Archeage

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in Archeage produces a dataset that is as much about the CPU’s limitations as it is about the GPU’s raw capability. This 2014 MMORPG, with its older engine and single-thread-heavy workload, responds predictably to the six-core, twelve-thread Zen 3 processor, while the flagship Ada Lovelace GPU is frequently left waiting. The measured frames per second across three resolutions and four settings tiers reveal a combo that is fast, but not uniformly so, with the CPU’s 79th percentile standing (average benchmark score 20875) against the GPU’s 91st percentile (average benchmark score 66473) creating a noticeable bottleneck at lower resolutions. The data points to a clear hierarchy: the RTX 4090 can push Archeage to very high frame rates, but the Ryzen 5 5500’s single-core performance, as evidenced by its 3dmark_single_thread score of 836, caps the ceiling in less demanding settings.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific combination, the measured rows make a strong case for the High preset as the optimal experience across all three resolutions. At 1080p, High yields an average of 168.2 FPS, which is only 18% below the Low preset’s 205.1 FPS but offers a substantial visual upgrade over the lowest settings. The gap between High and Medium at 1080p is even smaller, with High trailing Medium’s 192.4 FPS by roughly 12.6%, yet the visual fidelity gain from High is typically worth that frame rate sacrifice in a game like Archeage, where environments and character models matter. Moving to 1440p, High delivers 123 FPS average, a figure that remains comfortably above the 100 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while Medium is nearly as fast at 170.4 FPS but again lacks the higher detail level. At 4K, High drops to 72.1 FPS, but this is still playable, and the alternative Ultra preset falls to 49 FPS, which is too low for a responsive MMORPG experience.

The Ultra preset is the outlier in every resolution. At 1080p, it manages 121.5 FPS, but that is 27.7% slower than High; at 1440p, it falls to 85.7 FPS, a 30.3% drop; and at 4K, it collapses to 49 FPS, a 32% reduction from High. The data suggests that Ultra’s additional effects, likely shadows and draw distance, impose a cost that the Ryzen 5 5500 cannot fully absorb, even with the RTX 4090’s immense shading power (82.58 TFLOPS FP32). For users prioritizing frame rate consistency, Medium is a viable fallback, especially at 4K where it hits 101 FPS, but High offers the best balance of image quality and performance. The Low preset, while hitting 205.1 FPS at 1080p and 178.2 FPS at 1440p, sacrifices too much visual detail for a marginal gain over High, and at 4K it still only reaches 118 FPS, which is not a transformative difference.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in this combo is operating with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. For Archeage, a game from 2014, this memory capacity is far beyond what the title can utilize, but the bandwidth matters for texture streaming in dense zones. The GPU’s base clock of 2235 MHz and boost clock of 2520 MHz are high, and the card’s 16384 shading units are more than sufficient for any workload this game presents. However, the benchmark results indicate that the GPU is not the limiting factor at 1080p or 1440p. The frame rate differences between settings at those resolutions are driven primarily by CPU-bound scenarios, where the Ryzen 5 5500’s six cores and 16 MB of L3 cache are the constraint.

Evidence for this lies in the scaling: at 1080p, going from Low (205.1 FPS) to Ultra (121.5 FPS) represents a 40.8% reduction, but the GPU’s 3dmark_steel_nomad_dx12 score of 9223 suggests it could handle far more. The RTX 4090’s passmark_g3d score of 38194 places it in the 91st percentile, yet the measured FPS at 1080p High is only 168.2, which is modest for such a card. At 4K, the GPU begins to take a more active role, but even then, the Ultra preset’s 49 FPS is oddly low. The data implies that Archeage’s engine does not scale well with the RTX 4090’s raw compute, and the VRAM size (24 GB) is irrelevant here, as the game’s textures are likely compressed and modest by modern standards. The GPU’s role is thus one of headroom: it ensures that at 4K High, the combo still hits 72.1 FPS, but it cannot overcome the CPU’s single-thread ceiling in lower resolution scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, but the shape of that drop reveals the bottleneck. At High settings, the averages are 168.2 FPS (1080p), 123 FPS (1440p), and 72.1 FPS (4K). That is a 26.9% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 57.1% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is not linear, which is typical, but the magnitude suggests that the CPU is heavily involved at 1080p, and the GPU takes over as resolution increases. For Low settings, the pattern is similar: 205.1 FPS at 1080p, 178.2 FPS at 1440p, and 118 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is only 13.1%, indicating that the CPU is still the primary limiter at 1440p Low, but the jump to 4K Low (a 42.5% drop from 1080p) shows the GPU becoming more significant.

Medium settings present an interesting anomaly: 192.4 FPS at 1080p, 170.4 FPS at 1440p, and 101 FPS at 4K. The 1440p figure is close to the 1080p number, with only an 11.4% drop, which suggests that Medium’s settings are light enough that the CPU stalls at both resolutions, and the GPU only becomes the limit at 4K, where the 4K Medium average of 101 FPS is 47.5% below the 1080p result. Ultra settings show the worst scaling: 121.5 FPS at 1080p, 85.7 FPS at 1440p (a 29.5% drop), and 49 FPS at 4K (a 59.7% drop from 1080p). This indicates that Ultra’s effects are both CPU- and GPU-intensive, but the 4K Ultra result of 49 FPS is particularly poor, suggesting that the combination of heavy settings and high resolution overwhelms the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU. The limiting component is clearly the CPU at 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU becomes the constraint at 4K, but even then, the CPU’s weaknesses prevent the RTX 4090 from reaching its full potential.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear hierarchy. The Low preset leads with an average of 205.1 FPS, followed by Medium at 192.4 FPS, then High at 168.2 FPS, and finally Ultra at 121.5 FPS. The spread of 83.6 FPS between Low and Ultra is substantial, but the step from High to Ultra is the largest single drop at 46.7 FPS, which is a 27.8% reduction. This suggests that Ultra introduces a specific setting, likely draw distance or shadow quality, that disproportionately taxes the CPU. The Ryzen 5 5500’s cinebench_r23_singlecore score of 2319 is decent, but Archeage’s engine appears to rely on a single main thread, and the 3dmark_single_thread score of 836 confirms that this CPU is not a top-tier single-core performer.

At 2560x1440, the ordering remains the same but the margins compress. Low averages 178.2 FPS, Medium 170.4 FPS, High 123 FPS, and Ultra 85.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is only 7.8 FPS, indicating that Medium’s additional effects are nearly free at this resolution, likely because the GPU is still not fully taxed. High and Ultra, however, show a larger drop, with Ultra being 30.3% slower than High. The 1440p High result of 123 FPS is notable because it is only 45 FPS below the 1080p High figure, a 26.9% reduction, which is in line with the pixel count increase. This suggests that High settings are reasonably balanced, but Ultra’s demands push the CPU to its limit.

At 3840x2160, the results are more varied. Low hits 118 FPS, Medium 101 FPS, High 72.1 FPS, and Ultra 49 FPS. The Low and Medium results are surprisingly high for 4K, with Medium being only 14.4% slower than Low, which indicates the GPU is still not the primary bottleneck for these lighter presets. High drops to 72.1 FPS, which is a 28.6% reduction from Medium, and Ultra’s 49 FPS is a 32% drop from High. The 4K Ultra result is the worst in the entire dataset, and it highlights the CPU’s inability to handle the combination of high resolution and heavy settings. The RTX 4090 has the raw power, as evidenced by its passmark_g3d score of 38194 and fp32 of 82.58 TFLOPS, but the Ryzen 5 5500’s cores cannot process the game’s logic fast enough to maintain higher frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 114th out of 1727 tested combos in Archeage, placing it in the top 6.6% of all configurations. That rank is surprisingly modest given the GPU’s standing, but it reflects the CPU’s limiting role. For context, the Ryzen 5 5500’s nearest rivals in general CPU benchmarks include the Intel Core i5-12500 (average score 20897, deltaPct -0.1), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE (average score 20900, deltaPct -0.1), and the AMD EPYC 7J13 (average score 20845, deltaPct 0.1). These rivals are within 0.2% of the Ryzen 5 5500’s average benchmark score of 20875, meaning that swapping to any of these would likely produce nearly identical Archeage results. The GPU’s nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (average score 66733, deltaPct -0.4) and the NVIDIA Tesla P40 (average score 66127, deltaPct 0.5), are far slower in general compute, but they would not change the game’s frame rates if the CPU remains the same.

The rank of 114 out of 1727 indicates that there are 113 combinations that perform better, likely featuring faster CPUs like higher-end Ryzen 7 or Intel Core i7/i9 parts, which would alleviate the single-thread bottleneck. The data suggests that this combo is overprovisioned on the GPU side; the RTX 4090’s 24 GB of VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are wasted in a game that does not need them, and the CPU’s 16 MB of L3 cache and 6 cores are the deciding factor. The 1080p Low result of 205.1 FPS is the best in the dataset, but it is still below what a faster CPU could achieve, as the RTX 4090 is capable of far more. Ultimately, this combo ranks well overall, but its position is defined by the CPU’s limitations, making it a pairing where the GPU is underutilized in Archeage’s less demanding scenarios.