Archeage

The data for Archeage with the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 shows a pairing that is heavily influenced by the game's age and the GPU's middle-of-the-road standing. The benchmark results indicate that while the CPU provides ample headroom, the graphics card becomes the primary constraint as resolution and settings increase. This analysis examines the measured frames per second to determine the optimal configuration and the role each component plays.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured average FPS across all presets, the Low setting at 1080p offers the best balance of fluidity and visual fidelity, achieving 103.5 FPS. This is the only preset in the entire dataset that crosses the 100 FPS threshold, making it the clear choice for players prioritizing smoothness. The Medium preset at 1080p is a viable alternative at 92.5 FPS, but the 11 FPS difference (a 10.6% drop) is significant enough that Low is recommended for competitive or fast-paced gameplay.

At 1440p, the Low setting again leads with 69.2 FPS, which is playable but marks a substantial 33.1% decrease from the 1080p Low result. The Medium preset at 1440p drops further to 61.8 FPS, while High falls to 45.4 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p is nearly unplayable at 27 FPS, a performance cliff that suggests the settings scale poorly with this hardware. For 4K, the situation is dire: even the Low preset only manages 43.6 FPS, and High drops to 27.3 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K produces just 19.8 FPS, which is a slideshow.

The data shows a clear pattern: the gap between Low and Medium is relatively small (11 FPS at 1080p), but the gap between Medium and High is much larger (25.8 FPS at 1080p). This indicates that the High preset introduces rendering features that disproportionately tax the GTX 1070. Consequently, the recommended strategy is to stay on Low for any resolution above 1080p, and to use Low at 1080p for maximum frame rates. The Ultra preset should be avoided entirely, as it delivers less than half the FPS of the Low preset at every resolution, with the 1080p Ultra result of 45.9 FPS being only marginally better than the 4K Low result of 43.6 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its benchmark scores are solid, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16518 and a single-core score of 2332. The CPU’s percentile ranking against all CPUs is 77, indicating it outperforms the majority of processors in the database. However, in the context of Archeage, a 2014 MMORPG, the CPU’s role is primarily to feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck.

The measured FPS data suggests that the i5-12400F is not the limiting factor in this configuration. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 103.5 FPS, which is a strong result and indicates the CPU can handle the game’s logic and draw calls at that level. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5895 and max-thread score of 5912 show that the processor has consistent multi-threaded performance, which is relevant for an MMORPG with many simultaneous players and entities. The PassMark multithread score of 19433 further confirms this capability.

The CPU’s 18 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4/DDR5) provide adequate bandwidth for the game’s data streams. The fact that the 1080p High preset (66.7 FPS) is significantly lower than the 1080p Low preset (103.5 FPS) points to the GPU being the constraint, not the CPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would be more consistent across settings. The i5-12400F’s performance relative to its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-8700K (0.1% faster) and AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (0.7% slower), shows it is a balanced mid-range part that will not struggle with this game’s CPU demands.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is a Pascal-architecture GPU with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost of 1683 MHz, and it has 1920 shading units. The GPU’s percentile ranking is 51, placing it exactly in the middle of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score is 12331. The closest rival in the database is the NVIDIA Quadro K4200, which is 0.7% slower, and the GeForce GTX 880M is 1.3% faster.

The GPU’s role in Archeage is decisive. The benchmark results show a steep performance drop as settings increase, which is classic behavior for a GPU with limited memory bandwidth and compute power relative to modern standards. The 8 GB VRAM is adequate for 1080p, but the 4K High preset (27.3 FPS) and 4K Ultra preset (19.8 FPS) reveal that the GPU’s fill rate and shader throughput cannot handle the higher resolution and visual effects. The texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 107.7 GPixel/s are simply insufficient for 4K Ultra.

The GTX 1070’s 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is a benchmark figure that, in practice, translates to the observed frames. The GPU’s performance at 1080p Medium (92.5 FPS) is acceptable, but the jump to High (66.7 FPS) represents a 27.9% reduction, indicating that High settings enable features like more advanced shadows or post-processing that heavily tax the Pascal architecture. The GPU’s DirectX 12 score of 48 and DirectX 11 score of 100 in PassMark suggest that the hardware is better optimized for older APIs, which is relevant since Archeage uses DirectX 11. The GPU’s performance is the dominant factor in this combo, and its mid-tier standing is confirmed by the fact that it is only 1.4% slower than the GTX 1650 SUPER.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 1446 out of 1727 tested combos for Archeage. This places it in the lower 16.3% of all configurations, which is a poor showing. This rank is not surprising given the GPU’s 51st percentile standing and the game’s age, which means even newer mid-range GPUs will significantly outperform it. The CPU’s 77th percentile ranking does not compensate for the GPU’s mediocrity in this specific title.

The combo’s rank is more a reflection of the GPU than the CPU. A better GPU, even with a weaker CPU, would likely score higher because Archeage’s performance is so heavily GPU-bound, as shown by the large FPS differences between settings. The data indicates that this pairing is not competitive compared to other tested combos. The gap between the combo’s rank and the top configurations is substantial, and the measured FPS at high settings confirms that this is not a setup for demanding play. The fact that the 4K Ultra preset produces 19.8 FPS, which is below the 30 FPS playability threshold, further cements this ranking.

The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD EPYC 7773X (1.3% faster) or the Intel Core i7-8700K (0.1% faster), would not change the outcome because the GPU is the limiting factor. Similarly, the GPU’s rivals, like the GTX 1650 SUPER (1.4% faster), are close enough in performance that the rank would remain similar. This combo is a classic example of a mid-range CPU paired with an older mid-range GPU, resulting in a system that is adequate for 1080p Low/Medium but struggles beyond that.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a predictable decline as resolution increases, but the rate of decline reveals the bottleneck. From 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, the average FPS drops from 103.5 to 69.2, a 33.1% reduction. From 1440p to 4K at Low, it drops from 69.2 to 43.6, a 37.0% reduction. This consistent scaling indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU’s workload does not increase significantly with resolution.

At High settings, the drop is more severe: 66.7 FPS at 1080p, 45.4 FPS at 1440p (a 31.9% drop), and 27.3 FPS at 4K (a 39.9% drop from 1440p). The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 45.9 FPS at 1080p, 27 FPS at 1440p (a 41.2% drop), and 19.8 FPS at 4K (a 26.7% drop from 1440p). The fact that the 4K Ultra result is only 19.8 FPS, which is lower than the 1080p Ultra result by 56.9%, confirms that the GPU is overwhelmed.

The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck because the FPS scales with resolution, which is a GPU-bound behavior. If the CPU were the constraint, the FPS would remain similar across resolutions. The 1080p Low result of 103.5 FPS is the highest measured, and it is likely near the CPU’s maximum frame rate for this game. However, the 4K Low result of 43.6 FPS is less than half of that, indicating that the GPU’s pixel throughput is the limiting factor. The conclusion is that this combo is best used at 1080p, with 1440p being a compromise only at Low settings, and 4K being effectively unplayable for any meaningful gameplay.