Evolve

Evolve, the 2015 asymmetrical FPS from Turtle Rock, is a light load by modern standards, and the pairing of Intel's Core Ultra X9 388H with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile turns it into a formality at every mainstream resolution. This page breaks down the measured frame rates for that specific laptop combination, explains why the hardware behaves the way it does, and places the combo in context against other CPU/GPU pairings tested in the same game. All figures below are measured results, not modeled estimates.

CPU Role

The Core Ultra X9 388H is a 16-core, 16-thread mobile processor from Intel's Panther Lake family, built on Intel's own 3 nm process node. It runs a 2.10 GHz base clock with a 5.10 GHz boost, sits in the Intel BGA 2540 socket, and carries a 25 W TDP — a low-power envelope that matters for a game like Evolve, because a 2015 FPS engine simply cannot stress a chip with this much headroom. Per-core resources are generous: 192 KB of L1 and 3 MB of L2 per core, with 18 MB of shared L3 cache feeding all sixteen threads. Memory support is dual-channel LPDDR5X with 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient to keep the RTX 4080 Mobile fed at the resolutions tested here.

The benchmark data places this CPU in the 88th percentile against all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 44466. Its nearest rivals are telling: the AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D scores 44573 (just 0.2 percent higher), the Intel Core i9-13950HX scores 44342 (0.3 percent lower), the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 scores 44309 (0.4 percent lower), and the Intel Core i5-13600 scores 44240 (0.5 percent lower). In practical terms, the 388H trades blows with a desktop i5 and a prior-generation mobile i9, and no rival in that list is meaningfully faster. For Evolve specifically, single-thread speed is the relevant metric — older shooters lean on one strong thread — and the 388H's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2200.5, alongside R15 and R20 single-core results of 309.5 and 1849 respectively, shows it has the per-thread punch to eliminate any CPU-side bottleneck. The multi-core numbers (18911 in R23, 13101 in R20, 2955 in R15) are essentially irrelevant to this title; they confirm the chip's overall class, but Evolve will never use those sixteen threads.

One detail worth noting for a mobile build: the 388H includes integrated Arc B390 graphics and a PCIe Gen 5 link with 4 CPU lanes. Neither affects Evolve performance here since the RTX 4080 Mobile handles rendering, but the integrated GPU means the laptop can drop to low-power graphics when the discrete GPU is idle. The multiplier is locked, so there is no tuning upside — not that this game needs it.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows make the settings choice straightforward. At 1920x1080, every preset clears triple digits: Low averages 241 fps, Medium 186 fps (with a measured floor of 158), High 146 fps, and even Ultra averages 101 fps. The recommendation at 1080p is simply Ultra — there is no reason to sacrifice visual quality when the worst preset still averages over 100 fps. Medium is the fallback only if a display refreshes faster than the Ultra average can support.

At 2560x1440, Ultra drops to 68 fps, which sits below a comfortable threshold for a fast FPS. High averages 98 fps — close enough to triple digits that most players will prefer it. Medium is the sweet spot if a high-refresh 1440p panel is in play, averaging 125 fps with a minimum of 106, meaning even the dips stay above 100. Low at 161 fps is overkill for a game this old unless chasing extreme refresh rates.

At 3840x2160, the calculus changes. Ultra averages 39 fps, which is not playable for a shooter. High manages 56 fps — acceptable for casual play but below a 60 fps target. Medium is the correct 4K choice: it averages 71 fps with a measured range of 60 to 82, so the frame rate never falls below 60. Players who insist on Ultra at 4K should expect to drop the preset; the data shows the RTX 4080 Mobile cannot hold that level at native resolution. In short: Ultra at 1080p, High or Medium at 1440p, Medium at 4K.

FAQ

Q: Can this laptop combo run Evolve at 4K?

A: Yes, with adjusted settings. At 3840x2160, Medium averages 71 fps with a minimum of 60, High averages 56 fps, and Low averages 92 fps. Ultra at 4K averages only 39 fps and is not recommended.

Q: What is the highest frame rate measured for this combo in Evolve?

A: 241 fps average, at 1920x1080 on the Low preset. Medium at 1080p follows at 186 fps average, peaking at 214 fps.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck this game?

A: No. The Core Ultra X9 388H sits in the 88th percentile of all CPUs and its 5.10 GHz boost with a 2200.5 Cinebench R23 single-core score far exceeds what a 2015 title demands. Frame-rate scaling across resolutions — from 241 fps at 1080p Low to 92 fps at 4K Low — confirms the GPU, not the CPU, sets the ceiling.

Q: How does this combo rank against other CPU/GPU pairings tested in Evolve?

A: It ranks 1212 out of 3700 tested combinations. That places it solidly in the upper third — strong, but not among the elite pairings for this particular title.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 Mobile a strong GPU by database standards?

A: It sits in the 81st percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 38135. Its closest rival by average score is the GeForce MX570 at 38299 (0.4 percent apart), and it also clusters near the RTX 5080 Mobile and desktop RTX 4070 in the aggregated database averages.

Q: Does Evolve's age matter for these results?

A: Yes. Released in February 2015, the game predates modern engine loads, which is why even Ultra at 1080p averages 101 fps on this hardware and why the CPU's sixteen cores are largely idle during play.

How This Combo Ranks

Across the 3700 CPU/GPU combinations measured in Evolve, the Core Ultra X9 388H plus RTX 4080 Mobile ranks 1212th. That is a respectable position — roughly the top third — and it aligns with the individual component percentiles: the CPU sits at the 88th percentile among all processors and the GPU at the 81st percentile among all graphics solutions. A combo ranking lower than either component's individual percentile is normal, since game-specific rankings are dominated by pairings that mount flagship desktop GPUs, which laptops cannot match.

The context matters. Evolve is an older title where raw GPU throughput at lower resolutions is capped by the game engine itself, so combinations with extreme hardware converge on similar frame rates. This pairing's strength is consistency: it delivers over 100 fps at Ultra at 1080p and a stable 60-plus at Medium at 4K, which is what most of the combinations above it in the ranking also achieve. The rank tells you this is a competitive setup for the game, not a record-setter.

GPU Role

The GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile is an Ada Lovelace part built on TSMC's 5 nm process, using the AD104 chip with 35,800 million transistors packed into a 294 mm² die — a density of 121.8 million transistors per square millimeter. It features 7424 shading units, 232 TMUs, 80 ROPs, 58 RT cores, and 232 tensor cores, producing 24.72 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. Texture throughput is 386.3 GTexel/s and pixel throughput is 133.2 GPixel/s. Clocks run from a 1290 MHz base to a 1665 MHz boost, with memory at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective).

The memory subsystem is the key spec for this game's results. The card carries 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, delivering 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 4K, where the measured Ultra average falls to 39 fps, the resolution is clearly pushing past what this memory configuration and shading throughput comfortably deliver in a single render pass — the drop from 56 fps at High to 39 fps at Ultra indicates heavy per-pixel cost rather than a VRAM wall, since Evolve predates the texture budgets that genuinely strain 12 GB buffers. At 1440p and below, bandwidth is ample, and the frame rates scale in a clean, GPU-bound pattern: Low goes 241, 161, and 92 fps across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively.

The 110 W TDP defines this as a mobile part — soldered (IGP slot classification, no power connectors), dependent on the laptop's cooling design to hold boost clocks. The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x16, and API support extends to DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6, all of which comfortably cover Evolve's requirements. Database benchmarks corroborate the gaming position: PassMark G3D scores 24926, Geekbench OpenCL 159575, and Geekbench Vulkan 145807. Against nearest rivals by average score, the RTX 4080 Mobile sits 0.4 percent behind the GeForce MX570 (38299), 0.6 percent behind the RTX 5080 Mobile (38349), and 1.3 percent ahead of both the RTX 4070 (37648) and the Tesla P4 (37628) — a tightly packed cluster confirming its upper-tier, non-flagship status.

Measured FPS Breakdown

All numbers below are measured average frame rates for this exact pairing.

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 241 fps
• Medium: 186 fps average, with a measured range of 158 to 214 fps
• High: 146 fps
• Ultra: 101 fps

The 1080p spread shows the game engine reaching its practical ceiling. The gap between Low and Medium (241 to 186) is smaller proportionally than between Medium and Ultra (186 to 101), indicating Ultra's extra effects carry the heaviest cost. Even so, 101 fps at maximum settings is fully playable on any standard display.

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 161 fps
• Medium: 125 fps average, range 106 to 144 fps
• High: 98 fps
• Ultra: 68 fps

1440p is where the settings ladder starts to matter. High at 98 fps is the natural pick, landing just shy of a 100 fps average. Medium's floor of 106 fps guarantees triple-digit frame rates throughout, making it the choice for high-refresh monitors. Ultra at 68 fps is borderline for a fast FPS — playable, but a clear step down.

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 92 fps
• Medium: 71 fps average, range 60 to 82 fps
• High: 56 fps
• Ultra: 39 fps

The 4K data defines this combo's hard limit. Low's 92 fps shows the GPU still has headroom when effects are stripped, but each preset step costs roughly 15 to 17 fps. Medium is the only preset that holds a 60 fps minimum, which makes it the defensible 4K setting. High at 56 fps and Ultra at 39 fps fall short of a 60 fps standard and should be reserved for players tolerant of dips.

Across the full grid, the pattern is consistent and GPU-bound: the Core Ultra X9 388H never appears to limit, frame rates scale cleanly with resolution, and the RTX 4080 Mobile's 12 GB of GDDR6 and 432 GB/s of bandwidth handle the lower resolutions without strain. For a 2015 release, this pairing delivers headroom at every setting except native 4K Ultra — and the measured data makes it easy to find the preset that fixes that.