Archeage

Archeage, the 2014 MMORPG, remains a demanding title when pushed to modern hardware extremes, but the combination of an Intel Core i5-14600KF and an AMD Radeon RX 570 reveals a system that is strictly bound by its graphics card at higher resolutions. The measured frame rates show a classic GPU-limited curve, with the gap between Low and Ultra settings widening dramatically as pixel count increases. This pairing is best understood as a CPU-heavy foundation paired with a legacy GPU, a mismatch that the data makes immediately apparent.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data from the FACT PACK shows a steep and predictable decline as resolution increases, confirming that the AMD Radeon RX 570 is the performance bottleneck in this configuration. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 64.9 FPS, but this drops to 45.1 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of roughly 30%. The trend continues to 4K, where the same Low preset yields just 23.8 FPS, less than half the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is textbook GPU-bound behavior; the CPU has ample headroom, but the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are saturated.

The impact of settings is even more pronounced at 4K. Moving from Low to High at 3840x2160 cuts the average FPS from 23.8 to 15.4, a loss of about 35%. The jump to Ultra further crushes performance to 12.5 FPS, which is effectively unplayable for any action-oriented content. At 1080p, the same settings swing is less severe: Ultra yields 27 FPS versus 64.9 FPS on Low, indicating that the GPU is still the limiting factor, but the relative workload per pixel is lower. The data suggests that players targeting 4K would need to eschew even Medium settings (18.6 FPS) to approach a playable state, and even then, the frame rate is marginal.

The delta between resolutions is starkest in the High preset. At 1080p High, the combo manages 36.7 FPS. At 1440p High, it falls to 25.6 FPS. At 4K High, it collapses to 15.4 FPS. This roughly linear scaling with pixel count—1080p to 4K is a fourfold increase in pixels—shows that the RX 570's 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are simply overwhelmed. The CPU, an Intel Core i5-14600KF with a 5.30 GHz boost clock, is not the constraint here; its performance headroom is far beyond what the GPU can feed.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations, this specific pairing ranks 1636 out of 1727 combos for Archeage. This places it in the bottom 5% of all tested systems, a reflection of the GPU's age rather than the CPU's capability. The rank is a holistic measure of the combo's performance in this specific MMORPG, and the data indicates that the RX 570 drags the entire system down despite the i5-14600KF's strong showing in synthetic benchmarks.

The CPU itself is a top-tier performer in general compute, ranking in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs. However, its nearest rivals in the FACT PACK—the Intel Core i5-14600K, AMD EPYC 4345P, AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, and Intel Xeon Gold 5318H—all have average benchmark scores within 1.4% of the i5-14600KF's average of 49367. This shows that the CPU is not the differentiator in this combo; any of these processors would produce nearly identical FPS in Archeage when paired with the RX 570. Conversely, the GPU's nearest rivals are modern cards like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, which have average benchmark scores within 0.8% of the RX 570's 30158. This proximity is misleading, as those rivals are far more capable in modern titles, but the data shows the RX 570 holds a similar aggregate score in this benchmark suite.

The low combo rank is a direct consequence of the GPU's 74th percentile standing among all GPUs. While that percentile is not terrible, it reflects a card that is now end-of-life and outclassed by even entry-level modern offerings. For Archeage, a game that is not particularly CPU-intensive, the GPU is the sole arbiter of performance, and the data confirms that the i5-14600KF is wasted in this pairing for this specific title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. In synthetic workloads, it posts a strong Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32889 and a single-core score of 4643, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. For a game like Archeage, which was released in 2014 and is not known for scaling across many cores, the single-threaded performance is more relevant than the multi-core might.

The data suggests that the CPU is never the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p Low, the system hits 64.9 FPS, which is likely near the game's engine limit or the GPU's ceiling, not the CPU's. The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 or DDR5) provide ample bandwidth for game logic and asset streaming. The 125W TDP and 10nm process node (Raptor Lake-R) contribute to high sustained clocks, but these are irrelevant when the GPU is only delivering 27 FPS at 1080p Ultra.

The i5-14600KF's benchmark results, such as a PassMark multi-thread score of 38697 and a single-thread score of 4273, indicate a processor that can handle any modern game's physics and AI calculations without breaking a sweat. However, in this pairing, the CPU's potential is unrealized. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (12.5 FPS) is so low that even a CPU with half the performance would yield identical results, as the GPU is completely saturated. The CPU's role here is to ensure that frame times are consistent at lower resolutions, but the data shows that the GPU's limitations dominate the experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of the combo's capabilities across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the system is marginally playable on lower presets. Low settings deliver 64.9 FPS, which is smooth for an MMORPG. Medium settings drop to 53.4 FPS, still acceptable. High settings yield 36.7 FPS, which is playable but with noticeable judder in crowded areas. Ultra settings are borderline at 27 FPS, and players would likely need to disable certain effects to maintain a consistent frame rate.

Moving to 2560x1440, the RX 570 starts to struggle. Low settings produce 45.1 FPS, which is a significant drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings fall to 36.6 FPS, and High settings are at 25.6 FPS. Ultra settings at 1440p are nearly unplayable at 15.9 FPS, making this resolution a poor choice for high-fidelity visuals with this GPU. The 4K results are uniformly poor. Low settings at 3840x2160 yield 23.8 FPS, Medium yields 18.6 FPS, High yields 15.4 FPS, and Ultra yields 12.5 FPS. None of these are playable for an MMORPG where reaction times matter in PvP or large-scale raids.

The progression from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent halving of FPS for each resolution step, which is expected given the pixel count increase. The spread between Low and Ultra settings also widens as resolution increases: at 1080p, the difference is 37.9 FPS (64.9 vs 27), while at 4K, the difference is only 11.3 FPS (23.8 vs 12.5). This narrowing spread indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so overwhelmed that even reducing settings cannot rescue performance, as the memory bandwidth and ROP throughput are the hard limits.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a 2017-era card based on the Polaris 20 chip and GCN 4.0 architecture, manufactured on a 14nm process. It features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s, with a peak FP32 throughput of 5.095 TFLOPS. These specifications are now severely dated, and the measured FPS in Archeage reflects that.

The GPU's 74th percentile ranking among all GPUs is generous, given that its nearest rivals in the FACT PACK are modern cards like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, both of which have average benchmark scores within 0.2% of the RX 570's 30158. This similarity in aggregate scores is a quirk of the benchmark methodology, as those newer cards are vastly superior in real-world gaming. The RX 570's end-of-life production status and its launch MSRP of 169 USD place it as a legacy budget card, but it is now outclassed.

The data shows that the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM is not necessarily the primary bottleneck in Archeage, as the game is not VRAM-hungry at these settings. Instead, the core clock speeds of 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost, combined with the limited memory bandwidth, are the limiting factors. The GPU's performance at 4K, where it dips below 20 FPS on all but the lowest settings, indicates that its fill rate is insufficient for the pixel load. In this combo, the GPU is unequivocally the anchor, and the measured FPS figures are a direct reflection of its age and capability relative to the modern CPU it is paired with.