Archeage

Archeage, a 2014 MMORPG, presents an interesting stress test for the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX combination. The data shows a system where the GPU is rarely the limiting factor, with performance scaling that points heavily toward CPU and engine constraints, particularly at lower resolutions and higher settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and somewhat unusual scaling pattern across resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 159.9 FPS, but moving to 1440p only drops this to 142.5 FPS, a modest reduction. At 4K, the average falls to 94.7 FPS. This indicates that at 1080p and 1440p, the workload is not fully stressing the Radeon RX 7900 XTX; the framerate is being capped by other components, likely the six-core i5-9400.

The scaling becomes more pronounced when examining the High settings. From 1080p (135.8 FPS) to 1440p (100.4 FPS), there is a significant 26% drop. Moving to 4K High yields 56 FPS, which is a further 44% reduction from 1440p. This steeper decline at higher settings suggests that while the CPU still plays a role, the GPU is beginning to take on more of the rendering burden, though the absolute numbers remain relatively low for a card of this caliber.

The most telling data point for identifying the bottleneck is the Ultra preset. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 101.7 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, this drops to 69.1 FPS. The jump to 4K Ultra results in a severe reduction to 39.6 FPS. The dramatic falloff from 1440p to 4K at Ultra settings—a 43% decrease—indicates that the game's Ultra preset introduces effects that are particularly taxing on the GPU's resources. However, the fact that 1080p Ultra cannot maintain a framerate close to the 160 FPS seen at Low settings suggests that the game's engine and the CPU are struggling with the increased draw calls and physics calculations associated with the higher preset, preventing the RX 7900 XTX from ever reaching its full potential.

The data shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (159.9 FPS) and Ultra (101.7 FPS) is 58.2 FPS. At 4K, the gap between Low (94.7 FPS) and Ultra (39.6 FPS) is 55.1 FPS, a similar absolute difference but a much larger relative one. This pattern suggests that the CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions masks the GPU's capability, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the primary constraint, yet the overall performance is still far below what the RX 7900 XTX should be capable of, indicating a game engine limitation.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX the main bottleneck in Archeage at 1080p?

A: No. The benchmark results indicate a CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 159.9 FPS, but this is likely limited by the Intel Core i5-9400. When moving from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, the FPS only drops from 159.9 to 142.5, a small change that suggests the GPU has ample headroom and is not being fully utilized.

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-9400 compare to its direct rivals in the database?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305, scores 2300, making the i5-9400 0.2% faster. It also leads the Intel Core i3-1125G4 by 0.2% and the Intel Xeon E-2134 by 0.4%. The only rival it trails is the Intel Core i7-8809G, which is 0.6% ahead.

Q: What is the impact of the Ultra preset on performance?

A: The Ultra preset is exceptionally demanding on this system. At 4K, the average FPS drops to 39.6, which is a 58% reduction compared to the 94.7 FPS seen at 4K Low. Even at 1080p, the Ultra preset (101.7 FPS) is 36% slower than the Low preset (159.9 FPS), showing that this setting creates a significant load on the hardware.

Q: Does the RX 7900 XTX's 24 GB of VRAM provide an advantage in Archeage?

A: The 24 GB of VRAM is far more than Archeage requires at any of the tested settings. The performance drops observed, particularly at 4K Ultra (39.6 FPS), are not attributable to VRAM capacity but rather to the game's engine and the computational load on the GPU's shaders and the CPU's processing power.

Q: What does the combo's rank of 399 out of 1727 indicate?

A: This combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is in the top 23% of all tested combos for Archeage. While it is a strong result, the rank suggests that many other CPU+GPU pairings achieve higher average framerates in this specific title, which is known to be sensitive to single-threaded CPU performance.

Q: Are the measured FPS figures stable or are they averages?

A: The data provides average FPS figures for each resolution and settings combination. No minimum or maximum FPS values were recorded, so the data does not indicate the level of frame time variance or stuttering that may occur during gameplay.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is a flagship GPU built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process. Its specifications include 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 1929 MHz and a boost clock of 2498 MHz. These are formidable specifications, placing it in the 85th percentile of all GPUs.

However, in Archeage, these specifications do not translate into the expected level of performance. The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 31238 is very high, but the measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (101.7 FPS) shows that the card is not the limiting factor. The game's engine appears to be constrained by the CPU's ability to prepare frames. The i5-9400, with its 6 cores and 6 threads, has a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125, which is now considered modest.

The GPU's role becomes more apparent at higher resolutions and settings. The transition from 1440p High (100.4 FPS) to 4K High (56 FPS) shows a substantial performance hit, indicating that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are being utilized more heavily. The 4K Ultra result of 39.6 FPS, while low, still demonstrates the GPU is working harder. The data suggests that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is being held back by the processor in most scenarios, and only at 4K Ultra does the GPU start to become the primary bottleneck, but even then, the absolute performance is underwhelming for a card with 61.39 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX combination holds a rank of 399 out of 1727 tested combos for Archeage. This places it in the upper quartile of all systems. While this is a respectable position, it highlights a significant imbalance in the pairing. The RX 7900 XTX is a top-tier GPU, but the i5-9400 is a mid-range processor from 2018, and its performance relative to rivals is telling.

The i5-9400's average benchmark score of 2305 is nearly identical to its closest rivals, all within a 1% margin. This indicates that the CPU's processing power is not exceptional. The data suggests that a system with a more powerful processor would likely achieve a much higher rank, as the GPU is clearly capable of higher framerates if the CPU could feed it more data. The rank of 399 is therefore a signal of the GPU's ability to brute-force some performance, but it also serves as a warning that the CPU is a severe bottleneck in a CPU-intensive game like Archeage. A pairing with a faster CPU would likely see a significant improvement in both average FPS and overall rank, potentially moving into the top 100 or higher.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers an average of 159.9 FPS on Low settings. This is the highest framerate recorded. Moving up the settings scale, Medium produces 154.1 FPS, High drops to 135.8 FPS, and Ultra falls to 101.7 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 36% performance penalty, which is considerable and points to the CPU struggling with the higher preset's additional draw calls.

At 2560x1440, the framerates are still high but show a clear decline. Low settings average 142.5 FPS, which is a minor drop from the 1080p result. Medium settings achieve 136.9 FPS, while High settings produce 100.4 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p averages 69.1 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at this resolution is significant, suggesting that the High preset introduces a notable increase in GPU load that begins to interact with the CPU bottleneck.

The 3840x2160 results are where the system's limitations become most apparent. Low settings average 94.7 FPS, which is a substantial 34% drop from the 1440p Low result. Medium settings produce 82.5 FPS, and High settings fall to 56 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K averages just 39.6 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay in many scenarios. The performance cliff from 1440p to 4K on High and Ultra settings demonstrates that while the GPU is finally being tasked, the game engine's overhead is still limiting the overall throughput, preventing the RX 7900 XTX from achieving the high framerates its specifications would suggest.