Evolve

Evolve, the 2015 FPS title, presents a unique scaling profile when paired with the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a system where the GPU dominates at higher settings, while lower presets expose a CPU bottleneck at 1080p. This analysis uses only the provided benchmark data to determine the optimal experience and component roles.

Settings Recommendations

The data shows a clear hierarchy among the four tested presets at each resolution. At 3840x2160, the High preset produces an average of 60 FPS, which is exactly the baseline for smooth gameplay. Medium at 4K yields 76 FPS average with a minimum of 65 FPS and maximum of 88 FPS, providing a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra at 4K drops to 41 FPS average, which is below acceptable playability for a fast-paced FPS. Low at 4K reaches 98 FPS, but this comes at the cost of visual fidelity. The best experience at 4K is Medium, as it maintains an average above 60 FPS while offering a minimum of 65 FPS, ensuring no dips below the target frame rate.

Moving to 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 105 FPS average, while Medium achieves 134 FPS with a minimum of 114 FPS and maximum of 154 FPS. Ultra at 1440p produces 73 FPS average, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. Low at 1440p reaches 173 FPS, but the visual downgrade is significant. For 1440p, the Medium preset offers the best balance: an average of 134 FPS with a minimum of 114 FPS, meaning the frame rate never drops below 114 FPS even in demanding scenes. This provides a smooth experience on high-refresh-rate displays without the visual penalty of Low.

At 1920x1080, the High preset yields 157 FPS average, while Medium achieves 200 FPS with a minimum of 170 FPS and maximum of 230 FPS. Ultra at 1080p produces 109 FPS average, which is still playable. Low at 1080p reaches 258 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors. The recommended preset for 1080p is Medium, as it delivers an average of 200 FPS and a minimum of 170 FPS, providing headroom for any frame-time spikes while maintaining high visual quality. High is also viable at 157 FPS average, but Medium offers a more substantial buffer above 144 Hz refresh rates.

Across all resolutions, Medium provides the most consistent experience with defined minimum and maximum values. The data shows that Ultra presets consistently reduce average FPS by roughly 30-40% compared to High at the same resolution. Low presets increase FPS but sacrifice too much visual quality for the gains. The optimal settings recommendation is Medium at any resolution, with High as a fallback for those prioritizing image quality over frame rate stability.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combination in Evolve?

A: The highest average FPS is 258, measured at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This exceeds the refresh rate of most standard monitors and indicates the system is heavily GPU-limited at this resolution and preset.

Q: Does the system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 41, which is 19 FPS below the 60 FPS target. The Medium preset at 4K achieves 76 FPS average with a minimum of 65 FPS, making it the highest preset that maintains a playable frame rate at this resolution.

Q: How much faster is 1080p compared to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS at 1920x1080 is 200, while at 3840x2160 it is 76. This represents a 124 FPS difference, meaning the 1080p result is approximately 2.6 times higher than the 4K result.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded across all tested configurations?

A: The only configurations with reported minimum FPS values are Medium settings. At 3840x2160, the minimum is 65 FPS; at 2560x1440, it is 114 FPS; and at 1920x1080, it is 170 FPS. The lowest minimum among these is 65 FPS at 4K Medium.

Q: Which preset at 1440p provides the best balance of frame rate and visual quality?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 provides an average of 134 FPS with a minimum of 114 FPS and maximum of 154 FPS. This offers the highest average FPS among presets that maintain a minimum above 100 FPS, making it the best choice for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the Ultra preset at 1080p compare to High at 4K in terms of average FPS?

A: Ultra at 1920x1080 yields an average of 109 FPS, while High at 3840x2160 yields an average of 60 FPS. The 1080p Ultra result is 49 FPS higher, demonstrating that resolution has a larger impact on performance than preset quality in this game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile is the primary driver of Evolve’s performance at higher resolutions. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s. The base clock is 975 MHz with a boost clock of 1500 MHz, and the memory operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed. The GPU has 7680 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 144.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s.

The benchmark data indicates that at 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor for Ultra settings, where the average FPS drops to 41. This is consistent with the GPU’s FP32 performance of 23.04 TFLOPS, which is insufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K with maximum quality settings. The 16 GB VRAM is ample for Evolve, as the game’s textures are unlikely to exceed this capacity, but the compute capability becomes the bottleneck at 4K Ultra.

At 1440p, the GPU still plays a dominant role. The difference between Low (173 FPS) and Ultra (73 FPS) at 1440p is 100 FPS, showing that GPU workload scales significantly with preset quality. The Medium preset at 1440p achieves 134 FPS average, which suggests the GPU is well-utilized but not overwhelmed. The 896.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is sufficient for the data transfer required at this resolution.

The GPU’s role diminishes at 1080p. The difference between Low (258 FPS) and Ultra (109 FPS) is 149 FPS, but the absolute values are so high that the CPU begins to limit performance. The RTX 5080 Mobile’s average benchmark score is 38349, with a percentile of 81 among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile, has an average score of 38135, a delta of 0.6%. This close proximity in synthetic benchmarks does not fully capture the GPU’s behavior in Evolve, where the measured FPS at 1080p Low suggests the CPU cannot feed the GPU fast enough.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 5 135H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile ranks 1001 out of 3700 tested combos in Evolve. This places it in the top 27% of all combinations, indicating above-average performance for this game. The rank reflects the system’s ability to deliver high frame rates at lower resolutions while struggling at 4K Ultra.

The CPU’s average benchmark score is 29093, with a percentile of 81 across all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, has an average score of 29123, a delta of -0.1%, meaning the Intel chip is essentially tied with the AMD desktop processor in synthetic tests. The Intel Core i5-13500HX scores 29270, a delta of -0.6%, so the Ultra 5 135H is slightly slower than its Intel mobile counterpart.

The GPU’s rank of 81st percentile puts it in a similar tier. However, the combo rank of 1001 out of 3700 is lower than what either component’s individual percentile might suggest. This is because Evolve is a demanding game that requires both CPU and GPU to work in tandem, and the Ultra 5 135H’s 18 threads may not be sufficient to fully utilize the RTX 5080 Mobile at 1080p. The combo rank indicates that while the GPU is powerful, the CPU holds back performance in CPU-bound scenarios.

Other combos with similar GPU but faster CPUs likely achieve higher ranks in Evolve. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 258 FPS, but this is likely limited by the CPU rather than the GPU. The combo rank of 1001 suggests that there are 1000 other combinations that perform better, many of which probably pair the RTX 5080 Mobile with a higher-core-count CPU.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how performance scales from 1080p to 4K. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 200 at 1920x1080 to 134 at 2560x1440, and then to 76 at 3840x2160. This represents a 33% decrease from 1080p to 1440p, and a 43% decrease from 1440p to 4K. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 62%.

At High settings, the averages are 157 FPS at 1080p, 105 FPS at 1440p, and 60 FPS at 4K. This shows a 33% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 43% drop from 1440p to 4K, matching the Medium scaling pattern. The consistency of these percentage drops across presets indicates that the GPU is the primary scaling factor, as the workload increases with pixel count.

At Low settings, the averages are 258 FPS at 1080p, 173 FPS at 1440p, and 98 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 33%, but the drop from 1440p to 4K is 43%. The absolute values at 1080p Low (258 FPS) suggest that the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU should be capable of higher frame rates. The fact that the drop from 1080p to 1440p is the same percentage as Medium and High suggests that even at Low settings, the GPU workload still dominates the scaling.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU at 4K, where even Low settings only reach 98 FPS. At 1080p, the limiting component shifts to the CPU, as evidenced by the 258 FPS ceiling at Low settings. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.60 GHz and 18 threads are not sufficient to push frame rates higher than 258 FPS in Evolve, even with minimal GPU load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers the following average FPS by preset: Low at 258, Medium at 200 (minimum 170, maximum 230), High at 157, and Ultra at 109. The Medium preset provides the only reported minimum and maximum values at this resolution, with a 60 FPS range between minimum and maximum. The Ultra preset at 1080p is 49 FPS lower than High, showing a significant performance cost for the highest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: Low at 173, Medium at 134 (minimum 114, maximum 154), High at 105, and Ultra at 73. The Medium preset has a 40 FPS range between minimum and maximum. The drop from High to Ultra at 1440p is 32 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 48 FPS drop at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are: Low at 98, Medium at 76 (minimum 65, maximum 88), High at 60, and Ultra at 41. The Medium preset has a 23 FPS range between minimum and maximum. The Ultra preset at 4K is 19 FPS below the 60 FPS target, making it unplayable for smooth gameplay. The High preset at 4K exactly hits 60 FPS average, but without reported minimum values, there is no guarantee of consistent frame pacing.

The data shows that across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently provides the most stable frame times, as evidenced by the reported minimum and maximum values. The gap between Low and Medium is smaller than the gap between Medium and High, indicating diminishing returns from lower settings. The gap between High and Ultra is the largest, suggesting that Ultra settings impose a heavy computational load on the GPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 135H is a 14-core, 18-thread processor from the Meteor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It has 18 MB of shared L3 cache, with 112 KB L1 and 2 MB L2 per core. The CPU’s TDP is 28 W, and it supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration and 89.6 GB/s bandwidth.

In Evolve, the CPU’s role is most apparent at 1080p with Low settings, where the average FPS reaches 258. This is likely a CPU-imposed limit, as the RTX 5080 Mobile is capable of higher frame rates in less demanding scenes. The CPU’s single-thread performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1700, is adequate but not exceptional. The multi-core score of 11875.5 in Cinebench R23 suggests that the CPU can handle multiple threads, but Evolve may not be optimized to use all 18 threads effectively.

The CPU’s percentile of 81 among all CPUs places it in the upper tier, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (delta -0.1%) and Intel Core i5-13500HX (delta -0.6%). These rivals have similar average benchmark scores, but their real-world gaming performance may differ. In Evolve, the CPU is not the bottleneck at 4K, where the GPU is clearly limiting. At 1440p, the CPU still has headroom, as evidenced by the 134 FPS average at Medium settings.

The 18 threads are more than sufficient for Evolve’s threading model, but the 3.60 GHz base clock and 4.60 GHz boost clock are moderate. The CPU’s PassMark single-thread score is 3521, which is competitive but not top-tier. The data suggests that the CPU can sustain high frame rates up to around 258 FPS at 1080p Low, but beyond that, the GPU would need to be paired with a faster CPU to achieve higher results. The combo rank of 1001 out of 3700 reflects this limitation, as the GPU is powerful enough to rank higher if paired with a more capable CPU.