Archeage

# Archeage Performance Analysis: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers a broad performance envelope across Archeage's resolution and settings spectrum, ranging from a fully playable 51.7 FPS at 4K High to a remarkably fluid 226.6 FPS at 1080p Low. This combination, ranking 344th out of 1,727 tested combos for this MMORPG, demonstrates that the system's capability is heavily influenced by both the chosen resolution and the graphics preset, with the data revealing a clear scaling pattern that shifts the bottleneck between CPU and GPU as settings change.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a substantial performance drop as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario at higher settings. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS falls from 139.2 to 90.7, a reduction of 48.5 FPS or roughly 35%. The subsequent step to 3840x2160 at High settings brings the average down to 51.7 FPS, representing another 43% decrease from the 1440p result. This steep decline indicates that at High presets, the rendering load scales aggressively with pixel count, and the RTX 5070's 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are increasingly taxed as resolution climbs.

At Low settings, the scaling curve flattens somewhat, suggesting a different bottleneck. The 1080p Low result of 226.6 FPS drops to 152.8 FPS at 1440p, a 32.6% decrease, and then to 87 FPS at 4K, a further 43% drop. The fact that even at 4K Low the system produces 87 FPS — a respectable figure — indicates that the CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, are capable of feeding the GPU adequately at lower graphical loads. However, the largest relative drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings (73.8 FPS loss) versus the drop at High settings (48.5 FPS loss) reveals that at Low presets, the GPU becomes the limiting factor earlier, as the reduced shading work exposes raw pixel throughput limits.

The Ultra preset presents the most severe scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the system manages 96.3 FPS, which falls to 63.6 FPS at 1440p (a 34% drop) and plummets to 35.7 FPS at 4K (a 44% drop from 1440p). This pattern suggests that Ultra settings introduce rendering features that disproportionately impact higher resolutions, likely related to the GPU's 80 ROPs and 192 texture mapping units being saturated by increased draw calls and post-processing effects. The data shows that 4K Ultra is the only configuration that falls below 40 FPS, indicating that this setting combination pushes the system to its absolute limit.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 344 out of 1,727 tested combinations, this AMD/NVIDIA pairing sits comfortably in the top 20% of all tested systems for Archeage. This ranking reflects a strong overall capability, but it is not at the very top tier, suggesting that more powerful configurations exist for players seeking maximum frame rates at the highest settings. The rank of 344 indicates that while the Ryzen 9 9900X and RTX 5070 form a highly capable duo, there are 343 other combos that outperform it in this specific MMORPG title.

The CPU's individual standing, with a 94th percentile rank against all processors, is notably strong, but its average benchmark score of 54,450 places it in close competition with several rivals. The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D averages 54,681, a mere 0.4% higher, while the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF score 55,304 and 55,421 respectively, putting them 1.5% and 1.8% ahead. Conversely, the Intel Core i7-14700F trails at 54,097, which is 0.7% behind. These tight margins indicate that the CPU is not the primary differentiator in this combo's ranking.

The GPU's percentile standing is lower than the CPU's, at 83rd percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 41,687. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, which scores 41,441 (0.6% lower), and the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 at 41,610 (0.2% lower). The NVIDIA Tesla M40 scores 41,897 (0.5% higher) and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X scores 41,991 (0.7% higher). This clustering suggests that the RTX 5070's raw compute performance is well-matched by several previous-generation and professional cards, yet in Archeage specifically, the combination still achieves a top-quintile ranking, implying that factors beyond raw benchmark scores, such as driver optimization and memory subsystem efficiency, play a role in this game's performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB205 chip, brings 6,144 shading units and 48 RT cores to bear on Archeage's workload. Its memory configuration of 12 GB GDDR7 on a 192-bit bus provides 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a critical resource for a game that can consume significant texture data at high resolutions. The GPU's base clock of 2325 MHz and boost clock of 2512 MHz, combined with a 250 W TDP, indicate a power-efficient design that still delivers substantial throughput, evidenced by its 30.87 TFLOPS FP32 performance.

The measured FPS data reveals that the GPU's role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the 226.6 FPS result is likely near the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability, given the Ryzen 9 9900X's single-thread performance of 1,286 in 3DMark's single-thread test. As resolution increases to 4K Low, the 87 FPS figure shows the GPU taking on more of the load, but the relatively modest drop from 1080p to 1440p (73.8 FPS) versus the drop from 1440p to 4K (65.8 FPS) indicates that the GPU's pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor at the highest resolution.

At Ultra settings, the GPU's limitations are more apparent. The 35.7 FPS at 4K Ultra is a stark contrast to the 96.3 FPS at 1080p Ultra, and this 63% reduction in performance across the resolution range highlights how the RTX 5070's 80 ROPs and 192 TMUs struggle with the increased fragment and texture work at 4K. The 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for most configurations, but the bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s may be a constraining factor when handling the high-resolution texture sets and effects that Ultra presets enable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured average frame rates provides a detailed view of the system's behavior across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the results span from 96.3 FPS at Ultra to 226.6 FPS at Low, with Medium at 201.8 FPS and High at 139.2 FPS. The progression from Low to Medium to High shows a consistent decrease, but the jump from High to Ultra (139.2 to 96.3 FPS, a 30.8% drop) is more pronounced than the step from Medium to High (201.8 to 139.2 FPS, a 31% drop), indicating that Ultra settings introduce a significant additional load.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with lower absolute values. Low delivers 152.8 FPS, Medium 135.4 FPS, High 90.7 FPS, and Ultra 63.6 FPS. The relative differences change: Medium is now only 11.4% slower than Low, whereas at 1080p that gap was 11% as well. However, the High to Ultra drop at 1440p is 29.9%, similar to the 1080p gap, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional features scale consistently with resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are 87 FPS at Low, 77.9 FPS at Medium, 51.7 FPS at High, and 35.7 FPS at Ultra. The Low-to-Medium gap narrows to 10.5%, while the High-to-Ultra gap widens to 31%. Notably, the 4K Low result of 87 FPS is higher than the 1440p High result of 90.7 FPS, indicating that the Low preset at 4K imposes less total load than the High preset at 1440p, which is an important consideration for players prioritizing frame rate over resolution.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting the highest possible frame rates, the 1080p Low configuration at 226.6 FPS is the clear choice, offering a 12.3% improvement over Medium (201.8 FPS) and a 62.9% improvement over High (139.2 FPS). However, the jump from Low to Medium costs only 24.8 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High costs 62.6 FPS, suggesting that Medium at 1080p provides a strong balance of visual quality and performance for most users.

At 1440p, the Medium preset delivers 135.4 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay on high-refresh-rate monitors, and it represents a 49.3% improvement over High (90.7 FPS). The Ultra preset at 1440p, at 63.6 FPS, is playable but may not be ideal for competitive scenarios. For 4K displays, the Medium preset at 77.9 FPS offers the best experience among the measured settings, as it is 50.7% faster than High (51.7 FPS) and 118% faster than Ultra (35.7 FPS), while still providing a visual upgrade over Low (87 FPS).

The data supports a clear recommendation: for this combo, the Medium preset across all resolutions provides the most consistent balance of frame rate and visual fidelity, with 4K Medium at 77.9 FPS being particularly noteworthy as it delivers smooth performance at a high resolution without the severe penalty seen at High or Ultra. Players who prioritize competitive responsiveness should select 1080p Low or Medium, while those with 4K displays will find Medium to be the sweet spot, as it avoids the precipitous drops that High and Ultra incur at this resolution.