Evolve

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 1439th out of 1695 tested combos in Evolve, placing it in the bottom 15% of all configurations. This ranking reflects a substantial mismatch between the components: the CPU is a top-tier performer while the GPU is a legacy mid-range card from the Pascal era. The benchmark data shows that this combo is heavily GPU-limited in virtually every scenario, with the CPU’s capabilities rarely being the constraining factor.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1439 out of 1695 places it firmly in the lower quartile of tested systems for Evolve. This position is particularly striking given the CPU’s pedigree; the Core i7-13700K sits in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 47282. In contrast, the GTX 1070 holds only the 51st percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 12331. The delta between these two components is enormous—the CPU is a top-tier part while the GPU is barely above the median for all graphics cards.

When examining the CPU’s nearest rivals, the data shows how close the 13700K is to other high-end processors. It trails the Intel Core i7-13700KF by just 0.1%, sits 0.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4364P, and is 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i9-12900F. These differences are negligible in real-world gaming, meaning the CPU is essentially performing at the apex of its class. The GPU’s rivals tell a different story: the GTX 1070 is 0.7% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro K4200, but 1.3% behind the GeForce GTX 880M, 1.4% behind the GTX 1650 SUPER, and 1.7% behind the Tesla K20Xm. These are all older or lower-tier cards, underscoring that the 1070 is not competitive with modern mid-range hardware.

GPU Role

The GTX 1070 is built on the Pascal architecture with the GP104 chip, fabricated on a 16 nm process at TSMC. It contains 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, with a transistor density of 22.9M per mm². The card’s base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost clock of 1683 MHz, while the memory operates at 2002 MHz, translating to 8 Gbps effective. The 8 GB of GDDR5 memory runs on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units, yielding a pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s. Floating-point performance is rated at 6.463 TFLOPS for FP32.

In Evolve, the GPU’s role is decisive. The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern: at every resolution, lowering settings from Ultra to Low produces dramatic gains. At 1080p, the jump from Ultra (57.2 FPS) to Low (131.4 FPS) represents a 130% improvement. This sensitivity to settings is typical of a GPU that is the primary bottleneck. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for this 2015 title, as Evolve’s textures and geometry do not require more memory, but the raw compute throughput of the 1070 limits performance at higher quality presets.

CPU Role

The Core i7-13700K is a Raptor Lake-S architecture processor with 16 cores and 24 threads, based on a 10 nm process from Intel. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it features integrated UHD Graphics 770, though the discrete GPU makes this irrelevant for gaming.

Synthetic benchmarks show the CPU’s strength: it scores 39000 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 5505 in single-core, along with 12412 in 3DMark max threads and 1136 in single-thread. In Evolve, however, the CPU is rarely the limiting factor. The game’s engine, released in 2015, cannot fully utilize 16 cores, so the 13700K’s multithreaded dominance is largely wasted. The single-thread score of 5505 in Cinebench R23 is more relevant, but even this is far more than Evolve requires. The data suggests the CPU is operating well below its capacity, as evidenced by the FPS scaling being almost entirely dictated by GPU settings rather than CPU load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 131.4 FPS on Low settings, 100.6 FPS on Medium, 81.2 FPS on High, and 57.2 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a steady decline, with Ultra representing a 56% drop from Low. The 1080p results are the only resolution where the combo approaches high-refresh-rate territory, and only at the lowest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, performance drops significantly. Low settings yield 90.6 FPS, Medium produces 68.4 FPS, High manages 52.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 38.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 57%, similar to the 1080p scaling, but the absolute numbers are much lower. At 1440p, even Low settings cannot maintain a consistent 100+ FPS, indicating the GPU is struggling with the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable except at Low settings. Low produces 48.3 FPS, Medium drops to 40.3 FPS, High falls to 28.1 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 19.2 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is below 20 FPS, making it effectively unusable for competitive play. The 4K scaling shows a 60% reduction from Low to Ultra, which is the steepest drop across all resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is stark and reveals the GPU’s limitations. At Low settings, the combo goes from 131.4 FPS at 1080p to 90.6 FPS at 1440p (a 31% drop) and then to 48.3 FPS at 4K (a 63% drop from 1080p). The scaling is not linear—the jump from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing, as the pixel count more than doubles while the GPU’s fill rate cannot keep pace.

At Ultra settings, the same pattern emerges: 57.2 FPS at 1080p, 38.9 FPS at 1440p (a 32% drop), and 19.2 FPS at 4K (a 66% drop from 1080p). The consistency of these percentages across settings—roughly 31-32% for 1080p to 1440p and 63-66% for 1080p to 4K—indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor, with settings having a secondary effect.

This pattern is definitive evidence that the GTX 1070 is the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain relatively flat as resolution increases, since the CPU’s workload is largely resolution-independent. Instead, the FPS drops proportionally with pixel count, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario. The 13700K’s 16 cores and 24 threads are simply waiting for the GPU to deliver frames, and the 1070’s 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 256.3 GB/s memory bandwidth are insufficient to feed the CPU’s appetite at higher resolutions. The result is a combo that can handle 1080p at medium-to-high settings for smooth play, but falls apart at 4K except at the lowest quality preset.