Archeage

# Archeage: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X + AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Benchmark Analysis

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT places at rank 1410 out of 3708 tested combos in Archeage, positioning it in the 62nd percentile of all tested system configurations. The pairing of a 12-core Zen 4 processor with a mid-range RDNA 3.0 graphics card produces a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions but capable of exceptional frame rates at 1080p, particularly at lower settings where the CPU's strong single-thread performance becomes the defining factor.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1410 out of 3708 places this system in the upper-middle tier of all tested configurations for Archeage. This ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component is drastically mismatched for the other's capabilities. The Ryzen 9 7900X's 91st percentile standing among all CPUs suggests the processor is not the bottleneck in most scenarios, while the RX 7700 XT's 67th percentile GPU ranking indicates the graphics card is the more limiting factor.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce this interpretation. With a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29300 and a single-core score of 2016.5, the Ryzen 9 7900X demonstrates both exceptional multi-threaded throughput and strong per-core performance. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 10972 and max-thread score of 12536 show consistent scaling across thread counts, while the single-thread score of 1093 confirms that even lightly-threaded workloads like MMO game logic will run efficiently.

In the nearest rival comparisons, the Ryzen 9 7900X sits extremely close to several other high-end processors. It is 0.2% above the AMD EPYC 7313P, 0.3% below the Intel Xeon Phi 7290, 0.6% above the Intel Xeon 634, and 0.6% below the Intel Core i7-14700F. These sub-1% deltas indicate that in CPU-bound scenarios, swapping to any of these alternatives would produce nearly identical results.

The RX 7700 XT's nearest rivals show a similar clustering. It sits 0.5% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile, 0.8% below the RTX 4060 Mobile, 1.5% below the RTX 2080, and 1.7% above the AMD Radeon RX 5700. These tight margins mean that in GPU-bound scenarios at higher resolutions, the performance differences between these cards would be imperceptible in real gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates across settings and resolutions reveal that Archeage responds dramatically to quality preset changes. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 177 FPS average, Medium drops to 158 FPS, High falls to 107 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 73 FPS. This progression shows that the Ultra preset extracts a substantial performance penalty, costing roughly 59% of the Low preset's frame rate.

For the best experience at 1080p, the Medium preset at 158 FPS with a minimum of 134 FPS and maximum of 181 FPS offers an excellent balance. The minimum frame rate stays well above 60 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay even in demanding scenes. The High preset at 107 FPS also remains playable and provides better visual quality, but the jump from Medium to High costs 51 FPS, which is a significant trade-off.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 106 FPS (minimum 90, maximum 122) is the clear sweet spot. The Low preset at 119 FPS offers marginal gains, while High drops to 72 FPS and Ultra falls to 49 FPS. The 1440p Medium configuration maintains frame rates that exceed the refresh rate of most standard monitors while preserving acceptable visual fidelity.

For 4K gaming at 3840x2160, the situation changes dramatically. Only the Low preset at 68 FPS achieves consistently playable performance. Medium at 61 FPS (minimum 52, maximum 70) is borderline, with the minimum dipping below 60 FPS. High at 41 FPS and Ultra at 28 FPS are not recommended for smooth gameplay. Users with 4K displays should either accept Low or Medium settings or consider reducing resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies in this system. At Low settings, the progression is 177 FPS at 1080p, 119 FPS at 1440p, and 68 FPS at 4K. This represents a 61% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 43% further drop from 1440p to 4K. The substantial scaling penalty at higher resolutions confirms that the RX 7700 XT becomes the limiting component as pixel count increases.

At Medium settings, the scaling shows 158 FPS at 1080p, 106 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop of 33% is less severe than at Low settings, while the 1440p to 4K drop of 42% remains consistent. This pattern suggests that at Medium settings, the system balances CPU and GPU loads more evenly at 1080p, but the GPU quickly becomes saturated as resolution increases.

The High settings scaling tells a similar story: 107 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p reduction of 33% is identical to Medium, while the 1440p to 4K reduction of 43% is also consistent. These consistent scaling ratios across settings indicate that the RX 7700 XT's rendering throughput is the primary constraint at high pixel counts.

The 1080p to 4K total drops are 109 FPS at Low, 97 FPS at Medium, and 66 FPS at High settings. The decreasing absolute drops at higher settings suggest that as quality increases, the per-frame workload grows, making the GPU's raw compute capability more important than the CPU's ability to feed it frames.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a wide spread across settings. Low delivers 177 FPS average, which is the highest recorded for this combo at any resolution. Medium achieves 158 FPS with a minimum of 134 and maximum of 181 FPS, providing a tight frame time distribution. High drops to 107 FPS, while Ultra falls to 73 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 19 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 51 FPS, indicating that the High preset introduces significantly more rendering work.

The 2560x1440 results follow a similar pattern but at lower absolute values. Low delivers 119 FPS, Medium achieves 106 FPS with a minimum of 90 and maximum of 122 FPS, High produces 72 FPS, and Ultra manages 49 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium shrinks to 13 FPS, while the Medium to High gap remains substantial at 34 FPS. Ultra at 49 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold that most gamers consider the minimum for smooth play.

At 3840x2160, the performance envelope tightens considerably. Low delivers 68 FPS, Medium achieves 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 and maximum of 70 FPS, High produces 41 FPS, and Ultra drops to 28 FPS. The 4K Medium configuration's minimum of 52 FPS indicates that frame pacing may become inconsistent in busy scenes, even though the average remains above 60 FPS.

The Ultra preset across all resolutions shows the most dramatic degradation. The progression from 73 FPS at 1080p to 49 FPS at 1440p to 28 FPS at 4K represents drops of 33% and 43% respectively. The 4K Ultra result of 28 FPS is barely half of the 1080p Ultra result, making this configuration unsuitable for high-resolution gaming.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. With base clock of 1435 MHz, game clock of 2171 MHz, and boost clock of 2544 MHz, the card operates at relatively high frequencies for a 5 nm RDNA 3.0 part. The 3456 shading units, 216 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units give the card a pixel rate of 244.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 549.5 GTexel/s.

The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3316 and Passmark G3D score of 22547 place it in the 67th percentile of all GPUs. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 138383 and Vulkan score of 46443 provide additional context for compute workloads. The Passmark DirectX 11 score of 232 versus DirectX 12 score of 79 suggests that the card's DX12 performance may not be fully optimized, which could impact newer game titles.

In Archeage, the GPU's role is most evident at higher resolutions. The 4K results show frame rates that scale consistently with the card's compute capabilities. The 68 FPS at Low settings represents the GPU's raw fill-rate limit at 4K, while the 28 FPS at Ultra settings reflects the additional shading and texture work required by the highest quality preset. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game at all tested settings, as no memory-related stuttering or crashes are indicated in the frame time data.

The RX 7700 XT's nearest rival comparisons show its competitive positioning. Being 1.5% below the RTX 2080 in average benchmark score suggests that in GPU-bound scenarios, the card delivers performance comparable to a previous-generation flagship. The 1.7% advantage over the RX 5700 demonstrates generational improvement within AMD's lineup.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 at Medium settings delivers 158 FPS average with a minimum of 134 FPS, providing the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 2560x1440, Medium at 106 FPS is also excellent. For 4K, only Low at 68 FPS or Medium at 61 FPS are playable.

Q: Is this system capable of 4K gaming in Archeage?

A: Yes, but with significant compromises. At 4K, Low settings produce 68 FPS, Medium produces 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 FPS, High produces 41 FPS, and Ultra produces 28 FPS. The Medium preset is the highest quality that maintains an average above 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU contribute to the performance in this game?

A: The Ryzen 9 7900X with its 12 cores, 24 threads, and boost clock of 5.60 GHz provides strong single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2016.5). The 1080p Low result of 177 FPS indicates the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates, while the consistent scaling at higher resolutions shows the GPU becomes the bottleneck.

Q: What is the frame rate impact of switching from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At Low settings, performance drops from 177 FPS to 119 FPS, a 58 FPS reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 158 FPS to 106 FPS, a 52 FPS reduction. At High, the drop is from 107 FPS to 72 FPS, a 35 FPS reduction. The scaling indicates the GPU becomes more limiting as resolution increases.

Q: How does the RX 7700 XT compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The GPU's benchmark scores place it 0.5% above the RTX 5060 Mobile, 0.8% below the RTX 4060 Mobile, 1.5% below the RTX 2080, and 1.7% above the RX 5700. In Archeage, these small differences would translate to frame rate deltas of only a few FPS.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth the performance cost?

A: The data shows Ultra costs 104 FPS at 1080p compared to Low (73 versus 177 FPS), 70 FPS at 1440p (49 versus 119 FPS), and 40 FPS at 4K (28 versus 68 FPS). The visual improvement from High to Ultra is not quantified in the data, but the performance penalty is substantial at all resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture (Raphael) manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. With a base clock of 4.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz, the CPU delivers exceptional single-thread performance for an MMO like Archeage, which typically relies on a few primary threads for game logic and rendering commands.

The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache. This substantial L3 allocation helps keep frequently accessed game data close to the cores, reducing memory latency. The dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth provides ample data throughput for the CPU's 24 threads.

Benchmark results show the CPU's strengths. The Passmark single-thread score of 4238 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2016.5 demonstrate strong per-core performance, while the Geekbench multi-core score of 19267 and Passmark multi-thread score of 51406 show exceptional scaling across all cores. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29300 confirms the CPU can handle heavy multi-threaded workloads without thermal or power throttling.

In Archeage, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p with lower settings, where frame rates reach 177 FPS at Low and 158 FPS at Medium. These high frame rates require the CPU to process game logic and issue draw calls quickly enough to keep the GPU fed. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1093 and 2-thread score of 2137 indicate that even with limited thread usage, the CPU maintains high instruction throughput.

The Ryzen 9 7900X's 91st percentile ranking among all CPUs, combined with its 0.2% delta from the EPYC 7313P and 0.6% delta from the Core i7-14700F, shows that it is among the top tier of processors for gaming. The CPU's 170W TDP and active production status suggest sustained performance is reliable, though the data does not include power consumption measurements during gaming.