Evolve

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT delivers a strong performance profile in Evolve, with measured data indicating that the combination is capable of high frame rates across most settings and resolutions. The following analysis breaks down the measured performance data, providing specific recommendations and context for how this hardware duo behaves in this particular title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination reveals a clear hierarchy across the four available settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 244 FPS, which is exceptionally high and indicates significant headroom for competitive play or high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset at the same resolution produces an average of 189 FPS with a minimum of 161 FPS and a maximum of 217 FPS, offering a substantial performance buffer while presumably improving visual fidelity. The High preset drops to 148 FPS average, which remains very smooth for most displays. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields an average of 103 FPS, still comfortably playable but representing a notable performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues with Low averaging 163 FPS, Medium averaging 127 FPS (with a minimum of 108 FPS and maximum of 146 FPS), High averaging 99 FPS, and Ultra dropping to 69 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p stands out as the optimal balance, providing a minimum frame rate that stays above the 100 FPS threshold while offering better visual quality than Low. For 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained: Low averages 93 FPS, Medium averages 72 FPS (with a minimum of 61 FPS and maximum of 83 FPS), High averages 57 FPS, and Ultra falls to 39 FPS.

The data suggests that the Medium preset provides the best experience per the measured rows. At 1080p and 1440p, it offers frame rates well above 120 FPS average while maintaining a minimum that never drops below 108 FPS at 1440p and 161 FPS at 1080p. At 4K, Medium is the highest setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS, with the minimum of 61 FPS indicating it can hold near that threshold. The Ultra preset appears to be reserved for lower resolutions if visual quality is paramount, but the significant frame rate penalty—dropping from 189 to 103 FPS at 1080p and from 127 to 69 FPS at 1440p—makes it a less attractive choice for maintaining smooth gameplay.

FAQ

Q: Can this combination run Evolve at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, at 4K the Medium preset delivers an average of 72 FPS with a minimum of 61 FPS, which is playable. The High preset drops to 57 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 39 FPS average, so Medium is the highest recommended setting for 4K.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate achievable at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 produces an average of 244 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the dataset. The Medium preset still achieves 189 FPS average, indicating substantial performance headroom.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 189 at 1080p to 127 at 1440p, representing a reduction of 62 FPS. At High settings, it drops from 148 to 99 FPS, a reduction of 49 FPS.

Q: Is the Ultra preset viable for this game with this hardware?

A: At 1080p, Ultra averages 103 FPS, which is viable. At 1440p, it averages 69 FPS, which is borderline but playable. At 4K, Ultra averages only 39 FPS, which is not recommended for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at Medium settings?

A: The measured data shows a minimum of 161 FPS and maximum of 217 FPS at 1080p Medium, and a minimum of 108 FPS with a maximum of 146 FPS at 1440p Medium. At 4K Medium, the range is 61 to 83 FPS, indicating tighter consistency at higher resolutions.

Q: How does the combination rank among all tested combos for Evolve?

A: This combination ranks 1165 out of 3700 tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all systems tested for this game.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 244 at 1080p to 163 at 1440p, and then to 93 at 4K. This represents a 33% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 43% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling at Medium settings follows a similar trajectory: 189 FPS at 1080p, 127 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K, with reductions of 33% and 43% respectively.

At High settings, the pattern is slightly different: 148 FPS at 1080p, 99 FPS at 1440p, and 57 FPS at 4K. This translates to a 33% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 42% drop from 1440p to 4K. The Ultra preset shows the steepest relative decline: 103 FPS at 1080p, 69 FPS at 1440p, and 39 FPS at 4K, with reductions of 33% and 43% respectively.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings—roughly one-third from 1080p to 1440p and another two-fifths from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component in this combination. The scaling is nearly uniform regardless of the settings preset, which suggests that the Radeon RX 6800 XT is being utilized consistently across all resolution points. The fact that the frame rate reductions are proportional to the pixel count increase (1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p, and 4K has 2.25x the pixels of 1440p) further confirms that the rendering workload is scaling as expected. The CPU does not appear to be a bottleneck at any resolution, as the frame rates continue to scale down smoothly with increasing resolution rather than plateauing.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database for Evolve, this specific combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT achieves a combo rank of 1165 out of 3700 tested combinations. This places it in the 68.5th percentile of all tested systems, meaning it outperforms roughly two-thirds of the combinations tested for this game. The rank indicates that while this is a strong setup, there are many other combinations that achieve higher performance in Evolve.

The ranking is particularly notable because both the CPU and GPU individually sit at the 85th percentile among their respective categories. The CPU's average benchmark score is 35365, and the GPU's average benchmark score is 48477. The combination's performance in Evolve is somewhat below what these individual percentiles might suggest, indicating that the game's engine may not fully utilize the capabilities of either component. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13700T with an average score of 35403 and a deltaPct of -0.1, and the Intel Core i5-13600T with a score of 35305 and a deltaPct of 0.2. The GPU's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile with a score of 47743 and a deltaPct of 1.5, and the Intel Arc A550M with a score of 49737 and a deltaPct of -2.5.

The rank of 1165 out of 3700 suggests that for Evolve specifically, other combinations—potentially those with different CPU-GPU balances—may deliver better frame rates. However, the measured data shows that this combo still provides very playable performance at most settings and resolutions, with only the 4K Ultra preset falling below 40 FPS average.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and provides PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes from the CPU.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28838 and a single-core score of 4071. The Geekbench multicore score is 14367, with a single-core score of 2255. The PassMark multithread score is 34092, and the single-thread score is 3984. The CPU's 3DMark scores show scaling from 2065 in the 2-thread test to 9983 in the max-thread test, indicating good multi-threading efficiency.

For Evolve, the CPU's role appears to be adequate but not the primary performance driver. The measured FPS scaling with resolution suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor, as frame rates drop proportionally with pixel count. The CPU's high single-thread performance, evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4071, likely ensures that the game's primary thread is well-served. The 20 threads provide ample capacity for background tasks and any multi-threaded game functions, though the game's 2015 release date suggests it may not fully utilize all available cores. The CPU's percentile rank of 85 among all CPUs indicates it is a high-performing processor, but in this particular game, it does not appear to be the bottleneck, as evidenced by the consistent resolution scaling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values across settings are as follows: Low averages 244 FPS, Medium averages 189 FPS with a minimum of 161 FPS and maximum of 217 FPS, High averages 148 FPS, and Ultra averages 103 FPS. The frame rate range at Medium is 56 FPS, indicating some variability but generally stable performance.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 163 FPS, Medium averages 127 FPS with a minimum of 108 FPS and maximum of 146 FPS, High averages 99 FPS, and Ultra averages 69 FPS. The Medium preset's range of 38 FPS suggests tighter frame pacing compared to 1080p, likely due to the GPU being more consistently utilized.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 93 FPS, Medium averages 72 FPS with a minimum of 61 FPS and maximum of 83 FPS, High averages 57 FPS, and Ultra averages 39 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K has a range of 22 FPS, showing the most consistent frame times across all measured configurations.

The transition from Low to Medium settings at each resolution incurs a consistent penalty: 55 FPS at 1080p (244 to 189), 36 FPS at 1440p (163 to 127), and 21 FPS at 4K (93 to 72). Moving from Medium to High costs 41 FPS at 1080p, 28 FPS at 1440p, and 15 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset then costs an additional 45 FPS at 1080p, 30 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K over High. The diminishing absolute penalties at higher resolutions indicate that the GPU is already heavily loaded, making the relative cost of each settings increase smaller in absolute terms.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is based on the Navi 21 chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. It contains 26,800 million transistors on a 520 mm² die, with a transistor density of 51.5M per mm². The GPU has a base clock of 1825 MHz, a boost clock of 2250 MHz, and a game clock of 2015 MHz. It features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 512.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The memory clock is 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective data rate.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 4608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, and 128 raster operation units. It also has 72 ray tracing cores. The pixel rate is 288.0 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 648.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 20.74 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 41.47 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio). The GPU has a TDP of 300 W and requires a 700 W power supply, using 2x 8-pin power connectors. It occupies a dual-slot form factor measuring 267 mm in length.

In synthetic benchmarks, the GPU achieves a PassMark G3D score of 24980 and a PassMark GPU compute score of 13245. The Geekbench scores include 181337 for Metal, 171304 for OpenCL, and 136875 for Vulkan. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 3689. The GPU's percentile rank is 85 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48477.

For Evolve, the GPU is clearly the dominant performance factor. The measured FPS scaling with resolution—approximately one-third reduction from 1080p to 1440p and another two-fifths from 1440p to 4K—directly corresponds to the increase in pixel count, confirming that rendering workload is the primary limiter. The 16 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for this game, as even the Ultra preset at 4K does not seem to encounter memory capacity issues, given the smooth scaling pattern. The high memory bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s likely contributes to the consistent performance across settings, allowing the GPU to maintain high fill rates without becoming memory-bound. The game's performance at Medium settings across all resolutions indicates that the GPU's architecture is well-suited to this title, with the 4K Medium preset maintaining an average of 72 FPS that remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.