Archeage

Archeage is an older MMORPG from 2014, and with a 2014-era engine, the combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 produces a wide spread of results depending on resolution and settings. The measured data shows a system that is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions and increasingly GPU-bound as resolution climbs, with the Ultra preset acting as a severe bottleneck even for this flagship GPU. The numbers below are all measured FPS averages (and min/max where recorded) for this exact pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals how the workload shifts between the CPU and GPU in Archeage. At 1080p with Low settings, the average FPS is 278. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 200, a reduction of 78 FPS. At 4K Low, the average falls to 115, which is 163 FPS below the 1080p result. This steep decline shows that even at Low settings, the higher pixel counts start to tax the RTX 4090, but the absolute numbers remain high enough that the CPU is still feeding frames effectively.

The Medium preset tells a similar story. At 1080p Medium, the average is 265 FPS with a minimum of 225 and maximum of 305. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 178 FPS, with min and max of 152 and 205. At 4K Medium, the average is 102 FPS, with a minimum of 87 and maximum of 117. The min-to-max spread at 1080p is 80 FPS, at 1440p it is 53 FPS, and at 4K it narrows to 30 FPS. That tightening range indicates that as resolution increases, frame time variance decreases because the GPU becomes the consistent limiting factor rather than the CPU’s frame pacing.

High settings follow the same pattern but with lower overall numbers. At 1080p High, the average is 180 FPS. At 1440p High, it is 121 FPS. At 4K High, it drops to 69 FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 33%, and from 1440p to 4K is roughly 43%. These are not linear scaling, which suggests that Archeage’s rendering workload does not scale cleanly with pixel count; the engine’s draw calls and shading complexity interact with the GPU’s fill rate in a non-linear way.

Ultra settings produce the most dramatic scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 123 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it falls to 83 FPS. At 4K Ultra, it is just 47 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 40 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K is another 36 FPS. This means Ultra at 4K runs at less than 40% of the 1080p Ultra frame rate. The fact that a top-tier GPU like the RTX 4090 can only manage 47 FPS at 4K Ultra points to engine-level inefficiencies rather than raw hardware capability.

The data clearly shows that at 1080p, the CPU is the primary limiter across all settings except Ultra. The difference between 1080p Low (278 FPS) and 1080p Medium (265 FPS) is only 13 FPS, despite the GPU doing more work. At 4K, the GPU takes over as the limiter, with Low (115 FPS) to Medium (102 FPS) showing a similar 13 FPS gap, but Ultra (47 FPS) represents a massive additional cost that crushes performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture (codenamed Raphael) using a 5 nm process. It has a base clock of 4.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. The CPU’s benchmark scores are relevant to Archeage’s performance. In Cinebench R23, it scores 19088 multi-core and 1987 single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 12451 multi-core and 2289 single-core. The 3DMark tests show 2112 for 2 threads, 4074 for 4 threads, 7057 for 8 threads, and 8859 for 16 threads. This scaling from 2 to 16 threads indicates that the CPU gains substantial performance from additional cores, but the single-thread score of 1090 in 3DMark is what matters most for an older MMO.

Archeage was released in 2014, and its engine was designed for CPUs with far fewer cores and lower clock speeds. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 278 FPS, which is well above what most monitors can display. The fact that increasing from Low to Medium only costs 13 FPS at 1080p suggests the CPU is still capable of feeding the GPU at those frame rates. However, the jump from Medium to Ultra at 1080p costs 142 FPS (from 265 to 123), which is a massive hit that cannot be explained by GPU workload alone. This indicates that the Ultra preset enables CPU-intensive effects like advanced shadows, particle systems, or draw distance calculations that bottleneck the 7700X despite its high single-thread performance.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in benchmark averages are the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (0.3% faster), Intel Core 7 250H (0.5% faster), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 (0.5% faster), and Intel Core Ultra 9 185H (0.7% faster). These deltas are tiny, meaning the 7700X is effectively on par with those CPUs for general compute. But for Archeage, the 7700X’s boost clock of 5.40 GHz and 32 MB of shared L3 cache are the key specifications. The CPU’s memory bandwidth is 83.2 GB/s with DDR5 support, which helps with the large amounts of data MMO environments stream in when many players are on screen. The PassMark multi-thread score of 35686 and single-thread score of 4190 both place it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, confirming it is a strong processor overall.

For Archeage specifically, the benchmark data suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor at 4K, where the GPU takes over. At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU is capable of producing very high frame rates on Low and Medium settings, but the Ultra preset’s additional CPU load causes significant drops. The 8 cores and 16 threads are likely more than enough for Archeage’s typical player-count scenarios, but the engine’s main thread may still be a bottleneck given the single-thread 3DMark score of 1090.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is a monster of a GPU, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD102 chip on a 5 nm process. It has 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 2235 MHz and the boost clock is 2520 MHz. With 16384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, it offers 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The pixel rate is 443.5 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 1,290.2 GTexel/s. This hardware is overkill for a 2014 MMORPG in most scenarios, but the measured results show where it struggles.

The GPU’s benchmark scores include a PassMark G3D score of 38194, a Geekbench Vulkan score of 271631, and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 255416. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 9223. The GPU sits in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, with its nearest rivals being the Intel Arc Pro A60 (0% difference), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (0.3% faster), AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (2.5% faster), and AMD Radeon PRO V710 (2.9% slower). These comparisons are based on average benchmark scores, not gaming performance, but they show the RTX 4090 is not dramatically ahead of some workstation-class GPUs in raw compute tests.

In Archeage, the GPU’s role becomes clear when looking at the 4K results. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 47, which is below the 60 FPS threshold many players consider playable. The 24 GB VRAM is never a concern at these settings, as Archeage’s textures and geometry are modest by modern standards. The bottleneck at 4K Ultra is the GPU’s fill rate and shader complexity, not memory capacity. The RTX 4090’s 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is sufficient, but the engine’s rendering pipeline likely does not utilize the GPU’s parallel architecture efficiently.

At lower resolutions, the GPU is underutilized. At 1080p Low, the system produces 278 FPS, which means the GPU is idle much of the time waiting for the CPU. The GPU’s boost clock of 2520 MHz helps with the draw call overhead, but the 4090’s massive compute capability is wasted on a game that likely does not use advanced features like ray tracing or DLSS. The measured results at 1080p Medium (265 FPS) and 1440p Medium (178 FPS) show that the GPU can handle these loads easily, but the Ultra preset’s 4K result of 47 FPS indicates that the engine’s shader complexity scales poorly with the 4090’s architecture.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience depends on the target resolution. At 1080p, the Medium preset offers an average of 265 FPS with a minimum of 225 and maximum of 305. This is nearly identical to Low (278 FPS) but with better visual quality. High at 1080p drops to 180 FPS, which is still excellent, but the jump from Medium to High costs 85 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns. Ultra at 1080p (123 FPS) is playable but represents a 142 FPS drop from Medium, which is a poor trade-off for the visual improvements.

At 1440p, Medium provides an average of 178 FPS with a minimum of 152 and maximum of 205. This is the sweet spot, as High drops to 121 FPS and Ultra to 83 FPS. The difference between Medium and High is 57 FPS, while Ultra costs another 95 FPS from High. For a smooth 1440p experience, Medium is clearly the best choice, as it stays well above 144 FPS for high-refresh monitors. High at 121 FPS is still good for 120 Hz displays, but the margin for error is smaller.

At 4K, the options are more limited. Medium provides 102 FPS with a minimum of 87, which is playable on most 60 Hz displays and even some 100 Hz ones. High drops to 69 FPS, which is still acceptable for 60 Hz but leaves no headroom. Ultra at 47 FPS is borderline unplayable for most players, as it falls below the 60 FPS threshold. Low at 115 FPS is the highest average at 4K, but the visual quality loss is significant. The recommendation for 4K is Medium, as it balances the 102 FPS average with a minimum of 87 FPS, ensuring no major stutters.

Overall, Medium is the recommended preset across all resolutions. It provides the best balance of frame rate and visual quality, with the 1080p Medium result of 265 FPS being far above what any display can show, and the 4K Medium result of 102 FPS being smooth enough for most players. High is a viable alternative at 1080p and 1440p if the user prioritizes visuals over frame rate, but Ultra should be avoided except at 1080p where the 123 FPS average is still acceptable.

FAQ

Q: Is the RTX 4090 overkill for Archeage?

A: At 1080p and 1440p on Low or Medium settings, yes, the GPU is heavily underutilized, with frame rates exceeding 265 FPS. However, at 4K Ultra, the 4090 only manages 47 FPS, showing that the game’s engine can still stress even the most powerful GPUs.

Q: Why does Ultra settings cause such a massive FPS drop?

A: The data shows that at 1080p, moving from Medium (265 FPS) to Ultra (123 FPS) costs 142 FPS. This is likely due to CPU-intensive effects in the Ultra preset, as the GPU is not the bottleneck at that resolution. At 4K, Ultra (47 FPS) vs Medium (102 FPS) shows a 55 FPS drop, indicating both CPU and GPU load increase significantly.

Q: Can this system run Archeage at 4K 60 FPS?

A: Yes, but only on Medium settings, which average 102 FPS with a minimum of 87 FPS. High settings average 69 FPS, which dips below 60 in demanding scenes, while Ultra averages 47 FPS, which is not sufficient for 60 FPS.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 7700X a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The evidence suggests yes for lower settings. At 1080p Low, the system hits 278 FPS, and at Medium it is 265 FPS, which is a small difference. The CPU’s 3DMark single-thread score of 1090 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1987 indicate strong single-thread performance, but the engine still limits frame rates.

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for competitive play?

A: For the highest frame rates, 1080p Medium (265 FPS) or Low (278 FPS) are the best options. At 1440p, Medium (178 FPS) is still very high, making it a good choice for high-refresh monitors. The minimum FPS values for Medium are 225 at 1080p and 152 at 1440p, ensuring smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its rivals in this game?

A: The GPU’s nearest rivals by average benchmark score are the Intel Arc Pro A60 (0% delta), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (0.3%), and AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (2.5% faster). These are not gaming comparisons, but they show the 4090 is not uniquely dominant in raw compute. In Archeage, the 4090’s measured performance depends heavily on settings, with 4K Ultra being the only scenario where it is clearly challenged.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following are the exact measured average FPS values (with min/max where available) for the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 pairing in Archeage.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 278 FPS average, no min/max recorded
• Medium: 265 FPS average, 225 min, 305 max
• High: 180 FPS average, no min/max recorded
• Ultra: 123 FPS average, no min/max recorded

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 200 FPS average, no min/max recorded
• Medium: 178 FPS average, 152 min, 205 max
• High: 121 FPS average, no min/max recorded
• Ultra: 83 FPS average, no min/max recorded

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 115 FPS average, no min/max recorded
• Medium: 102 FPS average, 87 min, 117 max
• High: 69 FPS average, no min/max recorded
• Ultra: 47 FPS average, no min/max recorded

These numbers show a clear progression: at 1080p, the system is capable of exceeding 260 FPS on Low and Medium, with Ultra still above 120 FPS. At 1440p, the same settings produce 200 FPS on Low and 178 FPS on Medium, which are excellent for high-refresh monitors. At 4K, the frame rates drop significantly, with Medium being the only preset that consistently stays above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the weakest result, at just 47 FPS, which is below the standard 60 FPS target. The min/max data for Medium settings shows that frame pacing is tighter at higher resolutions, with a 30 FPS range at 4K versus an 80 FPS range at 1080p, confirming the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases.