Evolve

Evolve, a 2015 FPS built on the CryEngine, presents a demanding workload that scales dramatically with resolution and quality settings. The data for the Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT reveals a configuration that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the CPU’s substantial headroom becomes apparent only when the graphical load is reduced. This analysis breaks down the measured performance across the tested spectrum, from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra, to identify where the bottleneck lies and how this specific combo stacks against the broader database.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate trajectory from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates the shifting balance between CPU and GPU demand. At the "Low" preset, the combo delivers 263.4 FPS at 1920x1080, which drops to 175.5 FPS at 2560x1440, and then falls to 101.9 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 61.3% performance reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that even at the lowest settings, the resolution scaling is imposing a massive load on the graphics card. The fact that the 1080p Low score is nearly triple the 4K high figure suggests the RX 9070 XT is the primary limiting factor across all tested configurations.

Moving to the "High" preset, the scaling pattern remains consistent but with lower absolute numbers. The 1080p High result is 160.6 FPS, which declines to 103.5 FPS at 1440p (a 35.6% drop) and then to 58.3 FPS at 4K (a 43.7% drop from 1440p). The diminishing returns at 4K are stark: the gap between 1440p High and 4K High is larger than the gap between 1080p High and 1440p High. This nonlinear degradation points to the GPU hitting a memory bandwidth or compute ceiling as pixel count increases, despite the card’s 16 GB GDDR6 allocation.

The "Ultra" preset further accentuates this trend. At 1080p Ultra, the system manages 110.7 FPS, which is a healthy playable number. However, 1440p Ultra falls to 75.3 FPS, and 4K Ultra plummets to 43.3 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is below the 60 FPS threshold commonly desired for smooth gameplay, and it sits only 42.7% above the 1080p Ultra figure. This steep drop-off at 4K Ultra suggests that Evolve’s highest settings introduce effects—likely volumetric lighting and tessellation—that disproportionately tax the GPU’s 380.2 GPixel/s pixel rate and 48.66 TFLOPS FP32 throughput.

The data reveals a clear pattern: the CPU is never the binding constraint in this pairing. Even at 1080p Low, where the frame rate exceeds 260 FPS, the Core i5-14600KF with its 5.30 GHz boost clock and 20 threads is feeding the GPU adequately. The scaling curve from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, which is the signature of a GPU-limited scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the 1080p results to plateau regardless of settings, but instead we see a 152.7 FPS swing between Low and Ultra at 1080p, confirming the GPU is doing the heavy lifting.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a 4 nm process from TSMC, is the dominant component in this configuration. Its specifications are formidable: 4096 shading units, 256 texture mapping units, and 128 raster operation units. The card’s 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for Evolve’s large textures and complex environments. The boost clock of 2970 MHz is aggressive, and the game clock of 2400 MHz represents the sustained frequency under typical gaming loads.

In Evolve, the GPU’s role is decisive across all measured settings. The 43.3 FPS at 4K Ultra versus the 101.9 FPS at 4K Low demonstrates a 58.4 FPS range purely from graphical preset changes at the same resolution. This indicates that the card’s compute resources are being saturated by the Ultra preset’s additional workload. The RDNA 4.0 architecture, with its 64 ray tracing cores, handles the game’s lighting calculations efficiently, but the raw rasterization demand at 4K Ultra overwhelms the 128 ROPs when pushing 380.2 GPixel/s.

The benchmark scores for the GPU corroborate its strong standing but also reveal its position relative to peers. The RX 9070 XT achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 7260 and a Passmark G3D score of 26795, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (avg score 39703, delta -0.1%) and the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (avg score 39568, delta 0.2%). These deltas are negligible, meaning the RX 9070 XT’s average benchmark score of 39647 is statistically tied with those cards, despite the architectural generational gap.

The 16 GB memory capacity is noteworthy for a game released in 2015. Even at 4K Ultra, Evolve’s texture streaming is unlikely to exceed 8 GB, so the headroom is substantial. The 644.6 GB/s bandwidth, however, is the more relevant metric for the 4K performance cliff we observe. The card’s memory clock of 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective) is high, but the 256-bit bus width limits total throughput compared to wider implementations. The measured 4K Ultra result of 43.3 FPS suggests the GPU is bandwidth-bound at that setting, as the compute load alone cannot explain the steep drop from 1440p Ultra’s 75.3 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database of 1695 tested CPU-GPU combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT achieves a rank of 443. This places it in the top 26.1% of all tested combos, which is a strong showing given the game’s age and the modern components involved. The rank reflects the measured FPS data, which is marked as "dataIsMeasured" true, indicating direct testing rather than estimation.

The combo’s rank is influenced by the CPU’s own percentile standing. The Core i5-14600KF sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49367. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14600K (avg 49166, delta 0.4%) and the AMD EPYC 4345P (avg 49595, delta -0.5%). The i5-14600KF is effectively tied with these processors, showing that the CPU selection is not introducing any significant variance. The GPU’s 82nd percentile rank is slightly lower, which drags the combo’s overall position down from what the CPU alone would suggest.

Notably, the combo’s rank of 443 out of 1695 indicates that there are 1252 other configurations that perform better in Evolve. This is likely due to the game’s age favoring older, high-clock GPUs in certain settings, or combos with more balanced specifications. However, the data shows this pairing is firmly in the upper quartile, which is respectable for a 14th-gen Intel CPU and a 9000-series AMD GPU running a 2015 title. The rank also implies that for this specific game, the RX 9070 XT’s modern features (like PCIe 5.0 x16 interface) do not provide a measurable advantage over older cards in the top quartile.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo demonstrates its peak capability. The Low preset achieves 263.4 FPS, which is exceptional for any hardware. Medium drops to 204.3 FPS (a 22.4% reduction), High reaches 160.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 110.7 FPS. The 1080p results show a smooth, predictable degradation as settings increase, with each preset tier costing roughly 40-50 FPS. The 1080p Low figure of 263.4 FPS is the highest number recorded across all tests, indicating that the CPU can push well beyond 200 FPS when the GPU is not stressed.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but the GPU begins to show strain. Low hits 175.5 FPS, which is still excellent. Medium drops to 136 FPS, High to 103.5 FPS, and Ultra to 75.3 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is 32% lower than the 1080p Ultra result, showing that the resolution increase has a disproportionate impact on the highest settings. The 1440p Low to Ultra spread is exactly 100.2 FPS, which is slightly narrower than the 1080p spread of 152.7 FPS, suggesting the GPU is becoming the primary limiter.

At 3840x2160, the performance is playable at lower settings but struggles at Ultra. Low delivers 101.9 FPS, Medium drops to 75.6 FPS, High to 58.3 FPS, and Ultra to 43.3 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only one below 60 FPS in the entire dataset, making it the sole configuration where the combo fails to maintain smooth gameplay. The 4K Low to Ultra spread is 58.6 FPS, which is much narrower than at lower resolutions, confirming that the GPU is hitting a hard limit. The 4K High average of 58.3 FPS is barely above the 4K Medium’s 75.6 FPS, indicating that the High preset’s additional effects are particularly expensive at this resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 10 nm process. Its base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, which is critical for Evolve’s game logic and physics. The CPU’s cache hierarchy includes 80 KB L1 per core, 2 MB L2 per core, and 24 MB shared L3, which helps with the game’s asset streaming. The chip supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel mode, though the specific bandwidth is not listed.

In this combo, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck. The benchmark data shows the CPU rarely limits performance. At 1080p Low, the 263.4 FPS result is likely near the CPU’s practical limit for this game, but the fact that 1080p Medium still achieves 204.3 FPS suggests there is headroom. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32889 and single-core score of 4643 indicate strong processing power, but these synthetic scores do not translate to a measurable advantage in Evolve because the GPU is the constraint.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in the database are the Intel Core i5-14600K (delta 0.4%), AMD EPYC 4345P (delta -0.5%), and AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (delta 0.6%). The i5-14600KF’s average benchmark score of 49367 is within 0.6% of all three rivals, meaning the CPU choice among these would not change the measured FPS in Evolve. The 14 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient for a 2015 game that likely uses fewer than eight threads. The 5.30 GHz boost clock is the key attribute, as it ensures high single-thread performance for the game’s main loop.

The conclusion from the data is that the CPU is never the limiting factor in this pairing. Even at 1080p Low, where the frame rate exceeds 260 FPS, the CPU is providing adequate frame pacing. The 125 W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 platform are consistent with a high-performance desktop part, but the game’s requirements are modest. The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking confirms its overall capability, but in Evolve specifically, it is the GPU that dictates the experience. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (43.3) versus 1080p Low (263.4) shows a six-fold difference that is entirely attributable to GPU workload, not CPU processing.