Archeage

This combo places itself in the lower-middle tier of tested systems for Archeage. With a rank of 1541 out of 1727 tested combos, it sits in the bottom 11% of all pairings, a position heavily influenced by the aging GPU and the quad-core CPU. This is not a configuration built for high-refresh-rate dominance; it is a setup that can deliver playable framerates at 1080p with adjusted settings, but it will struggle to maintain smooth performance in the game’s more demanding scenarios or at higher resolutions. The data indicates a system that is several generations behind the current curve, and its performance reflects that age.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark data places this Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER pairing at rank 1541 out of 1727 tested combos for Archeage. This low standing is a direct consequence of the hardware’s capabilities. The GPU, while once a popular mid-range choice, now finds itself in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, meaning nearly half of the graphics cards in the database outperform it. The CPU, based on its average benchmark score of 13516, sits in the 72nd percentile, which is respectable for a budget processor, but its four physical cores are a limiting factor in a genre that often requires handling numerous player characters and NPCs simultaneously. The combination of a mid-pack GPU and a lower-core-count CPU results in a system that is outclassed by a significant majority of the tested configurations, explaining its bottom-tier rank.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary bottleneck in this system for Archeage. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides a memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s, which is a decent amount for the game’s textures, but the card’s raw compute power is where it falls short. With a boost clock of 1785 MHz, it achieves a FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS. While this is sufficient for older titles, the data shows it is outmatched in synthetic benchmarks. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, has an average score that is 0.7% higher, placing the GTX 1660 SUPER at a slight disadvantage from the start. The GPU’s 55th percentile ranking is telling; it is a card that was once mainstream but is now firmly in the entry-level category. In Archeage, this translates to a hard ceiling on performance, particularly when settings are raised to High or Ultra, where the pixel and texture fill rates become a limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F, with its 4 cores and 8 threads, provides a foundation that is strong for single-threaded tasks but limited for heavily threaded workloads. Its base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz are respectable, and its single-thread performance is solid, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681. However, the processor’s multi-core performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912, is where the limitations become apparent. In an MMO like Archeage, which can be CPU-intensive in crowded areas, the four cores can become saturated, leading to framerate dips. The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-7700K, has an average score that is 1.8% lower, showing that the i3-12100F is competitive with older, higher-tier processors. Yet, its 4-core design is a fundamental constraint. The data suggests that in scenarios where the GPU is not the bottleneck, the CPU’s thread count will likely be the next limiting factor, preventing the system from achieving the higher framerates seen with six or eight-core processors.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of the system’s capabilities across different resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system performs admirably at lower settings, achieving an average of 96.3 FPS on Low, which drops to 87.1 FPS on Medium. These are playable numbers for most users. However, the framerate falls significantly when settings are increased, with High averaging 61.4 FPS and Ultra dropping to 38.9 FPS. This pattern suggests a GPU-bound scenario at higher detail levels. Moving to 2560x1440, the performance degrades further. The system manages 69.5 FPS on Low and 60.9 FPS on Medium, but this falls to 37.7 FPS on High and a stutter-prone 29.5 FPS on Ultra. The 4K results at 3840x2160 are the most telling, with the system struggling to maintain playable framerates. At this resolution, the average FPS on Low is 35.7, which drops to 32.7 on Medium, 21.5 on High, and a mere 18.6 on Ultra. These numbers illustrate that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB framebuffer and compute resources are inadequate for high-resolution gaming in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly identifies the GPU as the primary limiting component. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 96.3 FPS, which is a solid result. When the resolution is increased to 1440p Low, the framerate drops to 69.5 FPS, a decrease of approximately 28%. Moving to 4K Low, the framerate falls to 35.7 FPS, which is a 63% drop from the 1080p result. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU that is being overwhelmed by the increase in pixel count. The pattern is similar across other settings. At High settings, the framerate goes from 61.4 FPS at 1080p to 37.7 FPS at 1440p and then to 21.5 FPS at 4K. The scaling is not linear, indicating that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and fill rate are being exhausted. The CPU, while not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, still plays a role. At 1080p Low, a resolution where the GPU has less work to do, the CPU’s 4 cores may be able to feed the GPU enough frames to reach 96.3 FPS, but at 4K, the GPU is so far behind that the CPU’s limitations are masked. The data strongly suggests that for this game, the GTX 1660 SUPER is the limiting factor, and any attempt to play at 1440p or above will require significant compromises in graphical settings to achieve a playable framerate.