Evolve

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a wide range of performance in Evolve, depending heavily on resolution and preset. The measured data shows a system that can handle 1080p and 1440p gaming with high refresh rates, while 4K Ultra remains a demanding target. This analysis breaks down the FPS results, explains the GPU and CPU roles, and provides practical settings advice based solely on the measured figures.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves in Evolve?*

A: The highest measured average FPS is 262, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next best is 203 FPS at the same resolution with Medium settings, showing that the system has substantial headroom for high-refresh-rate 1080p play.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Evolve?*

A: Yes, but only at lower presets. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 100 FPS, and Medium averages 77 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS. High settings drop to 61 FPS, while Ultra falls to 42 FPS, which is below the smooth-playability threshold for many users.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in overall benchmark score?

A: The RTX 4070 has an average benchmark score of 37648. It is 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (37628), 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (37507), and 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (37157). It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile by 1.3% (38135).

Q: What is the CPU’s standing among all processors based on its benchmark percentile?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus sits in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, indicating it is a top-tier performer. Its average benchmark score is 84003, which is 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (83807) and 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX (83090).

*Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in Evolve at lower resolutions?*

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a limiting factor overall. At 1080p Low, the system hits 262 FPS, and at 1440p Low it reaches 176 FPS. These high numbers indicate the CPU can feed the GPU effectively, though the 1080p to 1440p drop suggests some scaling behavior consistent with GPU load increasing.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the GPU?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 has a launch MSRP of 599 USD.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD104 chip on a 5 nm process from TSMC. It packs 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. The GPU also includes 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores, which gives it modern feature support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. For Evolve, a 2015 FPS title, the GPU’s raw rasterization power is the primary driver of frame rates, and the measured results confirm this.

The memory subsystem is a key factor. The RTX 4070 comes with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz, with 21 Gbps effective data rate. In Evolve, the difference between 1080p and 4K performance is stark, and that is largely due to memory bandwidth and fill rate demands at higher resolutions. The GPU’s pixel rate is 158.4 GPixel/s and texture rate is 455.4 GTexel/s, which are substantial figures for a mid-to-high-end card.

Clock speeds matter for sustained performance. The base clock is 1920 MHz, with a boost clock of 2475 MHz. This boost behavior is what allows the card to reach high FPS numbers in less demanding scenes. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 262, which is far above what the CPU would need to deliver to avoid bottlenecking. The GPU’s FP32 compute is rated at 29.15 TFLOPS, and its FP16 performance is identical at 29.15 TFLOPS (1:1). These numbers are not directly tied to Evolve’s engine, but they indicate the card has ample compute headroom for a game from this era.

The RTX 4070’s overall GPU benchmark percentile is 81, placing it above the majority of graphics cards. Its average benchmark score is 37648, with a Passmark G3D score of 26927 and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 14720. In Evolve, the GPU is clearly the dominant component when moving from Low to Ultra settings. At 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 42 FPS, while Low hits 100 FPS. This 58 FPS gap shows how much the GPU struggles with the combined load of resolution and high-quality effects. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game, as no measured data suggests memory capacity is a limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how the RTX 4070 scales across resolutions. Starting at 1080p, the system produces high frame rates across all presets. At Low, the average is 262 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, that drops to 176 FPS, a 32.8% reduction. Then at 4K Low, it drops further to 100 FPS, which is 43.2% lower than 1440p. This scaling pattern shows that as resolution increases, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, which is expected for a rasterization-heavy title.

For Medium settings, the trend is similar but with lower absolute numbers. At 1080p Medium, the average is 203 FPS. At 1440p Medium, it falls to 136 FPS, a 33.0% decrease. At 4K Medium, the average is 77 FPS, a 43.4% drop from 1440p. These consistent percentage drops across Low and Medium indicate that the GPU’s fill rate and bandwidth are scaling predictably with pixel count.

High settings show a slightly different pattern. At 1080p High, the average is 159 FPS. At 1440p High, it is 107 FPS, a 32.7% reduction. At 4K High, the average is 61 FPS, a 43.0% drop from 1440p. The 4K High result of 61 FPS is close to the edge of smooth playability, and the scaling suggests that any further increase in settings would push it below 60 FPS.

Ultra settings are the most demanding. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 110 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 74 FPS, a 32.7% reduction. At 4K Ultra, the average is 42 FPS, a 43.2% drop from 1440p. The 4K Ultra result is below the 60 FPS threshold, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. The consistent ~33% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~43% drop from 1440p to 4K across all presets points to resolution being the dominant factor in performance scaling.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU. The CPU, with its high multi-threaded and single-threaded scores, does not appear to constrain frame rates even at 1080p Low where the system reaches 262 FPS. The data shows that the RTX 4070’s performance envelope in Evolve is bounded by resolution and preset, with the CPU providing enough headroom to avoid becoming the bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Evolve covers three resolutions and four settings presets. Here is the exact breakdown.

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest performance. Low settings produce an average of 262 FPS. Medium settings yield 203 FPS, with a minimum of 173 FPS and a maximum of 234 FPS. High settings drop to 159 FPS on average. Ultra settings produce 110 FPS on average. These numbers show that 1080p gaming is exceptionally smooth, even at Ultra, where the average remains above 100 FPS.

At 2560x1440, performance scales down noticeably but remains strong. Low settings average 176 FPS. Medium settings average 136 FPS, with a minimum of 116 FPS and a maximum of 157 FPS. High settings average 107 FPS. Ultra settings average 74 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that this resolution is well-suited for high-refresh-rate monitors, as even Ultra stays above 70 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU faces its toughest challenge. Low settings average 100 FPS. Medium settings average 77 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS and a maximum of 89 FPS. High settings average 61 FPS. Ultra settings average 42 FPS. The 4K data shows a clear threshold: Low and Medium are playable, High is borderline, and Ultra is not smooth by typical standards.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data across all resolutions. At 1080p, the range is 173 to 234 FPS. At 1440p, it is 116 to 157 FPS. At 4K, it is 66 to 89 FPS. These ranges indicate stable frame pacing, with the minimums staying within reasonable distance of the averages. For example, at 4K Medium, the average is 77 FPS, and the minimum is 66 FPS, which is a 14.3% drop from the average. This suggests the game does not have severe frame-time spikes at this setting.

The combo’s overall rank in Evolve is 647 out of 2872 tested combinations, placing it in the top 22.5% of all combos. This rank reflects the strong 1080p and 1440p performance, while the 4K Ultra result pulls it down from a higher placement. The data is measured, not estimated, so these figures represent actual gameplay performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The L3 cache is 36 MB shared, with 192 KB L1 and 3 MB L2 per core. This is a desktop-class CPU designed for high throughput, and its benchmark scores reflect that.

In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 51731 in multi-core and 7303 in single-core. These are strong numbers, showing that the CPU can handle both heavily threaded workloads and single-threaded tasks. For Evolve, which is not a particularly demanding CPU game by modern standards, the single-core performance is likely more relevant. The Cinebench R20 single-core score is 3067, and the R15 single-core score is 736. These scores indicate the CPU has excellent per-core performance, which helps maintain high frame rates in games that rely on a few threads.

The CPU’s Passmark scores provide additional context. The multithread score is 60860, and the single-thread score is 4823. The physics score is 3315, which is a measure of CPU physics calculations. The data compression score is 698346, and the integer math score is 166194. These numbers suggest the CPU has ample computational power for any game engine, including Evolve.

The CPU’s average benchmark score is 84003, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K with an average score of 83807 (0.2% slower), the AMD EPYC 4584PX at 83090 (1.1% slower), and the AMD EPYC 9135 at 82980 (1.2% slower). The AMD EPYC 7F72 scores 85072, which is 1.3% higher than the 290K Plus. These comparisons show that the 290K Plus is at the top of the consumer and workstation CPU stack.

In Evolve, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The measured FPS data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is not stressed, the system reaches 262 FPS. This indicates the CPU is not a bottleneck. At 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as evidenced by the FPS dropping more substantially with resolution increases than with preset changes. The CPU’s 24 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient for this game, and its high boost clock of 5.80 GHz ensures responsive frame delivery.

The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s. It also supports ECC memory and has PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes on the CPU. These features are not directly measured in Evolve, but they contribute to overall system responsiveness. The integrated graphics are Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 64 EU, but the discrete RTX 4070 handles all rendering.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and refresh rate.

For 1080p gaming, the system has massive headroom. The Ultra preset averages 110 FPS, which is smooth on a 100 Hz or 120 Hz monitor. If the goal is maximum visual quality, Ultra is the clear choice. For users with a 144 Hz or 240 Hz display, the High preset at 159 FPS or Medium at 203 FPS would better utilize the refresh rate. Low at 262 FPS is only useful for competitive play where every frame matters, but the visual trade-off is significant.

For 1440p, the balance shifts. The Ultra preset averages 74 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The High preset at 107 FPS is the sweet spot for a 100 Hz to 120 Hz display, offering a substantial improvement in smoothness over Ultra while maintaining good visuals. Medium at 136 FPS is better for 144 Hz monitors, but the visual quality drop from High may be noticeable. Low at 176 FPS is overkill for most displays and sacrifices too much quality.

For 4K, the choices are more constrained. The Low preset averages 100 FPS, which is excellent for 4K gaming. Medium averages 77 FPS, with a minimum of 66 FPS, which is still smooth on a 60 Hz or 75 Hz display. High averages 61 FPS, which is borderline for 60 Hz. Ultra averages 42 FPS, which is not recommended for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset is the best compromise for 4K, as it delivers frame rates well above 60 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS, ensuring no drops below the refresh rate of a standard 60 Hz monitor.

The data shows that the Medium preset offers the most consistent performance across all resolutions. It is the only preset with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values, and those minimums stay within 14-15% of the averages. At 1080p, Medium averages 203 FPS with a minimum of 173 FPS. At 1440p, it averages 136 FPS with a minimum of 116 FPS. At 4K, it averages 77 FPS with a minimum of 66 FPS. This consistency makes Medium a reliable choice for users who want stable frame pacing without hitting the low averages of Ultra.

For most users, the recommendation is to start with High settings at 1080p or 1440p, and Medium at 4K. High at 1440p offers 107 FPS, which is a good balance of quality and speed. High at 1080p offers 159 FPS, which is excellent for most monitors. Medium at 4K offers 77 FPS, which is the highest preset that remains comfortably above 60 FPS. Ultra should only be used at 1080p, where it still averages 110 FPS, but at higher resolutions it drops below playable thresholds.

The measured data does not include any ray tracing or DLSS metrics, so those features should be considered untested. The game Evolve is from 2015, so its rendering pipeline is not designed for modern upscaling technologies. The RTX 4070’s 12 GB VRAM and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are more than adequate for this title, and the GPU’s 81st percentile ranking confirms it is a strong performer. The CPU’s 96th percentile ranking ensures it will not hold the system back. In summary, this combo excels at 1080p and 1440p, and it can handle 4K with medium settings, making it a versatile pairing for Evolve.