Evolve

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile delivers a performance profile in Evolve that is defined by extreme GPU headroom at lower resolutions and a sharp, predictable drop as pixel count climbs. This combination sits at rank 833 out of 3700 tested combos in this game, placing it comfortably in the top quarter of all systems measured. The data shows a setup that can obliterate 1080p, handle 1440p with ease, and still manage playable 4K at most settings, though the Ultra preset at 4K pushes the frame rate below the 60 FPS threshold.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a textbook scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 263 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops that to 177 FPS, a reduction of roughly 33%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 101 FPS, which is about 43% below the 1440p figure and 62% below the 1080p figure. This steepening decline as resolution increases is the signature of a GPU-bound workload at the higher end, but the absolute numbers remain high enough that even 4K Low is far beyond what most displays can show.

The High preset tells a similar story but with a different starting point. At 1080p High, the average is 160 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 107 FPS, a 33% reduction that mirrors the Low preset’s relative scaling. At 4K High, the average is 61 FPS, which is exactly the 60 FPS target for console-style smoothness. The 4K High result represents a 62% drop from 1080p High, again showing that the GPU is the primary limiter as resolution increases.

Medium settings show the most complete dataset, with min and max FPS recorded for every resolution. At 1080p Medium, the average is 204 FPS with a min of 174 and max of 235. At 1440p Medium, the average falls to 137 FPS, with min 116 and max 157. At 4K Medium, the average is 78 FPS, with min 66 and max 90. The spread between min and max FPS stays relatively tight in percentage terms across resolutions, suggesting consistent frame pacing rather than sporadic stutters. The 4K Medium min of 66 FPS is still comfortably playable, and the max of 90 FPS shows there is occasional headroom even at that resolution.

Ultra settings reveal the limits of this combination. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 111 FPS, which is still very smooth for fast-paced gameplay. At 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 74 FPS, a 33% reduction consistent with the other presets. At 4K Ultra, the average plummets to 42 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS standard and approaches the territory where motion smoothness degrades noticeably. The scaling from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra is a 43% drop, matching the Low preset’s percentage decline between those two resolutions, which reinforces that the GPU is the limiting factor across all settings.

The pattern across all four settings is remarkably consistent: roughly a 33% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and then a further 43% drop from 1440p to 4K. This uniformity suggests that the game’s rendering load scales predictably with pixel count, and neither the CPU nor memory bandwidth introduces a bottleneck that would flatten or steepen the curve at any particular resolution. The 4K Ultra result of 42 FPS is the only point where the combination falls below playable thresholds, and even then it is only 18 FPS short of 60.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090 Mobile is the dominant component in this pairing, and the benchmark data makes that clear. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Evolve’s texture and geometry loads at any resolution tested. The 4K Ultra average of 42 FPS, while low, is not caused by memory capacity exhaustion — the frame rates scale consistently with resolution, which points to raw shading throughput rather than memory limitations.

The GPU’s clock behavior contributes to its performance ceiling. The base clock is 1335 MHz and the boost clock is 1695 MHz, a modest 27% increase that reflects the mobile power envelope. The 120 W TDP is the limiting factor here; this is not a desktop-class part allowed to run at unlimited wattage. The measured results show that even within that constraint, the GPU can push 263 FPS at 1080p Low, which means the shader array of 9728 shading units is being fed effectively at lower resolutions.

The architectural details support the observed performance. The AD103 chip on TSMC’s 5 nm process contains 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. The 304 texture mapping units and 112 ROPs handle the rasterization workload, while the 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are present but largely irrelevant for Evolve, which is not a ray-traced title. The FP32 throughput of 32.98 TFLOPS gives a theoretical ceiling, and the measured FPS suggests the GPU is hitting a reasonable fraction of that in actual gameplay.

The PassMark G3D score of 27212 places this GPU at the 84th percentile versus all GPUs, and its nearest rivals in aggregate benchmark score are the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 (0.8% ahead), the GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (0.9% ahead), the Quadro M6000 24 GB (0.9% ahead), and the RTX A6000 (0.9% behind). These deltas are all within one percent, meaning the RTX 4090 Mobile is statistically tied with those parts in synthetic tests. However, the measured FPS in Evolve shows this GPU is more than adequate for the game’s demands, as even the hardest 4K Ultra preset stays above 40 FPS.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is a future-proofing asset. Evolve is a 2015 title, so its texture sizes are modest by modern standards, but the capacity headroom means there is no risk of texture swapping or stutter from memory pressure. The memory clock of 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed provides the bandwidth required to feed the 9728 shading units without starvation, which is confirmed by the consistent scaling pattern across resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165H is a 16-core, 22-thread processor with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provide ample resources for a game like Evolve, which was released in 2015 and does not demand excessive CPU throughput by modern standards. The CPU’s PassMark multithread score of 25933 and single-thread score of 3509 place it at the 84th percentile versus all CPUs, indicating a well-rounded part.

In this game, the CPU is clearly not the bottleneck at any resolution. The evidence is in the scaling: if the CPU were limiting performance, the FPS would plateau or drop less steeply as resolution increases. Instead, the frame rate falls by roughly 33% from 1080p to 1440p and another 43% from 1440p to 4K across all settings, which is exactly what a GPU-bound scenario looks like. At 1080p Low, the 263 FPS average is high enough that even a weaker CPU could not hold it back, and the Core Ultra 7 165H has enough single-thread muscle to maintain that pace.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in aggregate benchmark score are the Intel Core Ultra 5 338H (0.3% ahead), the AMD EPYC 4244P (0.4% behind), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (0.4% behind), and the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (0.5% behind). These sub-one-percent deltas mean the Core Ultra 7 165H is effectively equivalent to those parts in synthetic workloads. For Evolve specifically, the CPU’s 22 threads are far more than the game can utilize, and the 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures that any single-threaded game logic runs as fast as the architecture allows.

The 28 W TDP is worth noting in context. This is a low-power mobile processor, but the benchmark results show it does not constrain gaming performance in this title. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14551 and single-core score of 1759 indicate a processor that can handle both heavily threaded and lightly threaded tasks competently. The PassMark physics score of 1806, which is often a proxy for game physics performance, is sufficient for Evolve’s physics simulation, which is not particularly demanding.

The combination of a strong single-thread score and adequate memory bandwidth means the CPU never becomes the limiting factor, even at the lowest resolution and settings where the GPU is producing 263 FPS. If the CPU were struggling, the 1080p Low result would be lower than the 1440p result scaled proportionally, but the data shows a clean linear relationship. The CPU’s 16 cores and 22 threads are overkill for a 2015 FPS title, but that excess capacity ensures consistent frame delivery without any CPU-side hitches.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Evolve at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but not at every preset. The data shows 4K High averages 61 FPS, 4K Medium averages 78 FPS with a min of 66 FPS, and 4K Low averages 101 FPS. However, 4K Ultra drops to 42 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. For a locked 60 FPS at 4K, Medium or High settings are the safe choices.

Q: How much FPS do you lose going from 1080p to 1440p in this game?

A: The reduction is consistently around 33% across all tested settings. At Low, the average drops from 263 FPS at 1080p to 177 FPS at 1440p. At High, it drops from 160 FPS to 107 FPS. At Medium, from 204 FPS to 137 FPS. At Ultra, from 111 FPS to 74 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 Mobile or the Core Ultra 7 165H the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor at every resolution, including 1080p. The frame rates scale linearly with pixel count, which is the signature of a GPU-bound workload. The CPU’s 22 threads and 5.00 GHz boost clock are more than sufficient for Evolve, and the 1080p Low result of 263 FPS shows no CPU bottleneck.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p 144 Hz monitor?

A: High settings at 1440p deliver 107 FPS average, which is close to but below 144 Hz. Medium settings give 137 FPS average with a min of 116 FPS. If you want to stay above 120 FPS consistently, Medium is the better choice, while High will drop below 120 FPS at times.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems in Evolve?

A: It ranks 833 out of 3700 tested combos, placing it in the top 22.5% of all systems. This is a strong position that reflects the high performance of both the CPU and GPU, though it is not near the very top of the rankings where more powerful desktop parts would sit.

Q: Does the 16 GB VRAM on the RTX 4090 Mobile matter for Evolve?

A: No, not for this game at these settings. Evolve is a 2015 title with modest texture requirements, and even 4K Ultra does not come close to exhausting 16 GB. The memory capacity is a non-factor in the measured results, as the FPS scaling is consistent and there are no signs of memory-related stutter or texture pop-in.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 833 out of 3700 tested systems places this pairing firmly in the upper echelon of all configurations measured in Evolve. The 84th percentile ranking for both the CPU and GPU individually aligns well with the combo’s overall position, which suggests that this pairing is balanced rather than one component dragging the other down. The rank of 833 means there are 832 systems that perform better in this game, but the vast majority of the 3700 tested combos — roughly 77.5% — fall below this setup.

The data indicates that the RTX 4090 Mobile is the primary driver of this ranking. Its PassMark G3D score of 27212 and 84th percentile standing place it among the top mobile GPUs, and the measured FPS in Evolve confirms that it delivers exceptional performance. The CPU, while also at the 84th percentile, contributes less to the gaming result because Evolve is not a CPU-intensive title. The combination of a top-tier mobile GPU with a competent but not flagship CPU results in a rank that is high but not in the top 10%, where paired flagship components would land.

The nearest rival comparisons for the GPU show that the RTX 4090 Mobile is statistically tied with the Quadro M6000 and RTX A6000 in synthetic benchmarks, with all deltas under one percent. These are professional workstation GPUs that often appear in high-end laptops and mobile workstations. In Evolve, the gaming-oriented RTX 4090 Mobile would likely outperform those workstation parts due to driver optimizations and game-specific tuning, but the aggregate scores suggest they are in the same performance class.

For the CPU, the nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, a desktop processor from a previous generation. The fact that a 28 W mobile chip is within 0.5% of a desktop Ryzen 7 3700X in aggregate benchmark score illustrates how far mobile processors have come. In Evolve, this CPU performance is more than adequate, and the combo’s rank is not held back by the processor in any meaningful way.

The rank of 833 is a useful reference point for builders. It tells you that this laptop configuration will handle Evolve at high frame rates in almost all scenarios, with the only exception being 4K Ultra where it dips below 60 FPS. If you are comparing this combo to others, the 833rd position out of 3700 places it above the median by a wide margin, but there are still many faster systems, primarily those with desktop-class GPUs or higher-power mobile parts.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full measured FPS dataset for this combo in Evolve is as follows:

At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 263 FPS. The High preset averages 160 FPS. The Medium preset averages 204 FPS, with a minimum of 174 FPS and a maximum of 235 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 111 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 177 FPS. The High preset averages 107 FPS. The Medium preset averages 137 FPS, with a minimum of 116 FPS and a maximum of 157 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 74 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 101 FPS. The High preset averages 61 FPS. The Medium preset averages 78 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 42 FPS.

These numbers represent the complete measured dataset, with min and max FPS recorded only for Medium settings at each resolution. The absence of min and max data for other presets means only the averages are available for comparison, but the Medium data provides useful context for frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the 174 FPS minimum is still far above the refresh rate of most 1080p monitors, and the 235 FPS maximum shows meaningful headroom. At 1440p Medium, the 116 FPS minimum stays above 60 FPS by a wide margin, and the 157 FPS maximum approaches high-refresh territory. At 4K Medium, the 66 FPS minimum barely dips below the 60 FPS target, but the 90 FPS maximum shows that the combo can exceed 90 FPS at 4K under favorable conditions.

The Ultra preset results are the most demanding scenario. The 42 FPS average at 4K Ultra is the only sub-60 result in the entire dataset. At 1440p Ultra, the 74 FPS average is playable but not high-refresh. At 1080p Ultra, the 111 FPS average is smooth. This progression shows that the Ultra preset adds a significant rendering load, particularly at 4K, and the RTX 4090 Mobile cannot quite sustain 60 FPS in that configuration.

For practical use, the Medium preset offers the best balance of quality and performance across all resolutions. At 4K Medium, the 78 FPS average with a 66 FPS minimum is a solid experience on a 4K 60 Hz display. At 1440p Medium, the 137 FPS average suits 120 Hz and 144 Hz monitors, with the 116 FPS minimum ensuring no drops below 100 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the 204 FPS average is overkill for most displays but leaves room for very high refresh rates up to 200 Hz. The High preset is also viable at 1440p for 100 Hz displays, and at 4K it is exactly at the 60 FPS mark, which is borderline but acceptable for a game like Evolve.