Evolve

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate for this combo in Evolve at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings is 231 FPS. This is one of the higher results in the dataset, though not the absolute peak.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival in overall benchmark score?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (83807) and 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX (83090). It trails the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3% (85072).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 sits in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score is 79842, placing it 0.3% above the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB and 0.6% above the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB, while being 1.4% below the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X.

Q: What is the rank of this CPU+GPU combo in Evolve specifically?

A: The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 51st out of 3700 tested combos for this game. This places it in the top 1.4% of all configurations.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 254 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 107 FPS. That is a reduction of 147 FPS, or roughly 58% lower performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset.

Q: Does the RTX 5090 have more VRAM than its closest rival in the benchmark database?

A: The RTX 5090 comes with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus. Its nearest rivals listed (Tesla P100 variants) are not compared by VRAM in the data provided, so no direct memory-size comparison can be made from the available facts.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data for Evolve shows a clear trade-off between visual quality and frame rate across the four presets. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 231 FPS average, which is a strong result for competitive play. Medium at the same resolution produces 294 FPS average with a minimum of 250 FPS and maximum of 338 FPS, suggesting a more consistent experience above the 240 Hz refresh rate threshold common in esports monitors.

For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, the Low preset at 1080p reaches 379 FPS average, but the visual compromise is substantial. The Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot at 1080p: it offers a 27% higher average FPS than High (294 vs 231) while retaining a reasonable visual uplift over Low. The minimum of 250 FPS at Medium means the frame time graph stays flat even during intense combat sequences.

At 2560x1440, the picture shifts. High produces 155 FPS average, which remains above the 144 Hz standard for many QHD monitors. Medium reaches 197 FPS with a minimum of 168 FPS, making it the best choice for high-refresh QHD displays. Low at 254 FPS is excessive for most 1440p monitors unless they support 240 Hz or higher. Ultra at 107 FPS is playable but dips below the refresh rate of most high-end 1440p panels.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. High delivers 88 FPS average, which is adequate for 60 Hz 4K displays but does not fully utilize 120 Hz panels. Medium achieves 112 FPS with a minimum of 95 FPS and maximum of 129 FPS, making it the recommended preset for 4K users who own 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays. Ultra drops to 61 FPS, barely hitting the 60 FPS floor, and Low at 145 FPS suggests the GPU is still capable of high frame rates at 4K when geometry and effects are scaled down.

The data indicates that Medium is the optimal preset across all three resolutions for balancing visual quality against frame rate stability. At 4K, Medium offers the best combination of playability (112 FPS average) and visual fidelity, while at 1080p and 1440p, Medium's minimum frame rates (250 and 168 FPS respectively) ensure no perceptible stutter.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The CPU has a 36 MB shared L3 cache and 3 MB L2 cache per core. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 51731 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7303 in single-core, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs.

For Evolve, a game released in 2015, the CPU's role is primarily about maintaining high minimum frame rates rather than pushing maximum FPS. The game's engine is not heavily threaded by modern standards, so the 24 cores are largely underutilized. However, the strong single-core performance (736 in Cinebench R15 single-core) ensures that the game's main thread has ample headroom. The 5.80 GHz boost clock is particularly relevant here, as older game engines often scale directly with clock speed.

The CPU's benchmark data shows a significant gap between multi-threaded and single-threaded performance relative to its rivals. The PassMark multithread score of 60860 is 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX's average score, but the single-thread score of 4823 is the more important figure for Evolve's frame pacing. The data shows that at 1080p Low (379 FPS average), the CPU is not the limiting factor — the GPU is still producing frame rates well above what most displays can show.

The CPU's 125 W TDP and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (115.2 GB/s bandwidth) are adequate for this workload. The 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die indicate a dense design, but for a 2015 FPS title, the practical impact is minimal. The nearest rival comparison shows the 290K Plus is within 1.3% of the AMD EPYC 7F72 in average score, but that EPYC is a server chip with different memory and cache characteristics.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 51st out of 3700 tested combos in Evolve. This places it in the top 1.4% of all configurations, which is notable given the game's age and the fact that many newer titles would show a different ranking. The rank reflects the raw performance ceiling of both components, but the game's engine imposes its own limits.

To contextualize this rank: with 3700 combos, being 51st means there are 50 configurations that achieve higher average FPS in Evolve. Given that the RTX 5090 is in the 92nd percentile of GPUs and the CPU is in the 96th percentile, the combo's rank is slightly lower than either component's individual percentile. This suggests that Evolve is not purely GPU-bound or CPU-bound; there is a synergy factor that prevents the combo from reaching the very top.

The nearest GPU rival comparison shows the RTX 5090's average score is 0.3% higher than the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, but the Tesla P100 is a compute-oriented card not designed for gaming. The CPU comparison shows the 290K Plus is 0.2% ahead of the 285K, which is within measurement noise. This means the combo's rank of 51 is likely determined by other factors, such as driver optimization for this specific game or the game's engine quirks.

The measured FPS data reveals that at 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 160 FPS, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 61 FPS. The rank of 51 indicates that some other combos achieve higher frame rates at these settings, possibly by using GPUs with better driver support for Evolve or CPUs with higher single-thread performance in the game's specific workload.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB202 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, with 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores. The GPU has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz.

In Evolve, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p, the GPU produces frame rates well above what the CPU can feed in some cases — the Low preset at 1080p reaches 379 FPS average, indicating that the CPU is the bottleneck at this setting. At 4K, the GPU's workload increases significantly; the Ultra preset drops to 61 FPS, showing that the GPU is now the limiting factor.

The GPU's 32 GB VRAM is far more than Evolve requires, even at 4K Ultra. The game's textures and geometry from 2015 do not approach the memory capacity. However, the 512-bit bus and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensure that memory bandwidth is never a constraint, even at high resolutions. The 1750 MHz memory clock (28 Gbps effective) provides ample headroom.

The RTX 5090's benchmark scores show strong compute performance: 104.8 TFLOPS FP32, 18355 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, and 39650 in PassMark G3D. The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs places it near the top, but its nearest rivals are compute-oriented Tesla cards, not gaming GPUs. This suggests that in gaming-specific workloads like Evolve, the RTX 5090's relative advantage may be smaller than its raw compute scores imply.

The measured FPS data shows the GPU's scaling with settings: at 4K, moving from Low (145 FPS) to Medium (112 FPS) to High (88 FPS) to Ultra (61 FPS) represents a 58% reduction from Low to Ultra. This is expected behavior for a GPU that has ample compute power but is ultimately limited by the game's rendering pipeline at higher settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo produces the following average FPS by preset: Low 379, Medium 294 (min 250, max 338), High 231, Ultra 160. The Medium preset shows the most consistent frame pacing with a 250 FPS minimum, which is above the refresh rate of most gaming monitors. The drop from Low to Ultra is 219 FPS, or 58%, indicating that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution even on the highest settings.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 254, Medium 197 (min 168, max 227), High 155, Ultra 107. The Medium preset's minimum of 168 FPS is notable because it stays above the 144 Hz refresh rate that is common for QHD monitors. The drop from Low to Ultra is 147 FPS, or 58% — the same percentage reduction as at 1080p, suggesting the GPU scales linearly with settings at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 145, Medium 112 (min 95, max 129), High 88, Ultra 61. The Medium preset's minimum of 95 FPS means that even with V-Sync off, there will be occasional frame dips below 100 FPS. The Ultra setting at 61 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold, but the lack of a listed minimum for Ultra suggests the frame pacing may be less stable. The drop from Low to Ultra is 84 FPS, or 58% — again the same ratio.

The consistency of the 58% reduction from Low to Ultra across all three resolutions is a strong indicator that the GPU's performance scales predictably with settings. The minimum FPS data for Medium shows that at 1080p the minimum is 250 (85% of average), at 1440p it is 168 (85% of average), and at 4K it is 95 (85% of average). This 85% ratio suggests stable frame delivery regardless of resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component at each resolution. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 379 at 1080p to 254 at 1440p to 145 at 4K. This represents a 33% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 43% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not linear — the pixel count increase from 1080p to 1440p is 78% (2.07M to 3.69M pixels), while from 1440p to 4K it is 125% (3.69M to 8.29M pixels). The FPS drops are proportionally smaller than the pixel increases, indicating that the GPU is not fully saturated at any resolution on Low settings.

At High settings, the averages are 231 FPS at 1080p, 155 FPS at 1440p, and 88 FPS at 4K. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is 33%, and from 1440p to 4K is 43% — identical percentages to Low settings. This suggests that the GPU's efficiency is consistent across settings, and the limiting factor is primarily the fill rate and shading load rather than memory bandwidth or VRAM capacity.

At Medium settings, the averages are 294 FPS at 1080p, 197 FPS at 1440p, and 112 FPS at 4K. The reductions are 33% and 43% respectively, maintaining the same pattern. The minimum FPS values follow the same trend: 250 at 1080p, 168 at 1440p, and 95 at 4K, each being 85% of the average.

At Ultra settings, the averages are 160 FPS at 1080p, 107 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is 33%, and from 1440p to 4K is 43% — the same ratios. However, the absolute values are lower, meaning that at 4K Ultra the combo is approaching the 60 FPS floor.

The consistent 33%/43% scaling pattern across all settings indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at every resolution and preset. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would plateau at higher resolutions rather than continuing to drop. The fact that 4K Low (145 FPS) is significantly lower than 1080p Low (379 FPS) confirms that the GPU's rendering load is the dominant factor. The CPU's 96th percentile performance and high single-core boost clock ensure that it does not constrain the GPU at any resolution, allowing the RTX 5090 to express its full performance envelope.