Evolve

Evolve, a 2015 FPS title, shows a wide performance spread across settings and resolutions for the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT combination. The measured data indicates a system that can handle the game comfortably at 1080p and 1440p, but which becomes increasingly GPU-bound at 4K, where only the lowest settings approach a playable 60 FPS average.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark rows for this combo reveal a clear performance hierarchy across four quality presets: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 160 FPS (Low), 124 FPS (Medium), 97 FPS (High), and 67 FPS (Ultra). The data shows that stepping from Low to Medium costs 36 FPS, from Medium to High costs 27 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 30 FPS. The Medium preset provides the best balance for most users, as it maintains an average above 120 FPS while still delivering a significant visual upgrade over Low. The Medium preset also shows the only recorded minimum and maximum frame values at this resolution (105 min, 143 max), indicating a stable frame time distribution.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers: Low averages 107 FPS, Medium 83 FPS, High 65 FPS, and Ultra 45 FPS. Here, High is the recommended preset for a 60 FPS experience, as it sits just above the threshold. Medium remains a strong choice for high-refresh-rate monitors, offering 83 FPS average with the only min/max data in the resolution (71 min, 96 max). Ultra, at 45 FPS, falls below the 60 FPS target and should be avoided for competitive play.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes dramatically. The averages are 61 FPS (Low), 47 FPS (Medium), 37 FPS (High), and 26 FPS (Ultra). Only Low achieves a 60 FPS average, and it does so narrowly. Medium is the highest preset that stays above 40 FPS, but its 47 FPS average with a 40 FPS minimum (as recorded) may cause noticeable stutter in fast-paced action. For 4K, the data suggests Low as the only viable preset for a smooth experience, while Medium is acceptable for slower-paced play.

The best overall experience per the measured rows is the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p. It offers the highest average FPS above 120 at 1080p and above 80 at 1440p, with recorded frame stability. Higher presets yield diminishing returns, with Ultra providing only 67 FPS at 1080p, which is below the refresh rate of many gaming monitors.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is the primary bottleneck in this combination, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 256.0 GB/s bandwidth. Its boost clock is 2589 MHz, with a game clock of 2359 MHz and a base clock of 1968 MHz. The card has 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units, delivering a pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s.

The GPU's 10.60 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is directly reflected in the Evolve frame rates. The data shows that as the preset quality increases, the FPS drops proportionally, which is typical of a GPU-bound scenario. The VRAM capacity of 8 GB appears sufficient for Evolve's textures at all tested settings, as the FPS degradation from Low to Ultra is consistent and does not show any sudden cliff that would indicate memory swapping.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 70 against all GPUs places it in the mid-to-upper range, and its average benchmark score of 24442 positions it close to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (24277, deltaPct 0.7) and the Intel Arc A350M (24647, deltaPct -0.8). This indicates that the RX 6600 XT's performance in Evolve is consistent with its general compute capabilities, though the game's age and optimization mean that even this mid-range card can handle 1080p Ultra.

The RX 6600 XT uses PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, which provides sufficient bandwidth for this game. Its RDNA 2.0 architecture with 32 ray accelerators does not seem to impact Evolve, as the game does not use ray tracing. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support is forward-looking but not leveraged by this 2015 title, which likely runs on older APIs. The measured FPS at 4K Low (61 FPS) versus 4K Ultra (26 FPS) shows a 2.35x performance spread, highlighting the GPU's sensitivity to shader complexity and fill rate demands.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate behavior across resolutions shows a classic GPU-bound pattern. Moving from 1080p to 1440p, the FPS drops by approximately 39% at Low (160 to 107), 33% at Medium (124 to 83), 33% at High (97 to 65), and 33% at Ultra (67 to 45). Moving from 1440p to 4K, the drops are 43% at Low (107 to 61), 43% at Medium (83 to 47), 43% at High (65 to 37), and 42% at Ultra (45 to 26).

The consistent percentage drops across settings indicate that the limiting component is the GPU's pixel throughput rather than the CPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS gap between resolutions to narrow at lower settings (where the CPU has more headroom). Instead, the data shows that even at Low settings, the 4K resolution cuts the 1080p frame rate by more than half (160 to 61), which is consistent with a GPU that is saturated by pixel fill and memory bandwidth demands.

The 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are the likely constraints at 4K. The pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s means that at 4K (8.3 million pixels), the theoretical maximum fill rate is around 20,000 frames per second, but real-world shader workloads and memory latency reduce this dramatically. The measured 4K Ultra average of 26 FPS is only 39% of the 1080p Ultra average of 67 FPS, which aligns with the 4x pixel count difference (8.3M vs 2.1M pixels) being partially offset by the GPU's memory subsystem.

This scaling behavior suggests that for 4K gaming, the user must accept Low settings (61 FPS) or drop to 1440p for a balanced experience. At 1440p, all presets except Ultra remain above 60 FPS, making it the sweet spot for this combination. The 1080p results, with a maximum of 160 FPS at Low, indicate that the CPU and GPU have ample headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors at this resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured data set for this combo is as follows. At 1920x1080, Low averages 160 FPS, Medium averages 124 FPS with a minimum of 105 and maximum of 143, High averages 97 FPS, and Ultra averages 67 FPS. The Medium preset is the only one with recorded min/max values, suggesting the other presets had too few frames or too much variance to report.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 107 FPS, Medium averages 83 FPS with a minimum of 71 and maximum of 96, High averages 65 FPS, and Ultra averages 45 FPS. Again, only Medium has min/max data, and the spread from 71 to 96 FPS indicates a 25 FPS range, which is modest for a game like Evolve.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 61 FPS, Medium averages 47 FPS with a minimum of 40 and maximum of 54, High averages 37 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. The Medium preset's 14 FPS range (40 to 54) shows that at 4K, frame times become less consistent, which could lead to perceptible hitches during intense combat sequences.

Comparing settings within each resolution, the FPS drop from Low to Ultra is 58% at 1080p (160 to 67), 58% at 1440p (107 to 45), and 57% at 4K (61 to 26). This near-constant ratio across resolutions indicates that the GPU's shader and texture units are the primary limiters, rather than memory bandwidth (which would show a larger drop at 4K). The RX 6600 XT's 2048 shading units are fully utilized at all settings, but the 256.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes more limiting as resolution increases, explaining why the absolute FPS values at 4K are so low.

How This Combo Ranks

In Evolve, this combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT ranks 2044 out of 2872 tested combos. This places it in the 71st percentile of all systems tested for this game. The rank indicates that while this combo is above average, it is far from the top tier, which is consistent with the RX 6600 XT's mid-range positioning (GPU percentile 70) and the CPU's high-end positioning (CPU percentile 96).

The rank of 2044 out of 2872 means that 828 combos performed worse, and 2043 performed better. Given the CPU's capabilities (24 cores, 24 threads, 5.50 GHz boost), the bottleneck is clearly the GPU. The CPU's percentile of 96 against all CPUs is much higher than the GPU's percentile of 70, suggesting that in Evolve, the frame rates are determined almost entirely by the graphics card.

This rank is lower than what the CPU alone would suggest, as the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a top-tier processor. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (160 FPS) is respectable but not exceptional for a system with this CPU. The ranking implies that users with this CPU paired with a faster GPU would see significantly higher frame rates, while the RX 6600 XT holds the system back to mid-range performance levels.

The combo rank also reflects the game's age and optimization. Evolve, released in 2015, may not fully utilize the CPU's 24 threads, but the data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 160 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS target. The ranking suggests that for this specific game, the GPU is the limiting factor, and any improvement in FPS would require a GPU upgrade rather than a CPU change.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. It has a 36 MB shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache. The CPU's benchmark scores are impressive: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44253, single-core score of 2439, and Passmark multi-thread score of 68574. Its percentile of 96 against all CPUs places it in the top 4% of processors.

In Evolve, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling. At 1080p Low (160 FPS), the CPU is likely not the bottleneck, as the GPU is still producing high frame rates. However, at 4K Ultra (26 FPS), the CPU is almost certainly idle, waiting for the GPU to render each frame. The data does not show any scenario where the CPU limits performance, as the FPS drops consistently with resolution and settings increases.

The CPU's 24 threads are overkill for Evolve, which likely uses only a few cores. The single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2439) is strong, but this does not translate into higher FPS in Evolve because the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s (dual-channel DDR5) is also sufficient for the game, as the GPU's 256.0 GB/s bandwidth is the more critical constraint.

The nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Xeon 6520P (avgScore 93786, deltaPct 0), AMD EPYC 4564P (95183, -1.5%), AMD EPYC 9175F (95615, -1.9%), and AMD EPYC 4565P (95764, -2.1%). These rivals are all server-class processors, indicating that the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is positioned at the high end of desktop performance. In Evolve, however, this CPU power is underutilized, and the system's rank is determined by the GPU. The CPU's 125 W TDP and 3 nm process node (TSMC) make it efficient, but this efficiency does not affect in-game FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable at 1080p with this combo?

A: The highest average FPS at 1920x1080 is 160 FPS, achieved at Low settings. The Medium preset delivers 124 FPS, High delivers 97 FPS, and Ultra delivers 67 FPS.

Q: Does the combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, only Low settings achieve a 60 FPS average (61 FPS). Medium averages 47 FPS, High averages 37 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS, all below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the RX 6600 XT compare to its nearest GPU rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The RX 6600 XT's average benchmark score is 24442. It is 0.7% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (24277), 0.8% above the GTX 780 Ti (24236), 1.1% above the RTX 2080 SUPER (24170), and 0.8% below the Intel Arc A350M (24647).

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested systems in Evolve?

A: The combo ranks 2044 out of 2872 tested combinations, placing it in the 71st percentile. This indicates it performs better than 828 combos but worse than 2043 others.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in Evolve?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor. Evidence includes the consistent FPS drop across resolutions (e.g., 160 FPS at 1080p Low to 61 FPS at 4K Low), while the CPU's percentile (96) is much higher than the GPU's (70).

Q: Which settings preset provides the most stable frame times at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has recorded minimum and maximum FPS of 71 and 96, respectively, with an average of 83 FPS. This is the only preset with min/max data at this resolution, indicating it was the most stable.