Archeage

# Archeage — Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 produces a benchmark profile that is markedly resolution-dependent in Archeage, a 2014 MMORPG that scales from highly playable at 1080p to borderline at 4K. The data shows a combo ranking in the 2001st position out of 3708 tested combinations, placing it in the 54th percentile of all tested systems — a mid-pack result that reflects the CPU's strong multi-threaded output against a GPU that becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep and consistent performance drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, with the magnitude of that drop varying significantly by settings preset. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 153 FPS at 1080p to 103 FPS at 1440p, then to 59 FPS at 4K — a total reduction of 61.4% from the 1080p baseline. The Medium preset shows a similar trajectory: 136 FPS at 1080p, 91 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K, representing a 61.8% drop. High settings decline from 92 FPS at 1080p to 62 FPS at 1440p and 36 FPS at 4K, a 60.9% reduction. The Ultra preset is the most punishing, starting at 63 FPS at 1080p, falling to 42 FPS at 1440p, and bottoming out at 24 FPS at 4K — a 61.9% loss.

The pattern across all presets is remarkably consistent, with the 1440p to 4K transition being the most severe: Low loses 42.7% of its 1440p performance when moving to 4K, Medium loses 42.9%, High loses 41.9%, and Ultra loses 42.9%. This uniformity strongly indicates that the GPU's rendering throughput, not CPU limitations, is the dominant constraint at higher resolutions. The RTX 4060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s, appears to be the primary bottleneck — the data shows that doubling pixel count from 1440p to 4K consistently cuts frame rates by roughly 40-43% regardless of settings, which is characteristic of a GPU that is saturated at the higher pixel load.

At 1080p, the scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 58.8% performance penalty (153 to 63 FPS), while at 4K the same settings range costs 59.3% (59 to 24 FPS). The near-identical percentage penalties across resolutions suggest that the game's settings have a multiplicative effect on GPU workload rather than introducing a CPU-side bottleneck at any resolution. The data indicates that for smooth 4K gameplay, users would need to accept Low settings at 59 FPS, but Medium at 52 FPS and High at 36 FPS show the GPU struggling to maintain playable rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, provides the rendering muscle for this combination. Its base clock of 1830 MHz and boost clock of 2460 MHz, combined with 3072 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, deliver a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput of 15.11 TFLOPS is the theoretical peak that the benchmark results show cannot be sustained at 4K Ultra, where the measured average of 24 FPS indicates severe GPU saturation.

The memory subsystem is the most telling specification: 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus yields 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. In Archeage, a game released in 2014, the VRAM capacity is not likely to be the limiting factor even at 4K, but the bandwidth and bus width clearly are. The data supports this interpretation — at 1080p, the GPU has enough bandwidth headroom to deliver 153 FPS on Low, but the transition to 4K requires four times the pixel throughput, and the bandwidth simply cannot keep pace. The 2125 MHz memory clock (17 Gbps effective) is the only memory speed data available, and the consistent 40-43% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings points directly to this bandwidth ceiling.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context: a Passmark G3D score of 19545 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 95057 place it in the 61st percentile of all GPUs. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2302 reflects modern API performance, but Archeage's 2014 engine likely does not leverage the full feature set of DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) or Vulkan 1.4 that the GPU supports. The RTX 4060's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present in the hardware but are unlikely to be exercised by this MMORPG, making the raw rasterization and bandwidth characteristics the relevant metrics. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is the sole bottleneck, while at 1080p Low, the CPU begins to share the load — evidenced by the 153 FPS figure that approaches the limits of what a 6-core/12-thread processor can feed.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 2001st out of 3708 tested combos in Archeage, placing it just past the midpoint of the field. This ranking is surprisingly modest given the individual component scores: the CPU sits in the 71st percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 17177, while the GPU is in the 61st percentile with an average score of 17639. The discrepancy between component percentiles and the combo's 54th percentile ranking suggests that Archeage does not scale well with the combination's specific strengths.

When compared to the CPU's nearest rivals, the i5-11400F's performance is tightly clustered: it is 0.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120 score), 0.4% behind the Intel Core i5-12450H (17239), 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (17278), and 0.6% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17074). These sub-1% deltas indicate that the CPU's processing power is well within a narrow band of peer performance, and any ranking differences in the game are more likely attributable to the GPU or game-specific factors.

The GPU's nearest rivals show a similar clustering: the RTX 4060 is 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666), 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon 780M (17588), 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551), and 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 460 (17509). This tight grouping around the 17600-17650 score range means the RTX 4060's raw benchmark performance is undistinguished relative to its immediate peers, despite its modern architecture. The combo rank of 2001/3708 suggests that in Archeage specifically, this pairing does not punch above its weight — the game's 2014 engine likely does not benefit from the newer features, and the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit bus become relative weaknesses in a game that may favor older, wider-bus designs.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 offers the best balance of performance and visual quality for this combination. The average of 136 FPS with a minimum of 115 FPS and maximum of 156 FPS provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold, with the minimum frame rate still well above what would cause noticeable stuttering in an MMORPG. The 115 FPS minimum is 91.7% of the average, indicating good frame time consistency.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset delivers an average of 91 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS and maximum of 105 FPS. This remains highly playable, and the minimum of 78 FPS is still above the 60 FPS standard, though the gap between minimum and average (85.7% of average) is slightly wider than at 1080p. For users prioritizing visual fidelity at 1440p, High settings at 62 FPS average would be acceptable, but the lack of a reported minimum makes the Medium preset a safer recommendation.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves a fully smooth 60 FPS average. Low settings at 59 FPS average is the only 4K option that approaches playability, and even that is right at the 60 FPS boundary. Medium at 52 FPS (minimum 45 FPS, maximum 60 FPS) is likely too inconsistent for competitive play, with the 45 FPS minimum representing a 13.5% drop below the average. The data clearly shows that 4K is not a viable resolution for this combo if smooth gameplay is required; users should either drop to 1440p Medium or accept Low settings at 4K. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution — at 1080p it achieves 63 FPS average but with no reported minimum, and at 1440p it falls to 42 FPS, which is below the playable threshold for most users.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a clear hierarchy across settings. Low settings produce 153 FPS average, the highest of any configuration tested. Medium settings deliver 136 FPS average with a tight range of 115 to 156 FPS, showing that the minimum stays within 15.4% of the average. High settings drop to 92 FPS average, a 32.4% reduction from Medium. Ultra settings plummet to 63 FPS average, representing a 54.2% reduction from Low and a 53.7% reduction from Medium. The 1080p data shows that the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution, and the 92 FPS High and 63 FPS Ultra figures suggest the settings' GPU workload scales dramatically.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings produce 103 FPS average, down 32.7% from the 1080p Low figure. Medium settings yield 91 FPS average with a range of 78 to 105 FPS, a minimum that is 85.7% of the average. High settings deliver 62 FPS average, a 39.8% drop from the 1080p High result. Ultra settings fall to 42 FPS average, a 33.3% reduction from the 1080p Ultra figure. The 1440p data shows that the GPU is beginning to struggle, particularly at High and Ultra where the average frame rates are 62 and 42 FPS respectively.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. Low settings produce 59 FPS average, a 42.7% drop from 1440p Low. Medium settings yield 52 FPS average with a minimum of 45 FPS and maximum of 60 FPS — the minimum is 86.5% of the average, showing increased frame time variance. High settings deliver 36 FPS average, a 41.9% drop from 1440p High. Ultra settings bottom out at 24 FPS average, a 42.9% reduction from 1440p Ultra. The 4K data shows that even the Low preset cannot sustain a consistent 60 FPS, and the Ultra preset's 24 FPS average is below the threshold for playable MMORPG gameplay. The complete dataset shows that the Medium preset at 1440p is the highest resolution/settings combination that maintains a minimum FPS above 60.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F, a 6-core/12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, provides the computational foundation for this combo. Its base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz, paired with a 12 MB shared L3 cache and 80 KB L1 cache per core, deliver strong single-threaded and multi-threaded performance. The CPU's benchmark scores confirm its capability: Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14340 and single-core score of 2024, Geekbench multicore of 7737 and single-core of 1777, and Passmark multithread of 16908 with single-thread of 2981.

In Archeage, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions where the GPU is less taxed. At 1080p Low, the 153 FPS average suggests that the CPU can feed the GPU sufficiently, but the 63 FPS at 1080p Ultra indicates that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as settings increase. The data does not show a CPU-side limitation at any measured configuration — even at 1080p Low, there is no evidence of the CPU capping frame rates, as the 153 FPS figure is well within the CPU's capability based on its benchmark scores.

The CPU's 3DMark scores provide additional context: 868 in single-thread, 3171 in 4-thread, 4691 in 8-thread, and 5652 in max-thread tests. The scaling from 8-thread to max-thread (20.5% improvement) shows that the 12-thread configuration provides meaningful additional throughput, which is relevant for an MMORPG that may have background threads for networking and world state. The Passmark physics score of 842 and floating-point math score of 34127 indicate solid computational performance, though Archeage's 2014 engine is unlikely to stress modern multi-core processors heavily. The CPU's 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for this game, and the data shows no indication that memory bandwidth or CPU throughput limits the measured frame rates.

The 3dmark single-thread score of 868 and Cinebench R15 single-core of 204 suggest that the CPU's per-core performance is adequate for the game's primary thread, which in MMORPGs often handles player input and UI updates. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz is particularly relevant for such single-threaded workloads. However, the data shows that at higher resolutions, the GPU's rendering demands overshadow any CPU contribution, and the combo's mid-pack ranking (2001/3708) reflects a CPU that is competent but not exceptional for this title.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the clear sweet spot, with all presets achieving playable frame rates: low at 153 FPS, medium at 136 FPS, high at 92 FPS, and ultra at 63 FPS. At 2560x1440, only low (103 FPS) and medium (91 FPS) exceed 60 FPS, while at 3840x2160, no preset averages above 59 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 4060 the bottleneck at 4K?

A: Yes. The FPS drop from 1440p to 4K is consistently 41.9-42.9% across all settings presets, which is a uniform scaling pattern characteristic of GPU saturation. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot sustain the pixel throughput required at 3840x2160.

Q: How does this combo rank against others in Archeage?

A: It ranks 2001st out of 3708 tested combinations, placing it in the 54th percentile. This is lower than the CPU's 71st percentile and GPU's 61st percentile individually, indicating that Archeage does not fully utilize the strengths of either component.

Q: Can this combo handle Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: Yes, with an average of 63 FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra. However, the data does not report a minimum FPS for this configuration, so frame time consistency is unknown. At 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 42 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 24 FPS.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution?

A: At 1080p, Low produces 153 FPS and Ultra 63 FPS, a 58.8% difference. At 1440p, Low yields 103 FPS and Ultra 42 FPS, a 59.2% difference. At 4K, Low achieves 59 FPS and Ultra 24 FPS, a 59.3% difference. The consistent percentage gap indicates settings have a multiplicative effect on GPU workload.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game?

A: The data shows the GPU dominates at higher resolutions, with the 1440p to 4K transition causing 40-43% FPS losses regardless of settings. At 1080p, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the 153 FPS Low result, but the frame rate ceiling appears GPU-limited rather than CPU-limited across all measured configurations.