Archeage

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The benchmark data for Archeage with the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER reveals a predictable yet steep performance curve as resolution climbs, but the shape of that curve tells a nuanced story about where the bottleneck lives. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 196.6 FPS, which drops to 156.7 FPS at 1440p and then to 91.7 FPS at 4K. That is a 46.7% drop from 1080p Low to 1440p Low, followed by a 41.5% drop from 1440p Low to 4K Low. The scaling is roughly linear, suggesting that even at Low settings, the GPU is still doing meaningful work as resolution increases.

However, the Ultra preset tells a different story. At 1080p Ultra, the system delivers 98.5 FPS, which falls to 63.9 FPS at 1440p — a 35.1% reduction — and then plummets to 36.5 FPS at 4K, another 42.9% drop. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 98.1 FPS, but at 4K that gap narrows to 55.2 FPS. This compression indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the dominant limiting factor, whereas at 1080p, the CPU's six cores and twelve threads can keep up with the frame pacing demands of a 2014-era MMORPG.

The Medium preset behaves similarly to High, with 188.8 FPS at 1080p, 139.4 FPS at 1440p, and 80.4 FPS at 4K. High settings yield 141.3 FPS, 95.3 FPS, and 58.1 FPS respectively. The fact that Medium at 1080p (188.8 FPS) nearly matches Low at 1080p (196.6 FPS) suggests that the CPU is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions. The real stress test comes at 4K Ultra, where the 36.5 FPS result indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER's 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated by the game's draw distances and particle effects.

What this resolution scaling reveals is a system that is well-balanced for 1440p gaming but begins to strain at 4K with higher presets. The 58.1 FPS at 4K High is playable, but 36.5 FPS at 4K Ultra is not a smooth experience for an MMO where combat responsiveness matters. The data suggests that the GPU is the limiting component at 4K Ultra, while at 1080p, the CPU's single-thread performance of 868 in 3DMark single-thread tests and 2029 in Cinebench R23 single-core becomes more relevant for maintaining high frame rates.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a six-core, twelve-thread processor from the Rocket Lake-S generation, built on Intel's 14 nm process with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. In the context of Archeage, an MMORPG released on 2014-01-14, the CPU's role is primarily about maintaining consistent frame times during large-scale player interactions and world events. The processor's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for the game's engine, which was not designed to leverage high core counts.

Benchmark results for the CPU show a 3DMark 16-thread score of 5619 and a max-thread score of 5652, indicating that scaling beyond eight threads offers minimal gains. This is typical for a game that launched in 2014, when most titles were optimized for four to six threads. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14372 and single-core score of 2029 place the i5-11400F in the 75th percentile of all CPUs tested, which is respectable for a mid-range desktop part from the 11th generation.

The nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database are the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with an average score of 17189 (0% delta), the Intel Core i7-1260P at 17212 (-0.2%), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U at 17215 (-0.2%). The i5-11400F's average benchmark score of 17181 puts it within 0.2% of these competitors, meaning that for Archeage's CPU-bound scenarios, the choice between these processors would yield nearly identical frame rates.

In practical terms, the 1080p Low result of 196.6 FPS and 1080p Medium of 188.8 FPS suggest that the CPU can feed the GPU with frames up to the high refresh rate territory. The 1080p Ultra result of 98.5 FPS is more likely constrained by the GPU's ability to render the increased graphical load, but the CPU's six physical cores ensure that background tasks and game logic do not cause stuttering. The absence of integrated graphics on this chip means the dedicated RTX 4070 SUPER is the sole rendering engine, which simplifies the frame pacing analysis.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, featuring the AD104 chip with 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a critical factor for Archeage's texture streaming in large open-world zones. The GPU's boost clock of 2475 MHz and base clock of 1980 MHz provide ample compute headroom, with FP32 performance rated at 35.48 TFLOPS.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs tested, with an average score of 42576. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A6000 at 42653 (-0.2%), the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE at 42723 (-0.3%), and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X at 41991 (1.4%). These deltas are minimal, indicating that the RTX 4070 SUPER performs within a tight band of workstation and gaming cards around its tier.

For Archeage, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution and settings scale. At 4K Ultra, the 36.5 FPS result is a clear indication that the 12 GB VRAM buffer is being taxed by the game's high-resolution textures and shader complexity. The 4K High result of 58.1 FPS and 4K Medium of 80.4 FPS show that reducing settings from Ultra to High provides a 59.2% improvement in frame rate, while dropping from High to Medium adds another 38.4%. This suggests that the Ultra preset in Archeage includes effects that disproportionately impact the GPU, such as advanced shadow mapping or ambient occlusion, which are not present in the lower presets.

At 1440p, the GPU demonstrates its strength with 156.7 FPS on Low and 139.4 FPS on Medium, both above the 144 Hz refresh rate that many gamers target. The 1440p Ultra result of 63.9 FPS is still playable but shows that the GPU is not able to maintain high refresh rates with maximum settings. The 1080p results, ranging from 196.6 FPS on Low to 98.5 FPS on Ultra, indicate that the GPU is rarely the bottleneck at this resolution, with the CPU's 2.60 GHz base clock potentially limiting frame rates in crowded areas.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER ranks 374th out of 1727 tested combos in Archeage, placing it in the top 21.7% of all system configurations evaluated. This ranking is notable because it combines a mid-range CPU from 2021 with a high-end GPU from 2024, and the resulting position reflects the game's sensitivity to both components. The data indicates that the combo outperforms the majority of systems tested, but it does not reach the top tier reserved for flagship CPUs paired with the fastest GPUs.

The rank of 374 out of 1727 means that there are 373 combos that deliver higher average FPS in Archeage, which likely include processors with higher single-thread performance or GPUs with more VRAM and bandwidth. However, the i5-11400F's 75th percentile CPU ranking and the RTX 4070 SUPER's 84th percentile GPU ranking suggest that this combo is well above average individually. The gap between the combo rank and the individual component ranks implies that Archeage's engine does not fully utilize the GPU's capabilities in all scenarios, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU may become the limiting factor.

When compared to the nearest rival GPUs, the RTX 4070 SUPER's performance is nearly identical to the RTX A6000 (within 0.2%), which is a workstation card with significantly higher VRAM. This suggests that for Archeage, the 12 GB of VRAM is sufficient for most presets, and the bottleneck shifts to compute throughput or memory bandwidth at 4K Ultra. The CPU's nearest rivals show similar average scores, reinforcing that the i5-11400F is not a weak link in this pairing. The combo's ranking reflects the balance between the six-core processor and the 7168 shading units of the GPU, which work together to deliver the measured FPS figures.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low settings produce 196.6 FPS, Medium settings produce 188.8 FPS, High settings produce 141.3 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 98.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium is only 7.8 FPS, indicating that the Medium preset adds minor graphical enhancements that do not heavily impact performance. The jump from Medium to High is more substantial at 47.5 FPS, suggesting that High enables additional rendering features such as higher-quality textures or more detailed shadows. The drop from High to Ultra is 42.8 FPS, which represents the most significant performance penalty at this resolution, likely due to the Ultra preset enabling full anti-aliasing and post-processing effects.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low at 156.7 FPS, Medium at 139.4 FPS, High at 95.3 FPS, and Ultra at 63.9 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a 20.3% reduction in FPS for Low, a 26.2% reduction for Medium, a 32.6% reduction for High, and a 35.1% reduction for Ultra. This pattern indicates that higher settings amplify the performance cost of increasing resolution, as the GPU must render more pixels with increasingly complex shaders. The 1440p Ultra result of 63.9 FPS is the first preset at this resolution to fall below 100 FPS, making it a borderline experience for competitive play.

At 3840x2160, the measured values are: Low at 91.7 FPS, Medium at 80.4 FPS, High at 58.1 FPS, and Ultra at 36.5 FPS. The 4K Low result is still above 90 FPS, which is impressive for an MMORPG, but the Ultra preset drops to 36.5 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider acceptable. The delta between 4K Medium and 4K High is 22.3 FPS, while the delta between 4K High and 4K Ultra is 21.6 FPS, showing a consistent degradation as settings increase. The overall pattern across all resolutions confirms that the RTX 4070 SUPER is capable of handling Archeage at 1440p with high settings, but 4K gaming requires dropping to Medium or Low presets to maintain smooth frame rates.