Archeage

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti produces a fascinating dataset in Archeage, a 2014 MMORPG that remains demanding at high resolutions. The benchmark results reveal a system where the GPU’s immense power is frequently throttled by the six-core CPU, creating a performance landscape that shifts dramatically depending on the settings and resolution chosen. The data indicates that the most balanced experience, which avoids the severe frame rate penalties of the Ultra preset while maximizing visual quality, is found at the High settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows show a clear hierarchy across all resolutions, with the Ultra preset imposing a punishing load that the i5-9400 cannot feed adequately. At 1080p, the Ultra preset drops to 87.8 FPS, a significant 29.7% decrease from the High preset’s 125 FPS. This pattern intensifies at higher resolutions, where the Ultra setting at 1440p yields 58.5 FPS and plummets to a stutter-prone 31.7 FPS at 4K. The data suggests that the Ultra preset’s additional graphical demands, likely involving heavy draw calls and physics calculations common in MMORPGs, overwhelm the CPU’s six threads.

Conversely, the High preset offers the best performance-per-visual-quality ratio. It maintains a playable 83.9 FPS at 1440p and 47.4 FPS at 4K, while delivering substantially better visuals than the Low or Medium presets. The Medium preset is a viable alternative, providing 153.9 FPS at 1080p and 126 FPS at 1440p, but the High preset’s gains in fidelity are worth the modest FPS sacrifice. For users with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors, the High preset’s 125 FPS is excellent, while the Low preset’s 162.3 FPS only serves competitive play where visual clarity is sacrificed for maximum responsiveness. The data strongly implies that the High preset is the sweet spot, as it avoids the CPU-bound collapse seen in Ultra while not leaving performance on the table like Low.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 Ti is an absolute powerhouse, evidenced by its 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs and its 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Archeage’s texture and asset streaming. The GPU’s boost clock of 1665 MHz and its 80 RT cores and 320 Tensor cores are largely irrelevant for this older title, but the raw rasterization throughput is massive, with a pixel rate of 186.5 GPixel/s.

The benchmark data shows the GPU’s role shifting with resolution. At 1080p, the GPU is often idle, waiting for the CPU to deliver draw calls; the FPS difference between Low (162.3) and High (125) is only 23%, suggesting the GPU is not the primary constraint. However, at 4K, the GPU’s workload becomes more significant. The High preset at 4K (47.4 FPS) is 62% slower than at 1080p, indicating the GPU is now being pushed harder. Yet, the collapse to 31.7 FPS at 4K Ultra reveals that even this GPU cannot compensate for a CPU that is bottlenecked, as the frame time spikes likely come from the processor’s inability to manage the game’s complex simulations. The 3080 Ti’s 912.4 GB/s bandwidth is the key asset here, allowing it to maintain playable frame rates at 4K High where lesser GPUs would falter.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of 1,727 tested combos for Archeage, this specific pairing of the i5-9400 and RTX 3080 Ti ranks 590th. This places it in the 34th percentile of all tested configurations, which is surprisingly low given the GPU’s pedigree. The ranking is a direct consequence of the CPU bottleneck. The i5-9400, with its 6 cores and 6 threads, lacks the multi-threading capabilities of its contemporaries. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7,969 points places it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs, which is middling for a modern gaming rig.

The GPU’s nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the RTX 3090 (scoring 41,441, a 0.5% delta) and the RTX 5070 (scoring 41,687, a 1.1% delta), all of which are within 1.6% of the 3080 Ti’s average score of 41,224. This indicates that the GPU itself is performing exactly as expected. The low combo rank, therefore, is not a GPU deficiency but a CPU limitation. In a game like Archeage, which is heavily reliant on single-thread performance for game logic and network processing, the i5-9400’s 4.10 GHz boost clock is not enough to unlock the 3080 Ti’s full potential. The data suggests that pairing this GPU with a higher-end CPU would yield a significantly better combo rank, as the GPU’s headroom is being wasted.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset reveals a consistent pattern of diminishing returns as settings increase. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 162.3 FPS, which serves as the baseline. Moving to Medium reduces performance to 153.9 FPS (a 5.2% drop), while High drops further to 125 FPS (a 23% drop from Low). The Ultra preset is the outlier, collapsing to 87.8 FPS, which is a 45.9% reduction from the Low preset. This non-linear scaling indicates a hard bottleneck, likely in the CPU’s memory controller or cache, that is triggered by the Ultra preset’s extreme object counts.

At 2560x1440, the pattern is similar but with lower absolute numbers. Low produces 143.2 FPS, Medium 126 FPS (a 12% drop), High 83.9 FPS (a 41.4% drop), and Ultra 58.5 FPS (a 59.2% drop). The gap between High and Medium widens considerably at 1440p, suggesting the GPU is starting to become a co-limiter alongside the CPU. The most dramatic scaling occurs at 3840x2160. Here, Low yields 80.3 FPS, Medium 72 FPS (a 10.3% drop), High 47.4 FPS (a 41% drop), and Ultra 31.7 FPS (a 60.5% drop). The 4K Ultra number is notably below 60 FPS, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. The data shows that the i5-9400 can maintain a 60+ FPS experience at 4K only on Low settings, which reflects the GPU’s power but also a stark illustration of the CPU’s bottleneck.

FAQ

Q: Is the RTX 3080 Ti being fully utilized by the i5-9400 in Archeage?

A: No. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p, the FPS difference between Low (162.3) and Ultra (87.8) is significant, but the GPU’s 83rd percentile ranking and high compute scores (34.10 TFLOPS) suggest it has far more headroom. The CPU’s 50th percentile ranking indicates it is the limiting factor, preventing the GPU from reaching its full potential.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to achieve a stable 60 FPS?

A: The data shows that at 1440p, the High preset (83.9 FPS) and Medium preset (126 FPS) both exceed 60 FPS. At 4K, only the Low preset (80.3 FPS) and Medium preset (72 FPS) exceed the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset fails to reach 60 FPS at any resolution.

Q: How does the Ultra preset impact performance compared to High?

A: The Ultra preset imposes a severe performance penalty across all resolutions. At 1080p, it drops from 125 FPS (High) to 87.8 FPS, a 29.7% reduction. At 1440p, the drop is from 83.9 FPS to 58.5 FPS (30.3% reduction), and at 4K, it falls from 47.4 FPS to 31.7 FPS (33.1% reduction). This suggests the Ultra preset introduces CPU-heavy effects that the i5-9400 cannot handle.

Q: Is this combo more CPU-bound or GPU-bound at 1080p?

A: The data indicates a strong CPU bottleneck at 1080p. The FPS range from 162.3 (Low) to 87.8 (Ultra) is wide, but the GPU is capable of much higher frame rates in other titles. The CPU’s 6 cores and 6 threads, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7,969, are likely struggling with Archeage’s MMO-specific simulation and draw calls.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory bandwidth, and does it help in this game?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has a 384-bit bus and 12 GB of GDDR6X memory, providing 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a very high figure that helps maintain texture streaming at 4K, as evidenced by the 4K High preset still achieving 47.4 FPS despite the CPU bottleneck.

Q: Does the combo’s rank of 590 out of 1727 indicate a problem?

A: Yes, the rank is low for a GPU of this caliber. The GPU’s nearest rivals (RTX 3090, RTX 5070) have nearly identical average scores, but the combo rank suggests the CPU is holding back the system. A higher-ranked combo would likely pair this GPU with a CPU that has better single-thread performance and more threads.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 9 MB of shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 7,969, placing it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs, which is average. The single-core score of 1,125 points is more relevant for gaming, but it is not exceptional. The CPU’s memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s, which is modest compared to the GPU’s 912.4 GB/s.

In Archeage, the CPU’s role is critical. The game’s engine, released in 2014, relies heavily on a single main thread for game logic, pathfinding, and network synchronization. The i5-9400’s lack of hyper-threading means it has only 6 threads, and the benchmark data shows this is insufficient for the Ultra preset. The collapse from High to Ultra at 1080p (125 to 87.8 FPS) is likely due to the CPU’s threads being saturated with additional AI and physics tasks. The CPU’s 4.10 GHz boost clock helps maintain decent frame rates at lower settings, but the processor’s 65 W TDP and lack of an unlocked multiplier prevent any meaningful overclocking to alleviate the bottleneck. The data clearly shows that this CPU is the limiting component in this pairing, especially at 1080p where the GPU is often idle.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K provides a clear picture of where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 125 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the FPS drops to 83.9 FPS, a 32.9% reduction. At 4K High, the FPS falls to 47.4 FPS, a 62.1% reduction from 1080p. This scaling is steeper than what would be expected if the GPU were the only limiting factor, suggesting that the CPU’s load does not decrease as resolution increases; in fact, the CPU must still process the same number of objects, but the GPU takes longer to render each frame, exacerbating the CPU’s wait time.

For the Low preset, the scaling is less severe: 162.3 FPS at 1080p, 143.2 FPS at 1440p (an 11.8% drop), and 80.3 FPS at 4K (a 50.5% drop). This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is more capable of feeding the GPU, and the FPS drop is more closely tied to the GPU’s pixel throughput. The Ultra preset shows the worst scaling: 87.8 FPS at 1080p, 58.5 FPS at 1440p (a 33.4% drop), and 31.7 FPS at 4K (a 63.9% drop). The massive drop at 4K Ultra, to below 32 FPS, confirms that the CPU cannot maintain a steady frame pacing under the heaviest load. The data implies that the i5-9400 is the primary limiter at 1080p and 1440p, while at 4K, the GPU begins to share the burden, but the CPU still prevents the system from achieving playable frame rates on the Ultra preset. The system is effectively CPU-bound until the resolution is high enough to make the GPU the co-equal bottleneck, but even then, the CPU’s limitations cap the maximum performance.