Evolve

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers a formidable performance profile in Evolve, with measured frame rates that consistently exceed display refresh rate targets across most settings and resolutions. The data indicates that this combination ranks 17th out of 2,872 tested combos in this title, placing it in the top 1% of all configurations. The benchmark results show a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but reveals interesting CPU scaling characteristics at 1080p, where frame rates reach exceptionally high levels.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for Evolve shows a clear hierarchy across the four available quality presets, with the sweet spot depending heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 170 FPS average, while High produces 246 FPS, Medium reaches 314 FPS, and Low achieves 378 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, with a minimum FPS of 267 and maximum of 361, ensuring smooth gameplay even during intense combat sequences. The jump from Medium to High costs 68 FPS, which represents a significant 21.7% performance drop for what is typically a modest visual improvement in this title.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts slightly. The High preset produces 165 FPS average, which is already above the threshold for most high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset at 1440p delivers 210 FPS with a minimum of 179 FPS, making it the recommended choice for competitive play where frame consistency matters most. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 114 FPS, which remains playable but introduces more variability. For 3840x2160, the High preset at 94 FPS average is the optimal choice, as the Ultra preset falls to 65 FPS, which may introduce noticeable stuttering on displays with higher refresh rates. The Medium preset at 4K provides 120 FPS with a minimum of 102 FPS, offering a compelling alternative for users who prioritize smoothness over maximum visual quality.

The data suggests that Medium settings provide the most consistent experience across all three resolutions, with the smallest gap between minimum and maximum FPS. This consistency is particularly valuable in a fast-paced FPS title like Evolve, where frame time spikes can be detrimental to gameplay accuracy. For users with 144Hz displays, the High preset at 1440p or the Medium preset at 4K both provide sufficient headroom to maintain a locked frame rate.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K brings substantial processing power to this combination, featuring 16 cores and 24 threads with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. The processor's architecture is Raptor Lake-S, built on a 10 nm process node, with a 30 MB shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 cache per core. The benchmark data shows this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 30,745 and a single-core score of 2,116, placing it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs tested.

In the context of Evolve, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the frame rate scaling from 1080p to higher resolutions. At 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 378 FPS, which is an exceptionally high frame rate that suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls to saturate even the RTX 5090 D at this resolution. The 3DMark benchmarks reinforce this capability, with a max threads score of 12,412 and a single-thread score of 1,136, indicating strong performance in both multi-threaded and lightly-threaded workloads.

The data shows that as resolution increases, the frame rates drop proportionally, which indicates that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck in this configuration. At 4K Ultra, the system still manages 65 FPS, suggesting that the CPU has sufficient headroom to handle the game's physics and AI calculations even when the GPU is under maximum load. The PassMark multithread score of 45,887 and the data compression score of 595,292 further demonstrate the CPU's capability to handle complex game logic without becoming a limiting factor.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the i7-13700K shows a delta of -0.2% against the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 and -0.3% against the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375, with average benchmark scores of 46,881 versus 46,971 and 47,022 respectively. This places the CPU in a virtual tie with these competitors, with the 0.5% delta against the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX and Intel Xeon w3-2535 being within the margin of measurement error. For Evolve specifically, the CPU's performance is more than adequate, as evidenced by the ability to maintain high frame rates even at lower resolutions where CPU overhead becomes more significant.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this pairing, featuring the GB202 chip with 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, built on a 5 nm process with 92,200 million transistors. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and is equipped with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The memory operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed, which is substantial for handling high-resolution textures and complex shader workloads.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a PassMark G3D score of 44,065 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,915, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs tested. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,326 indicates strong DirectX 12 performance, which is relevant for Evolve's rendering engine. The FP32 compute performance of 104.8 TFLOPS provides ample raw processing power for the game's particle effects and lighting calculations.

In Evolve, the GPU's role becomes increasingly important as resolution scales up. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at High settings shows a drop from 246 FPS to 165 FPS, a 33% reduction, while the transition from 1440p to 4K at High settings shows a further drop to 94 FPS, a 43% reduction. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering load increases exponentially with pixel count. The RTX 5090 D's 32 GB VRAM ensures that texture memory is never a limiting factor, even at 4K Ultra settings where the game may load high-resolution assets.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT with a delta of 1.1%, the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT with a delta of -1.6%, and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe variants with deltas of -2.1% and -2.4%. These comparisons show that the RTX 5090 D performs within a narrow band of these competitors in synthetic benchmarks, though its real-world gaming performance in Evolve is exceptional due to its high memory bandwidth and advanced architecture features.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D achieves a rank of 17 out of 2,872 tested combos in Evolve, placing it in the top 0.6% of all configurations tested. This ranking reflects the exceptional performance of both components and their compatibility in this game. The high ranking is particularly notable given that the GPU's average benchmark score of 77,712 places it in the 92nd percentile, while the CPU's average score of 46,881 places it in the 89th percentile, suggesting that the combination performs synergistically in this title.

The rank of 17 indicates that only 16 other combinations of CPU and GPU produce higher average frame rates in Evolve. Given that the RTX 5090 D is one of the most powerful consumer GPUs available, the combinations ranked above it likely feature the most recent flagship processors from both Intel and AMD. The data suggests that the i7-13700K does not bottleneck the RTX 5090 D in this game, as the frame rates achieved are consistent with what would be expected from a top-tier GPU when paired with a high-end CPU.

The percentile rankings for each component individually support this assessment. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking and the GPU's 92nd percentile ranking both indicate that these are high-performing components in their respective categories. The fact that their combined ranking in Evolve (top 0.6%) is higher than either component's individual percentile suggests that this particular game benefits from the specific combination of this CPU and GPU, likely due to the CPU's strong single-thread performance and the GPU's high memory bandwidth.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals distinct scaling patterns across the three tested resolutions, providing insight into which component limits performance at each setting. At Low settings, the frame rates are 378 FPS at 1080p, 271 FPS at 1440p, and 154 FPS at 4K. The transition from 1080p to 1440p represents a 28.3% decrease, while the transition from 1440p to 4K represents a 43.2% decrease. This pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as the resolution increases.

The scaling at High settings shows a similar but slightly different pattern: 246 FPS at 1080p, 165 FPS at 1440p, and 94 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 32.9%, while the 1440p to 4K drop is 43.0%. The consistency of these percentage drops across different quality settings suggests that the resolution scaling is primarily driven by GPU rendering load rather than CPU limitations. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain more constant across resolutions, particularly at lower settings where the GPU has less work to do.

The Ultra settings provide the clearest indication of the limiting component: 170 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 65 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 32.9%, and the drop from 1440p to 4K is 43.0%. These percentages are nearly identical to the High settings, which strongly suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting factor across all quality presets. The CPU's ability to maintain high frame rates at 1080p Ultra (170 FPS) indicates that it has sufficient headroom to support the GPU's maximum output at this resolution.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Evolve with this combo?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 at High settings provides 165 FPS average, which balances visual quality with high refresh rate performance. At 4K, the High preset delivers 94 FPS, which is playable but leaves less headroom for maintaining smooth frame pacing.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: The benchmark results indicate that the CPU is not a bottleneck. At 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 378 FPS, and the frame rates scale proportionally with resolution increases, which is characteristic of GPU-bound performance.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations?

A: This combination ranks 17th out of 2,872 tested combos, placing it in the top 0.6% of all configurations. The CPU ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs.

Q: What is the performance difference between Medium and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings produce 210 FPS average with a minimum of 179 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 114 FPS average. This represents a 45.7% performance decrease when moving from Medium to Ultra.

Q: Is the 32 GB VRAM sufficient for Evolve at 4K?

A: The RTX 5090 D's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory provides ample capacity for Evolve at 4K Ultra settings, as evidenced by the 65 FPS average achieved at these settings. Memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s ensures high-resolution textures are processed efficiently.

Q: What are the minimum FPS values for the Medium preset across resolutions?

A: The Medium preset shows minimum FPS values of 267 at 1920x1080, 179 at 2560x1440, and 102 at 3840x2160, with corresponding maximum values of 361, 242, and 138 respectively.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for the Intel Core i7-13700K with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D in Evolve is as follows:

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 378 FPS average, the Medium preset achieves 314 FPS average with a minimum of 267 FPS and maximum of 361 FPS, the High preset achieves 246 FPS average, and the Ultra preset achieves 170 FPS average.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 271 FPS average, the Medium preset achieves 210 FPS average with a minimum of 179 FPS and maximum of 242 FPS, the High preset achieves 165 FPS average, and the Ultra preset achieves 114 FPS average.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves 154 FPS average, the Medium preset achieves 120 FPS average with a minimum of 102 FPS and maximum of 138 FPS, the High preset achieves 94 FPS average, and the Ultra preset achieves 65 FPS average.

The data shows a consistent pattern where the Medium preset provides the most detailed FPS information with both minimum and maximum values, while the other presets only have average FPS recorded. This suggests that the Medium preset exhibits enough frame time variance to warrant tracking these additional metrics, whereas the other presets maintain more consistent frame delivery. The maximum FPS values across all resolutions for the Medium preset (361 at 1080p, 242 at 1440p, 138 at 4K) indicate that the system can burst to significantly higher frame rates, while the minimum values (267 at 1080p, 179 at 1440p, 102 at 4K) represent the worst-case scenarios during intense gameplay moments.