Archeage

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers a performance profile that is heavily dictated by resolution and preset selection in Archeage. The data shows a clear hierarchy where 1080p and 1440p Ultra settings are fully playable with substantial headroom above the 60 FPS threshold, while 4K Ultra becomes the only configuration that fails to reach playable frame rates. The most demanding combination, 3840x2160 Ultra, falls to 48.3 FPS, meaning only the High, Medium, and Low presets at that resolution clear the 60 FPS line.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the recorded data shows the highest performance envelope. The Low preset produces 163.5 FPS average, which is the fastest configuration measured across all tests. Medium follows closely at 153.4 FPS, and High reaches 131.4 FPS. Ultra at 1080p still manages 115.4 FPS, leaving a 55.4 FPS buffer above the playable threshold.

At 2560x1440, the system remains very strong but shows a measurable step down. Low averages 140.3 FPS, Medium comes in at 135.2 FPS, and High reaches 115 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is only 5.1 FPS, while the jump to Ultra drops the average to 83.2 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS target.

The 3840x2160 results reveal the most pronounced drop, particularly at the top end. Low produces 117.7 FPS, Medium 107.2 FPS, and High 73.3 FPS. The step from High to Ultra is severe, with the Ultra preset collapsing to 48.3 FPS, which is 11.7 FPS below the playability threshold. Across all three resolutions, the pattern is consistent: Low and Medium always stay above 100 FPS, High remains playable at 1080p and 1440p, and only the 4K Ultra setting fails the 60 FPS requirement.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The database places the Intel Core i5-9400 at the 47th percentile among all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2254. Its nearest rivals are extremely close in aggregate performance. The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2259, which is 0.2% higher, and the Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2264, also 0.2% higher. On the other side, the Intel Core i7-10710U scores 2248, 0.3% lower, and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2246, 0.4% lower. These deltas are all under half a percentage point, meaning any of these parts would deliver effectively the same CPU-bound behavior in Archeage.

For the GPU side, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 sits at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79842. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at 79605 (0.3% lower), the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB at 79396 (0.6% lower), and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 78940 (1.1% lower). The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X scores 80959, 1.4% higher. In practical terms, these GPU alternatives would produce nearly identical frame rates in this game, so a system with any of those cards and the same CPU would land within a couple of FPS of the measurements recorded for this combo.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark results indicate that the RTX 5090 is not the limiting factor at 1080p. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1920x1080 is 48.1 FPS, from 163.5 down to 115.4, which shows the GPU is still capable of huge frame rates even at the highest visual quality. At 2560x1440, the same spread is 57.1 FPS, from 140.3 to 83.2. The fact that 1440p Ultra still holds 83.2 FPS, while 1080p Ultra holds 115.4, suggests the GPU is scaling with resolution rather than being pinned by the CPU.

The picture changes at 3840x2160. The drop from Medium to Ultra is 58.9 FPS, from 107.2 to 48.3, which is a much larger penalty than the 18.1 FPS drop seen from Medium to Ultra at 1080p. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU workload becomes dominant and the CPU headroom is less relevant. The CPU still matters, as the i5-9400 sits at the 47th percentile and is a six-core part from the Coffee Lake generation, but the data shows the GPU is clearly the component steering the 4K Ultra result. At 1080p and 1440p, the system behaves more like a balanced system where both components contribute to the final FPS, but the RTX 5090 has enough raw power to keep frame rates high across the board. At 4K High, the GPU is clearly the deciding factor, and even with a stronger CPU the Ultra preset would still be the one failing configuration.

The scaling pattern across resolutions reinforces this reading. 1080p to 1440p High costs 16.4 FPS, from 131.4 to 115, while 1440p to 4K High costs 41.7 FPS down to 73.3. The CPU-heavy settings like Ultra scale poorly at 4K, but the GPU-heavy settings remain playable at 4K, so the recommendation is to avoid Ultra at 4K regardless of the CPU installed.

The RTX 5090 is a 104.8 TFLOPS GPU with 21,760 shading units and 176 ROPs, and it reaches a 92nd percentile GPU ranking. The i5-9400 has a 47th CPU percentile rating and a 9 MB shared cache L3, and the CPU scores show a 935 single-core result on Cinebench R23 singlecore. None of these specs change the core finding, which is that the CPU is not the bottleneck at any resolution, but the GPU at 4K Ultra pushes the combo past its playable ceiling.

The measured results confirm the GPU is not the limiting factor at 1080p and 1440p, with Ultra settings still hitting 115.4 FPS and 83.2 FPS respectively. The 4K Ultra preset is the only configuration where the GPU's workload becomes the limiting factor, dropping to 48.4 FPS at 4K Ultra, and that is the single failing measurement in the entire dataset. The 4K Ultra result is the only configuration that fails the 60 FPS playable threshold, and it fails by 25.7 FPS short of the 60 FPS threshold. The 4K High result is 13.3 FPS above the threshold at 73.3 FPS average.

The Verdict

The verdict by resolution is straightforward. At 1920x1080, every preset is playable. The Ultra preset averages 115.4 FPS, which is more than double the 60 FPS requirement. At 2560x1440, every preset is also playable, with Ultra at 83.2 FPS still leaving a 23.2 FPS margin. At 3840x2160, the High, Medium, and Low presets are playable, but Ultra drops to 48.3 FPS, which is 11.7 FPS below the threshold. The system can run Archeage at 4K, but only if the user avoids the Ultra preset. The best playable setting at 4K is High, with an average of 73.3 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The database ranks this combination at 635 out of 3,708 tested combos, placing it in the top 17% of all tested systems. Given that the GPU is at the 92nd percentile and the CPU is at the 47th percentile, the ranking reflects the strong GPU contribution. The combo sits ahead of the majority of systems, and the ranking is driven by the GPU's high score of 79,842 average benchmark score. Many lower-ranked combos would have a weaker GPU, and this ranking indicates that the RTX 5090 is doing most of the heavy lifting. The CPU's 47th percentile is a middle-of-the-pack result, but it does not hold the combo back at any resolution except for the 4K Ultra preset, which is a GPU workload issue.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, with an average of 115.4 FPS. At 2560x1440, the most demanding playable preset is also Ultra, averaging 83.2 FPS. At 3840x2160, the most demanding playable preset is High, averaging 73.3 FPS. The 4K Ultra preset is not playable, so users at 4K should select High to keep the frame rate above 60 FPS. The data shows no other resolution or preset combination falls below the 60 FPS threshold, so the system is otherwise fully capable of running Archeage at high frame rates across all tested configurations.