Evolve

# Evolve with Intel Core i7-14700KF + Intel Arc B390

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the Intel Arc B390 is a combination that sits firmly at the low end of the performance spectrum for Evolve, a 2015 FPS title. The measured data shows this combo ranking 2530 out of 2872 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 12% of all systems evaluated for this game. The processor is a high-end desktop part with a 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, but the integrated graphics solution—the Arc B390—is the clear bottleneck, ranking in the 9th percentile among all GPUs. This creates an extreme imbalance where the CPU's substantial compute resources are largely left idle while the GPU struggles to maintain playable frame rates at most settings and resolutions.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Evolve at 1080p with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, where the measured average FPS is 89. At Medium settings, the average drops to 69 FPS, and at High it falls to 54 FPS. Ultra settings yield just 37 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold most players consider smooth.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% higher than the GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% higher than the GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% higher than the GT 710 (1443). These are all entry-level or legacy discrete GPUs, and the B390 is an integrated part.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Evolve?

A: The data shows 1080p is the only resolution where the system achieves consistently playable frame rates. At 1440p, Low settings produce exactly 60 FPS average, but Medium drops to 46 FPS. At 4K, even Low settings only reach 34 FPS average.

Q: Is the Intel Core i7-14700KF the limiting factor in this system?

A: No. The CPU benchmarks show it performing at a 94th percentile level overall, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167. The GPU's 9th percentile ranking and the frame rate patterns across resolutions indicate the Arc B390 integrated graphics are the primary constraint.

Q: How does the i7-14700KF compare to its closest rivals in CPU benchmarks?

A: The i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70163, which is 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996), 0.4% above the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), and 0.9% above the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515). It trails the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (70879) by 1%.

Q: What settings should be avoided entirely?

A: Ultra settings should be avoided at all resolutions. The measured averages are 37 FPS at 1080p, 25 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K. These are all well below smooth gameplay thresholds and represent the worst experience-to-quality tradeoff in the measured data.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the decisive component in this configuration, and its specifications explain why Evolve performs so poorly. The GPU operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, with 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units. The memory configuration is entirely system-shared, meaning there is no dedicated VRAM—the graphics processor uses the same memory pool as the CPU, with bandwidth described as "system dependent." This is a fundamental architectural limitation for gaming, as Evolve requires fast, dedicated memory access for textures and frame buffers.

The compute capabilities are modest: the FP32 throughput is 7.680 TFLOPS, and the pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s. The GPU includes 12 ray tracing cores, but Evolve is a 2015 title that does not use ray tracing, so this hardware goes unused. The 80 W TDP and IGP slot width confirm this is an integrated solution, not a discrete card. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark, the B390 scores 1482, placing it just 1.3% ahead of the GT 520MX and 2.7% ahead of the GT 710—both of which are ancient, low-end discrete GPUs from over a decade ago.

This GPU role is best understood through the frame rate collapse as settings increase. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra cuts the average FPS by more than half, from 89 to 37. The 24 ROPs and 48 TMUs are simply insufficient to handle the fill-rate demands of higher detail settings. The system-shared memory also means that as the game requests more texture data, the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth, further degrading performance. The data indicates the Arc B390 is the sole reason this combo ranks so low, as the CPU is more than capable of feeding frames at much higher rates.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep and predictable decline as resolution increases, which is a classic symptom of a GPU-bound system. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 89 FPS at 1080p to 60 FPS at 1440p—a 32.6% reduction—and then to 34 FPS at 4K, which is a 61.8% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This pattern shows that the Arc B390 cannot maintain performance as pixel count increases, because the rasterization workload scales directly with resolution.

At Medium settings, the averages are 69 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, and 26 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 33.3% from 1080p to 1440p and 62.3% from 1080p to 4K. High settings follow a similar trajectory: 54 FPS at 1080p, 36 FPS at 1440p (a 33.3% drop), and 21 FPS at 4K (a 61.1% drop). Ultra settings are the most punishing, with 37 FPS at 1080p falling to 25 FPS at 1440p (32.4% drop) and 14 FPS at 4K (62.2% drop).

The consistency of these percentage drops—roughly one-third from 1080p to 1440p and two-thirds from 1080p to 4K—indicates that the limiting component is the GPU's pixel processing pipeline. The CPU's performance is not a factor here, because if it were, the frame rate would not scale so predictably with pixel count. The i7-14700KF has a boost clock of 5.60 GHz across 20 cores, which is far beyond what Evolve needs for its simulation and game logic. The data strongly suggests that the Arc B390's 24 ROPs and system-shared memory are the binding constraints, and no amount of CPU headroom can compensate for that.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS table for Evolve with this hardware combination shows 12 distinct configurations, spanning three resolutions and four quality settings:

1080p (1920x1080):

• Low: 89 FPS average
• Medium: 69 FPS average, with a minimum of 59 FPS and maximum of 79 FPS
• High: 54 FPS average
• Ultra: 37 FPS average

1440p (2560x1440):

• Low: 60 FPS average
• Medium: 46 FPS average, with a minimum of 39 FPS and maximum of 53 FPS
• High: 36 FPS average
• Ultra: 25 FPS average

4K (3840x2160):

• Low: 34 FPS average
• Medium: 26 FPS average, with a minimum of 22 FPS and maximum of 30 FPS
• High: 21 FPS average
• Ultra: 14 FPS average

The Medium settings rows are the only ones that include minimum and maximum frame rate data, providing insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range from 59 to 79 FPS shows a 25.4% variance, which suggests noticeable frame pacing fluctuations. At 1440p Medium, the 39 to 53 FPS range represents a 26.4% variance. At 4K Medium, the 22 to 30 FPS range shows a 26.7% variance. These consistent variance percentages across resolutions indicate the GPU is operating near its limits in all cases, with frame times fluctuating as the renderer struggles to maintain steady output.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens with resolution. At 1080p, Low delivers 89 FPS versus Ultra's 37 FPS—a 52 FPS difference. At 1440p, the difference is 35 FPS (60 vs 25). At 4K, the difference narrows to 20 FPS (34 vs 14), because both settings are already hitting the GPU's absolute ceiling. This narrowing gap at higher resolutions is evidence that the renderer becomes fully saturated, and quality settings have diminishing impact when the pixel workload alone is overwhelming.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal configuration for this system is 1080p with Low settings, which delivers 89 FPS average. This is the only measured configuration that provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. The 1440p Low setting matches exactly 60 FPS, but it offers no headroom for demanding scenes, and the frame rate could dip below playable levels during intense combat sequences.

For players who prioritize visual quality over raw frame rate, 1080p Medium is the best compromise. The 69 FPS average is still above 60 FPS, and the minimum of 59 FPS shows that the system can hold near the target even in worst-case moments. The 1080p High setting at 54 FPS is borderline—playable for some, but likely to feel sluggish in a fast-paced FPS. Ultra settings should be avoided at any resolution, as the 37 FPS at 1080p is the only Ultra result that approaches playability, and it sacrifices too much smoothness for marginal visual gains.

At 1440p, Low is the only viable option, with 60 FPS exactly. The Medium setting at 46 FPS is below the smooth threshold, and High at 36 FPS is acceptable only for players who tolerate lower frame rates. The 4K resolution is not recommended for this game with this hardware, as even Low settings only reach 34 FPS, which falls below 30 FPS only at Ultra (14 FPS) but is still far from a responsive experience. The data suggests that 1080p Low or Medium is the practical ceiling, and players should accept significant visual compromises to achieve acceptable performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a high-end desktop processor that is massively overqualified for this workload. It features 20 cores and 28 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The cache hierarchy is substantial: 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. This CPU is based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process, and it supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory across a dual-channel bus. The processor's PCIe Gen 5 interface with 16 lanes provides ample bandwidth for any discrete GPU, though the Arc B390 uses an IGP connection.

CPU benchmark results confirm the processor's strength. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 44167, the single-core score is 6235, and the Geekbench multi-core score is 21462 with a single-core score of 2578. In Passmark tests, the multithread score is 52425, single-thread is 4480, and the data compression score is 694963. These figures place the i7-14700KF in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 70163. The nearest rivals are all within 1%: the Ryzen 7 9700F at 69996 (0.2% lower), Ryzen 9 7940HX at 69875 (0.4% lower), Ryzen 9 7950X at 69515 (0.9% lower), and Core Ultra 7 265K at 70879 (1% higher).

In Evolve, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI calculations. The measured frame rates show this CPU is never the bottleneck, because the frame rates scale almost entirely with GPU load. A weaker CPU would produce similar FPS numbers at high resolutions, but the fact that 1080p Low hits 89 FPS while 4K Ultra hits 14 FPS confirms the GPU is the sole limiter. The i7-14700KF has more than enough single-thread performance (Cinebench R15 single-core score of 628) and multi-thread capability (R15 multi-core of 4452) to feed the Arc B390 at any settings. Players upgrading this system should focus entirely on the GPU, as the CPU has years of headroom for future graphics cards and more demanding titles.