Evolve

The Intel Core i5-9400 and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB pairing delivers a solid 1080p experience in Evolve, but the data shows you need to be selective with settings to hit high refresh rates. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset drops to 95.8 FPS, which is playable but leaves performance on the table. The Medium preset at 172.5 FPS and Low at 211.7 FPS are where this combo shines for competitive play. For the best balance of visual fidelity and speed, the High preset at 131.4 FPS is the recommended starting point—it clears the 120 FPS threshold comfortably while keeping the game looking substantially better than Low. At 2560x1440, High still delivers 92.8 FPS, making it the sweet spot for higher-resolution monitors. The 4K Ultra setting at 36 FPS is essentially unplayable for a fast-paced FPS, so stick to High or lower for 3840x2160.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium as the optimal preset for this combo if you prioritize frame rate consistency. At 1920x1080, the jump from Medium (172.5 FPS) to Low (211.7 FPS) represents a 39.2 FPS gain, but the visual cost of Low is significant in a game like Evolve where environmental detail matters for spotting wildlife. High at 131.4 FPS is the better visual choice for players who want a balanced experience, but it drops 41.1 FPS below Medium. The Ultra preset at 95.8 FPS is the least efficient option at 1080p—it costs 76.7 FPS versus Medium for marginal visual improvements that are hard to notice in fast motion. For 1440p gaming, High at 92.8 FPS is the only preset that stays above 90 FPS; Medium drops to 114 FPS but Low reaches 148.7 FPS, making Low the better choice for high-refresh 1440p monitors. At 4K, the situation reverses: Low at 84.1 FPS is the only playable option, with Medium at 62.5 FPS and High at 51.7 FPS both dipping into territory where input lag becomes noticeable.

How This Combo Ranks

This particular CPU-GPU combination ranks 751 out of 1695 tested combos in Evolve, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database. The percentile position indicates that roughly 44% of tested configurations outperform this pairing, while 56% fall behind. This ranking makes sense given the hardware profile: the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB is a competent 1080p card, but the i5-9400's six-core, six-thread configuration from the Coffee Lake architecture limits peak performance in CPU-bound scenarios. The GPU's benchmark score of 2913 on 3DMark Steel Nomad places it at the 17th percentile among all GPUs, which seems low but reflects the fact that this is a 1080p-focused card competing against higher-end options. The CPU's average benchmark score of 2305 puts it at the 50th percentile, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300, 0.2% delta), Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299, 0.2% delta), Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295, 0.4% delta), and Intel Core i7-8809G (2319, -0.6% delta). The combo's mid-pack ranking suggests it is neither a bottleneck nightmare nor a performance champion—it sits where you would expect a balanced 1080p system from this era.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB is the primary driver of frame rates in Evolve, and its memory configuration is the key constraint. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming but becomes the limiting factor at 4K. The GPU's boost clock of 2535 MHz and base clock of 2310 MHz are high for the Ada Lovelace architecture, and the 4352 shading units provide substantial compute throughput at 22.06 TFLOPS FP32. The 48 ROPs and 136 TMUs handle pixel and texture work efficiently, with a pixel rate of 121.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 344.8 GTexel/s. In Evolve, the GPU's VRAM capacity directly explains the 4K results: at Ultra settings, the game likely exceeds 8 GB of VRAM, causing the drop to 36 FPS. Dropping to Low at 4K brings the frame rate up to 84.1 FPS, which indicates the game's memory footprint shrinks dramatically with reduced texture quality. The 128-bit memory bus is the weak point—a wider bus would help at higher resolutions, but for 1080p and 1440p, this GPU is well-matched to the game's requirements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete picture across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080: Low hits 211.7 FPS, Medium reaches 172.5 FPS, High achieves 131.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 95.8 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p is a 115.9 FPS drop, which represents a 54.7% reduction in frame rate. At 2560x1440: Low delivers 148.7 FPS, Medium hits 114 FPS, High reaches 92.8 FPS, and Ultra drops to 61.2 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is particularly telling—it is just 25.4 FPS above the 4K Ultra result, showing that Ultra settings at 1440p are nearly as demanding as at 4K. At 3840x2160: Low manages 84.1 FPS, Medium drops to 62.5 FPS, High falls to 51.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 36 FPS. The 4K results show a clear pattern: each settings tier costs roughly 20 FPS, with the gap between Low and Ultra being 48.1 FPS. Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently provides the most balanced performance-to-visuals ratio, with the 1080p Medium result at 172.5 FPS being particularly strong for a 144Hz monitor.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the drop from 211.7 FPS at 1080p to 84.1 FPS at 4K is a 127.6 FPS loss, or roughly 60% performance reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is from 172.5 FPS to 62.5 FPS, a 110 FPS loss. At High settings, the drop is from 131.4 FPS to 51.7 FPS, a 79.7 FPS loss. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 95.8 FPS to 36 FPS, a 59.8 FPS loss. The pattern here is informative: the absolute FPS loss decreases as settings increase, which indicates the GPU is becoming the limiting factor at higher settings. At Low settings, the CPU has more headroom, so the GPU's workload at 4K creates a larger relative drop. The fact that 4K Low (84.1 FPS) is still playable while 4K Ultra (36 FPS) is not suggests the VRAM capacity is the binding constraint at Ultra. The 1440p results show a milder scaling curve, with High at 92.8 FPS representing a 38.6 FPS drop from 1080p High—this is a reasonable cost for the resolution increase, and it confirms that 1440p High is the practical ceiling for this combo if you want smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 plays a supporting role in this pairing, and its specifications reveal why the combo ranks where it does. The CPU has 6 cores and 6 threads with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.10 GHz, operating on the Coffee Lake architecture at 14 nm. The 9 MB shared L3 cache is modest by modern standards, and the dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth is adequate but not exceptional. The CPU's benchmark scores show a balanced profile: Cinebench R23 multicore at 7969 and single-core at 1125, with R20 scores of 3346 multicore and 472 single-core. The single-core performance is the more important metric for Evolve, as this FPS title relies heavily on one or two threads for game logic and physics. The 4.10 GHz boost clock helps in this regard, but the lack of hyper-threading means the CPU has limited headroom when background processes compete for threads. The CPU's 50th percentile ranking among all CPUs places it exactly at the median, and its nearest rivals show a tight cluster: the Core i3-10305 matches it within 0.2%, and the Core i7-8809G is just 0.6% faster. In Evolve, the CPU's role becomes apparent at 1080p Low settings, where the frame rate reaches 211.7 FPS—this high number suggests the CPU can keep up with the GPU at low graphics loads, but the 4K results show the GPU takes over as the primary bottleneck. For 1440p gaming, the CPU and GPU are well-balanced, with neither component creating a severe constraint. The 65W TDP and 14 nm process mean thermals are manageable, and the PCIe Gen 3 x16 interface provides sufficient bandwidth for the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer. Overall, the CPU is not the star of this combo, but it does not hold the RTX 4060 Ti back at 1080p or 1440p in Evolve—only at 4K Ultra does the combination of CPU and GPU limitations become fully apparent.