Archeage

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 528th out of 3,708 tested combinations in Archeage. This places the combo in the top 14.2% of all tested systems, a strong showing for a pairing that pairs a 10th-generation six-core processor with a current-generation flagship GPU. The rank reflects the measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings, and the data indicates that the combination is well above the median tested configuration.

In terms of raw component benchmarks, the CPU sits at the 68th percentile among all processors tested, while the GPU ranks at the 92nd percentile among all graphics cards. The gap between these percentile positions is notable: the GPU is clearly the dominant component in this pairing. The CPU's average benchmark score of 14,185 places it within a narrow band of rivals, including the Intel Xeon 6756E (0.2% higher), Intel Core 7 160UL (0.3% lower), AMD EPYC 7552 (0.5% higher), and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.6% lower). These differences are negligible in real-world terms, meaning the i5-10400F's processing capability is essentially on par with those alternatives.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 77,712 puts it in a similar tight cluster: the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT is 1.1% higher, while the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT, NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB, and NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB are 1.6%, 2.1%, and 2.4% lower, respectively. This suggests the RTX 5090 D is positioned among high-end GPUs, though the delta percentages are small enough that benchmark variance could shuffle the ordering.

Given the game's 2014 release date, the combination of a modern flagship GPU with an older mid-range CPU produces a specific bottleneck profile. The combo rank of 528 indicates that many other pairings achieve higher frame rates in Archeage, but the measured data shows this combo is far from the bottom of the field.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D brings substantial hardware to Archeage: 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's base clock is 2017 MHz, with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The architecture is Blackwell 2.0 on TSMC's 5 nm process, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die.

In terms of compute resources, the GPU has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output units. It also includes 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores. Pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s, texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s, and FP32 performance is 104.8 TFLOPS, with FP16 at the same 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio).

The GPU's benchmark scores reflect its strong compute capabilities. In Passmark's G3D test, it scores 44,065, and in GPU compute it scores 28,396. Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 310,674 and 376,915, respectively. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 14,326. The Passmark DirectX 11 score of 371 is notably higher than the DirectX 12 score of 219, and the DirectX 9 score of 434 exceeds both, which is relevant for an older game like Archeage that may rely on legacy DirectX paths.

The 32 GB VRAM capacity is far beyond what Archeage requires, even at 4K Ultra settings. The measured frame rates show that VRAM is not a limiting factor in this game: at 4K Ultra, the combo still averages 52 FPS, and at 4K High it reaches 76 FPS. The GPU's memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s ensures that texture streaming and draw calls are handled without bandwidth constraints.

However, the GPU's raw power is not fully utilized across all settings. The data shows that the RTX 5090 D's performance headroom is constrained by the CPU in certain configurations, particularly at lower resolutions and lower settings where frame rates are higher but still limited by the processor.

# Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of how performance scales from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p Low, the combo averages 169 FPS; at 1440p Low, it drops to 148 FPS; and at 4K Low, it falls to 123 FPS. This represents a 27.2% decrease from 1080p to 1440p, and a 16.9% further decrease from 1440p to 4K. The total drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 46 FPS, or 27.2% of the 1080p value.

For Medium settings, the pattern is similar: 162 FPS at 1080p, 142 FPS at 1440p, and 112 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 20 FPS (12.3%), and from 1440p to 4K is 30 FPS (21.1%). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 50 FPS, or 30.9%.

At High settings, the scaling is more pronounced: 140 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 76 FPS at 4K. The 1440p to 4K drop is 47 FPS (38.2%), a much steeper decline than at lower settings. From 1080p to 4K, the drop is 64 FPS, or 45.7%.

For Ultra settings, the trend continues: 121 FPS at 1080p, 90 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 31 FPS (25.6%), and the 1440p to 4K drop is 38 FPS (42.2%). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 69 FPS, or 57.0%.

The increasing percentage drop as resolution increases indicates a shift in the limiting component. At 1080p, the CPU is more likely to be the bottleneck, as the GPU can render frames faster than the processor can feed them. At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, especially at High and Ultra settings where the pixel throughput demands more from the graphics card. The data suggests that at 1080p, the i5-10400F's six cores and 12 threads cap frame rates around 169 FPS, while the RTX 5090 D has headroom to go higher. At 4K Ultra, the GPU's workload increases enough that frame rates drop to 52 FPS, indicating the graphics card is now the primary constraint.

# FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Archeage?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 offers the best balance of frame rate and visual quality. At 1440p Medium, the combo averages 142 FPS, and at 1440p High it averages 123 FPS. Both are well above the 4K Medium average of 112 FPS, while 1080p High reaches 140 FPS but with less visual detail.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its rivals?

A: The i5-10400F's average benchmark score of 14,185 is within 0.6% of its nearest rivals. The Intel Xeon 6756E scores 14,163 (0.2% higher), the Intel Core 7 160UL scores 14,232 (0.3% lower), the AMD EPYC 7552 scores 14,115 (0.5% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C scores 14,277 (0.6% lower). These differences are within benchmark noise.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 D overkill for Archeage?

A: The GPU's benchmark percentile (92nd) is higher than the CPU's (68th), and the combo still ranks 528th of 3,708. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 169 FPS, but the CPU likely limits further gains. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is fully utilized, averaging 52 FPS. The GPU's 32 GB VRAM is far beyond the game's needs, but the card's raw throughput is used at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Low averages 123 FPS, while Ultra averages 52 FPS. This is a difference of 71 FPS, or 57.7% lower performance at Ultra. Medium (112 FPS) and High (76 FPS) sit between these extremes.

Q: How does the combo's rank in Archeage compare to its component benchmarks?

A: The combo ranks 528th of 3,708 tested combinations, placing it in the top 14.2%. The CPU is at the 68th percentile and the GPU at the 92nd percentile. The combo rank is lower than the GPU percentile but higher than the CPU percentile, reflecting the game's CPU-bound nature at lower settings.

Q: Does the CPU hold back the GPU at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes. At 1080p Low, the combo averages 169 FPS, and at 1080p Medium it averages 162 FPS. The GPU is capable of much higher frame rates in synthetic benchmarks, but the CPU's six cores and 12 threads appear to cap performance. At 4K Ultra, the CPU is less of a factor, and the GPU becomes the bottleneck.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings tiers (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). All measurements are average FPS, with additional min and max FPS data available for Medium settings at each resolution.

At 1080p, the combo achieves 169 FPS on Low, 162 FPS on Medium (min 138, max 187), 140 FPS on High, and 121 FPS on Ultra. The spread between Low and Ultra is 48 FPS, with Ultra delivering 28.4% lower performance than Low. The Medium setting shows a 49 FPS range between min and max, indicating some frame time variance.

At 1440p, Low averages 148 FPS, Medium averages 142 FPS (min 121, max 164), High averages 123 FPS, and Ultra averages 90 FPS. The Low to Ultra spread is 58 FPS, with Ultra at 39.2% lower than Low. The Medium min-max range is 43 FPS, slightly tighter than at 1080p.

At 4K, the average FPS drops significantly: Low is 123 FPS, Medium is 112 FPS (min 95, max 128), High is 76 FPS, and Ultra is 52 FPS. The Low to Ultra spread is 71 FPS, with Ultra at 57.7% lower than Low. The Medium min-max range is 33 FPS, the tightest of the three resolutions.

The Medium setting consistently provides the most complete data, with min and max values recorded at all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the min FPS of 138 is still above the 4K High average of 76 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the min of 121 matches the 1080p Ultra average exactly. At 4K Medium, the min of 95 is above the 4K Ultra average of 52 FPS.

The data shows that the combo maintains playable frame rates (above 60 FPS) in all settings at 1080p and 1440p, and at 4K for Low and Medium. At 4K High (76 FPS) and 4K Ultra (52 FPS), the frame rates drop below the smoother thresholds seen at lower resolutions.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 10th-generation desktop processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process. It has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The L3 cache is 12 MB shared, with 64 KB L1 and 256 KB L2 per core. It supports DDR4 memory on a dual-channel bus with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU uses PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes and has a 65 W TDP.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU shows a clear scaling pattern across thread counts. The 3DMark tests reveal: 688 in single-thread, 1,350 in 2-thread, 2,560 in 4-thread, 3,929 in 8-thread, and 4,735 in max-thread. This indicates that performance scales well up to 8 threads, then plateaus, with max-thread score only 20.5% higher than 8-thread. The Cinebench R23 scores are 1,451 single-core and 10,283 multi-core, while Geekbench scores are 1,420 single-core and 6,257 multi-core.

The Passmark tests show a similar pattern: single-thread score of 2,541, multi-thread score of 12,115, and a physics score of 696. The integer math score is 41,471, floating point math is 25,956, and extended instructions score is 12,500. Data compression scores 185,944, while data encryption scores 4,100. Prime number finding is 35, and random string sorting is 23,185.

In Archeage, the CPU's performance is the limiting factor at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the average FPS of 169 is likely near the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for the game's MMO workload, which typically involves many draw calls and AI updates. The 12 MB L3 cache helps with frequently accessed game data, and the 4.30 GHz boost clock provides adequate single-thread performance.

The CPU's percentile rank of 68th places it in the upper half of all processors, but well below the GPU's 92nd percentile. This imbalance explains why the combo's frame rates at 1080p are capped around 169 FPS, while the GPU could theoretically deliver more. At 4K, the CPU's role diminishes as the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the combo still achieves 52 FPS at Ultra.

# Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings. At 1080p, all settings deliver playable frame rates, but Ultra (121 FPS) offers a 28.4% reduction from Low (169 FPS) for what may be marginal visual gains in a 2014 MMO. The Medium setting (162 FPS, min 138) provides a good balance, with min FPS above 60 and max FPS reaching 187.

At 1440p, High (123 FPS) is the recommended setting for users who prioritize visual quality while maintaining smooth gameplay. The Medium setting (142 FPS, min 121) offers higher frame rates with a 121 FPS minimum, which is still well above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra (90 FPS) is acceptable but represents a 36.6% drop from Medium.

At 4K, the choice depends on the user's priority. Low (123 FPS) provides the smoothest experience, while Medium (112 FPS, min 95) maintains high frame rates with better visuals. High (76 FPS) is playable but shows a significant drop from Medium, and Ultra (52 FPS) dips below 60 FPS, which may cause noticeable stuttering in an MMO environment.

The best overall experience per the measured rows is 1440p Medium, which averages 142 FPS with a minimum of 121 FPS and maximum of 164 FPS. This setting combination uses the GPU's power effectively while avoiding the CPU bottleneck seen at 1080p, and it provides a 30 FPS margin above the 4K Medium average. For users with 4K displays, 4K Medium (112 FPS, min 95) is the recommended setting, as it keeps frame rates above 90 FPS while benefiting from the higher resolution. At 1080p, the Medium setting (162 FPS, min 138) offers the best balance of frame rate consistency and visual fidelity, with the min FPS staying above 138.