Evolve

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 delivers a robust experience in Evolve, a 2015 FPS title, with the data showing a wide performance envelope across its four available presets and three resolutions. The measured results place this combination in the 70th percentile of all tested combos, indicating strong performance, though the specific numbers reveal that the game’s age makes it more dependent on the CPU at lower resolutions and increasingly GPU-bound at higher ones. This analysis walks through the measured FPS data to determine the optimal settings, the roles of the CPU and GPU, and how the combo ranks against other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured rows, the Medium preset emerges as the optimal balance between visual fidelity and frame rate. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers an average of 191 FPS, which is 41 FPS higher than High’s 150 FPS and only 56 FPS below Low’s 247 FPS, while providing substantially better visuals than Low. The Medium preset also shows a minimum FPS of 163 and a maximum of 220 at 1080p, indicating a stable frame delivery with a narrow 57 FPS spread, which is preferable for consistent gameplay.

At 2560x1440, Medium maintains an average of 128 FPS, with a minimum of 109 and a maximum of 148. This is a 27 FPS drop from 1080p Medium, but it stays comfortably above the 100 FPS threshold for smooth play. The High preset at 1440p drops to 101 FPS, which is still playable, but Medium’s higher average provides more headroom. At 3840x2160, Medium yields 73 FPS with a 62 FPS minimum and 84 FPS maximum, which is the only 4K preset that stays above 60 FPS on average; High falls to 57 FPS, and Ultra drops to 40 FPS.

Ultra is not recommended for this title, as it incurs a significant performance penalty across all resolutions. At 1080p, Ultra averages 104 FPS, which is 87 FPS below Medium; at 1440p, it drops to 70 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 40 FPS, making it unsuitable for fluid gameplay. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot because it preserves a high frame rate while avoiding the steep cost of Ultra, and it outperforms High by 41 FPS at 1080p, 27 FPS at 1440p, and 16 FPS at 4K. Low is only preferable if maximum frame rates are the sole priority, as it reaches 247 FPS at 1080p, but the visual compromise is substantial for a game that benefits from detail in its environments.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070, based on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 48 chip, is the primary driver of performance at higher presets and resolutions. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s, which is more than sufficient for Evolve’s 2015-era textures and assets. The GPU’s boost clock of 2520 MHz and game clock of 2070 MHz, with a base of 1330 MHz, indicate a high-frequency design that scales well with increased graphical loads.

The GPU’s role becomes evident when comparing settings at the same resolution. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium reduces the average FPS from 247 to 191, a 56 FPS drop, while High further reduces it to 150, and Ultra to 104. This scaling shows that the RX 9070 is capable of handling the game’s geometry and shaders, but the Ultra preset’s additional effects (likely higher shadow quality, post-processing, and particle counts) impose a substantial load that cuts performance nearly in half compared to Low. The same pattern holds at 1440p, where the spread from Low’s 166 FPS to Ultra’s 70 FPS represents a 96 FPS difference, and at 4K, where Low delivers 94 FPS but Ultra only 40 FPS.

The GPU’s benchmark scores, such as a Passmark G3D score of 25381 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 131539, reflect a high-end part, but its percentile rank of 69 among all GPUs suggests it is not the absolute fastest. In Evolve, the RX 9070’s performance at 4K Medium (73 FPS) indicates that the GPU has enough headroom for demanding resolutions, but the Ultra preset’s 40 FPS at 4K shows its limits when all features are enabled. The GPU’s 128 ROPs and 224 TMUs contribute to its pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s, which are ample for this title’s rendering requirements.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal a clear shift in the limiting component. At Medium settings, the average FPS goes from 191 at 1080p to 128 at 1440p, a 33% reduction, and then to 73 at 4K, a 43% reduction from 1440p. This scaling indicates that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as resolution increases, because the frame rate drops proportionally with the pixel count. At 1080p Medium, the CPU likely has more influence, as the i7-13700K’s high single-thread performance can keep up with the GPU’s output, allowing the RX 9070 to reach 191 FPS.

At Low settings, the drop is even steeper: 247 FPS at 1080p falls to 166 FPS at 1440p (a 33% drop) and then to 94 FPS at 4K (a 43% drop from 1440p). This pattern confirms that even with minimal graphics load, the GPU’s fill rate and shading capacity are the limiting factors at higher resolutions. Conversely, at Ultra settings, the FPS drops from 104 at 1080p to 70 at 1440p (a 33% drop) and then to 40 at 4K (a 43% drop from 1440p), maintaining the same proportional scaling. This consistency across presets suggests that Evolve does not exhibit unusual scaling behavior; the render resolution is the dominant variable.

The data shows that at 1080p, the combo is capable of exceeding 240 FPS on Low, which indicates that the CPU and GPU are both highly capable, but the game’s engine may impose a frame rate ceiling around that level. At 4K, even Low settings only reach 94 FPS, which is below the 1080p Medium score, underscoring that the RX 9070’s memory bandwidth and compute throughput are the key constraints. For players targeting 4K, Medium is the highest viable preset, as it stays above 60 FPS, while High and Ultra fall short.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a broad range. Low settings produce an average of 247 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium yields 191 FPS, with a minimum of 163 and a maximum of 220, indicating a stable frame delivery. High delivers 150 FPS, and Ultra drops to 104 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 143 FPS, demonstrating that the Ultra preset’s additional graphical features carry a heavy cost at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 166 FPS, Medium averages 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 and maximum of 148, High averages 101 FPS, and Ultra averages 70 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across all presets, with Low losing 81 FPS, Medium losing 63 FPS, High losing 49 FPS, and Ultra losing 34 FPS. This shows that the higher the preset, the smaller the absolute FPS loss, because the GPU is already under more load.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 94 FPS, Medium averages 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84, High averages 57 FPS, and Ultra averages 40 FPS. The 4K results are the most demanding, with only Low and Medium exceeding 60 FPS. The minimum FPS of 62 at 4K Medium is notable because it is close to the average, suggesting that the frame pacing is consistent, which is important for avoiding stutter. High and Ultra at 4K fall below 60 FPS, making them less desirable for a smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 is ranked 1114 out of 3700 tested combinations in Evolve, placing it in the top 30% of all configurations. This rank is determined by the average FPS across all settings and resolutions, and the data indicates that this pairing is strong but not exceptional for this specific title. The CPU’s percentile rank of 89 among all CPUs is higher than the GPU’s percentile rank of 69 among all GPUs, suggesting that the processor is relatively more capable than the graphics card in this context.

The nearest rival CPUs to the i7-13700K, based on average benchmark scores, include the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 with a delta of -0.2%, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 with a delta of -0.3%, the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX with a delta of +0.5%, and the Intel Xeon w3-2535 with a delta of +0.5%. These deltas indicate that the i7-13700K performs within 0.5% of these rivals, meaning that swapping to any of these CPUs would yield nearly identical results in Evolve at the same GPU settings.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z with a delta of +0.6%, the AMD Radeon RX 6800S with a delta of -0.8%, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile with a delta of +1.1%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER with a delta of -1.2%. These small deltas show that the RX 9070 is closely matched with these older or mobile parts, which is surprising given its newer architecture. In Evolve, the combo’s rank of 1114 suggests that while it performs well, there are many other combinations that achieve higher frame rates, likely due to the game’s age and its tendency to favor high single-thread CPU performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use for a 60 FPS experience at 4K?

A: The Medium preset is the only one that maintains an average FPS above 60 at 3840x2160, achieving 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 FPS. High averages 57 FPS, and Ultra averages 40 FPS, both below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How much faster is Low compared to Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings produce an average of 247 FPS, while Ultra produces 104 FPS. This represents a 143 FPS difference, meaning Low is roughly 2.4 times faster than Ultra in this configuration.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 1440p High?

A: At 2560x1440 High, the average FPS is 101, which is a 49 FPS drop from 1080p High’s 150 FPS. Since the resolution increase primarily affects the GPU, the data indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at this setting.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for the Medium preset at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the minimum FPS is 163, with an average of 191 and a maximum of 220. This shows a consistent frame delivery without significant drops.

Q: How does the i7-13700K’s performance compare to its nearest rival CPU?

A: The i7-13700K’s average benchmark score is 46881, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 5900’s score of 46971 and 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375’s score of 47022. It is 0.5% higher than both the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX and Intel Xeon w3-2535.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in any configuration?

A: The highest average FPS is 247, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only measurement that exceeds 200 FPS in the dataset.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K, with its 16 cores and 24 threads, plays a critical role in Evolve’s performance, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is not fully saturated. The CPU’s base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide high single-thread performance, which is essential for a 2015 FPS title that likely relies on a few primary threads for game logic and physics. The CPU’s architecture, Raptor Lake-S on a 10 nm process, includes a large 30 MB shared L3 cache that helps reduce memory latency and improve data access for the game engine.

The CPU’s benchmark scores demonstrate its strength: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 30745 and a single-core score of 2116, alongside a Geekbench multicore score of 19429 and single-core score of 2529. These numbers indicate that the i7-13700K is capable of handling both heavily threaded workloads and the lightly threaded demands of Evolve. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 247 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game, as the GPU is not the bottleneck at such a low graphical load. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1136 and 2-thread score of 2262 further underscore the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU with sufficient data.

At higher resolutions, the CPU’s role diminishes because the GPU becomes the limiting factor, but the i7-13700K’s performance ensures that it does not hold back the RX 9070. The CPU’s 16 cores and 24 threads are more than adequate for Evolve, and its boost clock of 5.40 GHz allows it to maintain high frame rates even when the GPU is stressed. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 9 5900, perform within 0.5% of the i7-13700K, indicating that any of these processors would deliver similar results in this game. The data shows that the i7-13700K’s single-thread prowess is the key factor, as Evolve does not appear to scale significantly with additional cores, but the high boost clock ensures that the game’s main threads are processed with minimal delay.