Archeage

Resolution Scaling

ArcheAge's frame rate behavior across resolutions tells a clear story about where this pairing lands. At 1920x1080, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER combination delivers playable performance across all settings, with averages ranging from 60.5 FPS at Ultra to 140.3 FPS at Low. Moving to 2560x1440, the drop is moderate but noticeable: High falls from 89.2 FPS to 57.9 FPS (a 35% reduction), while Low goes from 140.3 FPS to 94.4 FPS (a 33% reduction). This pattern suggests the GPU is becoming the primary constraint at higher pixel counts, as the frame rate scales almost linearly with the pixel count increase.

The 4K results, however, expose the RTX 2070 SUPER's limitations more starkly. At 3840x2160, even Low settings only produce 57.2 FPS, and High drops to 35.3 FPS. Ultra at 4K is effectively unplayable at 22.5 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is severe: High goes from 57.9 FPS to 35.3 FPS (a 39% drop), and Medium from 86.4 FPS to 46.5 FPS (a 46% drop). This nonlinear decline indicates that at 4K, the GPU is overwhelmed, and the CPU's capabilities are largely irrelevant to the final frame rate.

The data shows that 1440p is the practical ceiling for this combo in ArcheAge if you want to maintain 60+ FPS at Medium or High settings. At 1080p, the system has headroom — Medium hits 127.3 FPS and High 89.2 FPS — which suggests the CPU is providing enough throughput to keep the GPU fed at lower resolutions. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p (140.3 vs 60.5 FPS) is a 2.3x spread, while at 4K the same gap is 2.5x (57.2 vs 22.5 FPS), confirming that the GPU's workload scaling dominates at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The RTX 2070 SUPER is a Turing-architecture card with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 64 ROPs are paired with 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores. The base clock of 1605 MHz boosts to 1770 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specifications place the card at the 65th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 22206.

In ArcheAge, the GPU's role becomes dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p, the card's pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s are sufficient for High settings at 89.2 FPS, but Ultra at 60.5 FPS suggests that the additional shading load from Ultra presets (likely higher shadow quality, draw distances, and post-processing) pushes the card near its limits. The 4K results confirm this: the card's FP32 throughput of 9.062 TFLOPS is simply not enough to maintain fluid frame rates at that pixel count, even with Low settings.

The nearest GPU rivals provide context. The RTX 2070 SUPER scores 0.5% higher than the NVIDIA RTX A400 (22307 vs 22206), 0.9% higher than the GTX TITAN Z (22006), and 2.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 5700 (21670). However, it trails the RTX 4060 Mobile by 2.3% (22729). These margins are small, meaning that in ArcheAge, any of these cards would likely produce similar frame rates at a given resolution and settings combination. The 8 GB VRAM is adequate for this 2014 MMORPG at 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K Ultra, the combination of memory bandwidth and compute limits becomes evident.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), built on TSMC's 4 nm process. It runs at a 4.40 GHz base clock and boosts to 5.60 GHz, with 80 KB L1, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 MB shared L3 cache. The processor supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, providing 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth, and connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes. Its 120 W TDP reflects the efficiency of the 4 nm node.

In ArcheAge, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p, where the frame rate ceiling is high. The jump from Low (140.3 FPS) to Medium (127.3 FPS) is only 9%, but High (89.2 FPS) and Ultra (60.5 FPS) show larger drops. This suggests that even with a capable CPU, the game's engine — released in 2014 — may not fully utilize 12 cores, and the single-thread performance is what matters most. The Ryzen 9 9900X's single-thread benchmark scores (1286 in 3DMark, 660 in Cinebench R15, 2753 in R20, 6555 in R23, 3341 in Geekbench, 4672 in PassMark) are strong, but ArcheAge's MMO nature means large player populations and complex scenes can strain even the best single-thread performance.

The processor's multi-threaded scores are exceptional — Cinebench R23 multi-core hits 46438, and PassMark multi-thread reaches 54643 — but these likely do not translate directly to ArcheAge's frame rates, as the game's rendering thread is the bottleneck. The 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54450, confirms the CPU is not the limiting factor in this pairing. The nearest CPU rivals show how close the field is: the 9900X is 0.4% behind the 9900X3D (54681), 0.7% ahead of the i7-14700F (54097), 1.5% behind the Core Ultra 5 245K (55304), and 1.8% behind the 245KF (55421). These tiny deltas mean that swapping to any of these CPUs would likely change ArcheAge frame rates by only a few percent at most.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run ArcheAge at 4K smoothly?

A: Only at Low settings, where it averages 57.2 FPS. Medium drops to 46.5 FPS, High to 35.3 FPS, and Ultra to 22.5 FPS. For consistent 60 FPS, 1440p is the recommended resolution.

Q: What is the best resolution for 60+ FPS with this combo?

A: At 1920x1080, all settings except Ultra exceed 60 FPS (Ultra averages 60.5 FPS). At 2560x1440, Low (94.4 FPS) and Medium (86.4 FPS) clear 60 FPS, but High (57.9 FPS) and Ultra (38 FPS) fall short.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER scores 0.5% higher than the RTX A400, 0.9% higher than the GTX TITAN Z, and 2.5% higher than the RX 5700, but is 2.3% lower than the RTX 4060 Mobile. These differences are small enough that in-game frame rates would be nearly identical.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 9900X overkill for ArcheAge?

A: The CPU's 94th percentile ranking and high multi-thread scores suggest it has far more capability than ArcheAge requires. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K indicates the GPU is the bottleneck at higher resolutions, so the CPU's power is mostly unused headroom.

Q: What settings provide the best experience at 1440p?

A: Medium settings at 86.4 FPS offer a balance of visual quality and fluidity. Low at 94.4 FPS is slightly faster but visually reduced, while High at 57.9 FPS is playable but below 60 FPS.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM limit performance in ArcheAge?

A: The measured data shows no evidence of VRAM-related stuttering or frame drops at any resolution or settings combination. The GPU's compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors at 4K, not the 8 GB capacity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080:

• Low: 140.3 FPS
• Medium: 127.3 FPS
• High: 89.2 FPS
• Ultra: 60.5 FPS

At 1080p, the spread from Low to Ultra is 79.8 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High (38.1 FPS). This suggests that High settings introduce significant rendering costs — likely from shadows and post-processing — that the GPU must handle. The gap between Low and Medium is only 13 FPS, indicating that Medium is a relatively cheap upgrade in visual quality.

2560x1440:

• Low: 94.4 FPS
• Medium: 86.4 FPS
• High: 57.9 FPS
• Ultra: 38 FPS

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. Low and Medium are close (8 FPS apart), but High drops by 28.5 FPS from Medium, and Ultra drops another 19.9 FPS from High. The 1440p results are the most balanced for this hardware, with two settings (Low and Medium) providing 60+ FPS and High being borderline.

3840x2160:

• Low: 57.2 FPS
• Medium: 46.5 FPS
• High: 35.3 FPS
• Ultra: 22.5 FPS

At 4K, every setting fails to reach 60 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra is roughly linear, with each step costing about 10-11 FPS. Low is the only playable option, and even then, it's marginal for a fast-paced MMO. The data shows that 4K is not viable for this combination.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal settings depend on your target resolution and frame rate preference. For 1080p, High at 89.2 FPS is the sweet spot — it provides significantly better visuals than Medium (127.3 FPS) while still maintaining a frame rate far above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra at 60.5 FPS is technically playable, but the 32% drop from High makes it less attractive unless you prioritize maximum visual fidelity.

For 1440p, Medium at 86.4 FPS is the recommended choice. It offers smooth gameplay with a 49% improvement over High (57.9 FPS), and the visual difference between Medium and High in an MMORPG like ArcheAge — where the focus is on player interactions and world traversal rather than static scenes — is unlikely to be worth the frame rate sacrifice. Low at 94.4 FPS is viable for competitive play, but Medium provides a better balance.

At 4K, no setting provides both acceptable visuals and frame rate. Low at 57.2 FPS is the only option that approaches playability, but the visual compromises are severe. If 4K is a requirement, this hardware pairing will not deliver a satisfying experience in ArcheAge. The data clearly indicates that 1440p Medium or 1080p High are the best settings for this combination, offering the highest frame rates while retaining enough visual quality to enjoy the game's world.