Archeage

Archeage is an older MMORPG that still presents a meaningful challenge to modern hardware, and the pairing of the Intel Core i7-13700K with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 shows a clear divide between CPU and GPU responsibility. The data indicates that this combination is firmly GPU-limited at higher settings and resolutions, but the powerful CPU ensures that the game never becomes unplayable due to processor bottlenecks. The benchmark results provide a clear picture of how to prioritize settings for the best experience on this specific hardware.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frames per second (FPS) data strongly suggests that the Medium preset is the optimal choice for this combination, as it delivers a substantial performance boost over High settings while maintaining a playable frame rate across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium produces an average of 95.1 FPS, which is a 53.4% improvement over the High preset’s 62 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is also significant, with Medium only 10.1 FPS behind Low’s 105.2 FPS, indicating that the visual quality gains from Medium are nearly free in terms of performance cost.

For users with 2560x1440 monitors, the Medium preset remains the most balanced choice, yielding 61.7 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and represents a 51.2% increase over the High preset’s 40.8 FPS. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it drops to 41.2 FPS at 1080p and 16.4 FPS at 4K, making it the least efficient setting in terms of performance per frame. The data shows that Ultra is essentially a visual showcase mode that sacrifices too much playability, with the 1080p Ultra score being 66.2% lower than Medium.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the only viable option for a semi-playable experience, averaging 35.2 FPS. While this is below the ideal 60 FPS target, it is more than double the High preset’s 23.8 FPS and significantly better than Ultra’s 16.4 FPS. The Low preset at 4K, at 43.5 FPS, is the only setting that approaches playability, but the visual degradation is likely too severe for most users. The practical recommendation is to use Medium for all resolutions, as it provides the best compromise between visual fidelity and frame rate consistency.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the primary limiting factor in this configuration, as evidenced by the drastic FPS drops when moving from Low to Ultra settings. The GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game’s textures at Medium settings but becomes strained at higher presets. The core clock boost of 1683 MHz, with a base of 1506 MHz, is the Pascal architecture’s standard operating range, and the data shows that this card’s 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is simply not enough to handle Ultra settings in Archeage.

The performance scaling from Low to Medium is relatively gentle, with only a 9.6% drop at 1080p (from 105.2 to 95.1 FPS), which suggests that the GPU has headroom to handle the additional shading work. However, the jump to High causes a 34.8% performance hit at 1080p, indicating that the game’s High preset introduces effects that heavily tax the 1920 shading units and 120 texture mapping units. The GTX 1070’s 64 ROPs are also a potential bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the pixel fill rate of 107.7 GPixel/s becomes insufficient to maintain frame rates at 4K.

The GPU’s end-of-life production status and its percentile ranking of 51 among all GPUs place it in the middle of the pack, which explains why it struggles in a demanding MMORPG scenario. At 4K Ultra, the card produces only 16.4 FPS, which is a 84.4% reduction from the 1080p Low score. This indicates that the GPU is completely overwhelmed by the combination of high resolution and maximum settings, and the memory bandwidth becomes a critical constraint.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario, where the CPU’s performance is sufficient but the graphics card cannot keep up with the increasing pixel count. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 105.2 at 1920x1080 to 70.6 at 2560x1440 (a 32.9% reduction) and then to 43.5 at 3840x2160 (a 58.6% reduction from 1080p). This scaling is almost perfectly linear with the pixel count increase, which is the hallmark of a GPU-limited workload.

At Medium settings, the drop is similarly steep: 95.1 FPS at 1080p falls to 61.7 FPS at 1440p (35.1% lower) and 35.2 FPS at 4K (63.0% lower). The consistency of these percentage drops across different settings confirms that the CPU is not the bottleneck, as the Intel Core i7-13700K’s performance would not cause such uniform scaling. The CPU’s 16 cores and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, are more than capable of feeding the GPU at all resolutions, as evidenced by the CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking among all processors.

The high-resolution performance is particularly telling at Ultra settings, where the 4K score of 16.4 FPS is only 39.8% of the 1080p score of 41.2 FPS. This disproportionate drop suggests that the GTX 1070’s memory subsystem, with its 8 GB capacity and 256.3 GB/s bandwidth, is insufficient for the texture and effect demands of Ultra at 4K. The data indicates that resolution scaling is the primary factor determining playability, and users should expect to reduce settings when moving to higher resolution displays.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core i7-13700K and GTX 1070 combination delivers its best results. The Low preset averages 105.2 FPS, which is the highest score across all configurations. Medium comes close at 95.1 FPS, while High drops to 62 FPS. Ultra is the weakest at 41.2 FPS, showing a 60.8% reduction compared to Low. The gap between Medium and High is 33.1 FPS, which is the largest single-setting jump at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers. Low produces 70.6 FPS, Medium 61.7 FPS, High 40.8 FPS, and Ultra 31.4 FPS. The Medium to High drop of 20.9 FPS is proportionally similar to the 1080p result, reinforcing the GPU’s role as the limiting factor. The Ultra preset at 1440p, at 31.4 FPS, is just barely above the 4K Medium score of 35.2 FPS, which is notable for users considering high refresh rate 1440p monitors.

At 3840x2160, the data shows a steep decline. Low averages 43.5 FPS, Medium 35.2 FPS, High 23.8 FPS, and Ultra 16.4 FPS. The Low preset is the only one that approaches playability, but even it is below the 60 FPS threshold. The difference between Medium and High at 4K is 11.4 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at lower resolutions but represents a 32.4% performance loss. This suggests that the GPU is running out of memory bandwidth at 4K, making the High preset’s additional effects particularly costly.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 1471 out of 1727 tested combos in Archeage, placing it in the bottom 15% of all configurations. This low ranking is primarily due to the GPU’s mid-tier performance, as the CPU is a top-tier component. The i7-13700K itself has an average benchmark score of 47282, which puts it at the 93rd percentile, just 0.1% behind the Intel Core i7-13700KF and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i9-12900F. In contrast, the GTX 1070’s average score of 12331 places it at the 51st percentile, with its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER, being 1.4% faster.

The ranking disparity is stark when considering the CPU’s potential. The i7-13700K’s multicore performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 at 39000, is exceptional, but this does not translate to Archeage performance because the game is not CPU-bound in this configuration. The combo rank of 1471 suggests that users with this CPU could achieve much higher rankings by pairing it with a more powerful GPU. The data indicates that the GTX 1070 is holding back the i7-13700K, as the CPU’s single-thread score of 4333 in Passmark and its 3DMark single-thread score of 1136 are more than sufficient for this game’s demands.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for a smooth 60 FPS experience at 1080p?

A: The Medium preset delivers an average of 95.1 FPS at 1920x1080, which is well above 60 FPS. The High preset drops to 62 FPS, which is close to the threshold but less consistent. The Low preset offers 105.2 FPS but with reduced visual quality.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The GPU is clearly the bottleneck. The FPS scaling from Low to Ultra at any resolution shows significant drops that are consistent with GPU limitations. The Intel Core i7-13700K’s performance, with its 93rd percentile ranking, is not the limiting factor.

Q: Can this combo handle 1440p gaming?

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings, which produces 61.7 FPS. The High preset at 1440p drops to 40.8 FPS, and Ultra is at 31.4 FPS, both of which are below the ideal 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the GTX 1070 compare to its nearest rivals in terms of average score?

A: The GTX 1070 has an average benchmark score of 12331. It is 0.7% faster than the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 and 1.3% slower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M, showing it is tightly clustered with mid-range competitors.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra at 4K?

A: The Low preset at 3840x2160 averages 43.5 FPS, while Ultra averages 16.4 FPS. This represents a 62.3% reduction in performance, making Ultra essentially unplayable at this resolution.

Q: Why is the combo ranking so low despite having a high-end CPU?

A: The combo ranks 1471 out of 1727 because the GTX 1070 is a mid-range GPU (51st percentile). The i7-13700K is at the 93rd percentile, but the GPU’s performance ceiling limits the overall combination in this GPU-bound game.