates reveal a consistent pattern of performance degradation as both resolution and settings increase. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low averages 62 FPS, Medium averages 48 FPS (with a range of 41 to 55), High averages 38 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. This represents a 58% drop from Low to Ultra at the same resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance falls further: Low averages 42 FPS, Medium averages 32 FPS (range of 27 to 37), High averages 25 FPS, and Ultra averages 17 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is substantial—roughly 32% at Low, 33% at Medium, 34% at High, and 35% at Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the numbers become marginal for playability: Low averages 24 FPS, Medium averages 18 FPS (range of 16 to 21), High averages 14 FPS, and Ultra averages 10 FPS. The 4K results show that this combination is not viable at this resolution for any setting, as even the lowest preset fails to reach 30 FPS.

The Medium settings across all three resolutions provide the only complete data with minimum and maximum values. At 1080p, the range is 41 to 55 FPS; at 1440p, it narrows to 27 to 37 FPS; at 4K, it tightens further to 16 to 21 FPS. This compression of the frame rate range at higher resolutions suggests the GPU becomes more consistently saturated as pixel count increases, reducing variance in favor of uniformly low performance.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal experience for this combination in Evolve is achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings, which produces an average of 62 FPS. This is the only configuration in the entire dataset that reaches or exceeds 60 FPS. For players prioritizing smoothness over visual quality, this is the clear choice.

If visual fidelity is more important, the 1080p Medium preset offers a reasonable compromise at 48 FPS average, with a minimum of 41 FPS ensuring that most scenes remain fluid. The 1080p High setting drops to 38 FPS, which is still technically playable but begins to introduce noticeable stutter in fast-paced action. The 1080p Ultra preset at 26 FPS is not recommended for competitive play, as the frame rate falls below the threshold where most players perceive smooth motion.

At 2560x1440, only the Low preset (42 FPS) approaches acceptable playability. The Medium preset at 32 FPS may be tolerable for less demanding scenarios, but the High (25 FPS) and Ultra (17 FPS) settings are too sluggish for an FPS title like Evolve. At 3840x2160, none of the settings produce playable results—the best is Low at 24 FPS, which is below the generally accepted minimum for action games.

The data suggests that users should either accept 1080p Low for maximum frame rate or 1080p Medium for a balance of quality and performance. Any attempt to push higher resolutions or settings results in frame rates that undermine the responsive gameplay Evolve requires.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 62 at 1080p to 42 at 1440p (a 32% reduction) and then to 24 at 4K (a further 43% reduction from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is 61%. At Medium settings, the progression is 48 → 32 → 18, representing a 33% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 44% drop from 1440p to 4K, for a total reduction of 63%. At High settings, the pattern continues: 38 → 25 → 14, with drops of 34% and 44%, totaling 63%. At Ultra, the numbers are 26 → 17 → 10, with drops of 35% and 41%, totaling 62%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings is telling. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rates would remain relatively flat as resolution increased, because the CPU workload would be similar regardless of pixel count. Instead, the nearly uniform ~30% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~45% drop from 1440p to 4K at every settings level indicates that the GPU is the sole constraint.

The scaling behavior also suggests that the GTX 1050 Ti's memory subsystem—4 GB of VRAM and 112.1 GB/s bandwidth—plays a significant role in the degradation. As resolution increases, the amount of texture data and pixel throughput required grows substantially, and the card's limited bandwidth becomes an increasingly severe bottleneck. The result is a system where even the most powerful processor available cannot compensate for the graphics card's fundamental limitations, making this pairing suitable only for 1080p gaming at low to medium settings in Evolve.