Archeage

# Archeage with Intel Core i9-14900K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

The measured FPS data for Archeage with this Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination reveals a clear pattern: performance scales dramatically with resolution and settings, but the relationship is far from linear. At 1080p Low, the combo pushes 211 FPS, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 33 FPS — a 6.4x spread that tells a story about where the bottlenecks lie in this 2014-era MMORPG running on modern hardware. The combo ranks 863rd out of 3,708 tested combinations, placing it in the top 23% of all tested system configurations for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior here is striking. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, average FPS drops from 127 to 86 — a 32% reduction. The subsequent jump to 3840x2160 at High settings brings the average down to 49 FPS, another 43% drop from the 1440p figure. This accelerating decline suggests the GPU becomes progressively more saturated as pixel count increases, which is expected behavior for a demanding 4K workload.

However, the scaling pattern changes dramatically when examining Low settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 211 FPS. At 1440p Low, it still maintains 142 FPS (a 33% drop), and at 4K Low, it falls to 81 FPS (another 43% drop). The percentage reductions are nearly identical between High and Low settings across resolution steps, which indicates that the resolution scaling penalty is consistent regardless of quality preset. This consistency points to a well-behaved rendering pipeline where pixel count, not scene complexity, dominates the performance curve.

The Medium settings tier tells a similar story with slightly different absolute numbers: 187 FPS at 1080p, 126 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K. The min/max FPS data available for Medium settings shows a spread of 56 FPS at 1080p (159 to 215), 38 FPS at 1440p (107 to 145), and 22 FPS at 4K (61 to 83). The narrowing FPS range at higher resolutions suggests that frame time variance decreases as the GPU becomes the limiting factor — at lower resolutions, the CPU has more headroom to cause frame pacing inconsistencies.

Ultra settings present the most extreme scaling: 87 FPS at 1080p, 58 FPS at 1440p, and just 33 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p on Ultra is 33%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 43% — mirroring the pattern seen in other presets. What is notable is that Ultra at 4K produces less than half the frame rate of High at 4K (33 vs 49 FPS), suggesting that Ultra enables particularly expensive effects that disproportionately impact higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: Does this combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K?

A: At Medium settings, 4K averages 72 FPS with a minimum of 61 FPS, which is playable. High settings at 4K drop to 49 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 33 FPS — the latter being marginal for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the highest FPS this configuration can achieve in Archeage?

A: The measured maximum average is 211 FPS at 1080p with Low settings. The highest recorded frame during testing was 215 FPS, observed at 1080p Medium settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: The loss is consistent across presets: roughly 33% for Low (211 to 142), High (127 to 86), and Ultra (87 to 58). Medium settings lose slightly more at 33% (187 to 126).

Q: Is the RTX 4070's 12 GB VRAM sufficient for 4K in this game?

A: The data shows playable results at 4K Medium (72 FPS average), indicating the 12 GB frame buffer handles the game's demands at that resolution, though Ultra settings at 4K drop to 33 FPS, which may be VRAM or compute limited.

Q: How does the CPU influence results at lower resolutions?

A: The Intel Core i9-14900K's high single-thread performance (2,262.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core) appears to keep 1080p Low at 211 FPS, but the drop to 142 FPS at 1440p Low suggests the GPU becomes more limiting as resolution increases.

Q: What is the best resolution-to-settings balance for smooth gameplay?

A: At 1440p Medium, the system delivers 126 FPS average with a 107 FPS minimum, which offers the best combination of visual quality and performance headroom for a 1440p display.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. Its 35,800 million transistors are packed into a 294 mm² die, yielding a transistor density of 121.8 million per mm². The GPU operates at a base clock of 1920 MHz and boosts to 2475 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). This configuration produces 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, backed by 5888 shading units and 184 texture mapping units.

The memory subsystem consists of 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This bandwidth proves adequate for Archeage at 4K Medium (72 FPS) but seems to constrain Ultra settings at 4K (33 FPS). The GPU's 64 ROPs produce a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s, which partially explains the steep decline at 4K — rendering 8.3 million pixels per frame at 4K versus 2.1 million at 1080p requires proportionally more pixel throughput.

The RTX 4070's benchmark scores place it in the 81st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37,648. Its nearest rival in synthetic testing is the NVIDIA Tesla P4 at 37,628 (0.1% behind), followed by the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 at 37,507 (0.4% behind). The RTX 4080 Mobile scores 38,135, which is 1.3% ahead of the 4070. These close synthetic scores suggest the 4070 sits in a competitive mid-range tier, yet the Archeage data shows it can deliver 211 FPS at 1080p Low — indicating the game is not heavily GPU-bound at lower resolutions.

The GPU's DirectX 12 benchmark result of 103 in PassMark is notably lower than its DirectX 11 score of 244, suggesting the Ada Lovelace architecture may not be optimally utilized in legacy API paths. Archeage's 2014 release date means it likely uses an older DirectX version, which could explain why the GPU's modern architecture doesn't fully shine in this title.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured data across all presets, the Medium settings tier consistently offers the best balance of performance and visual quality. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers 187 FPS average with a tight 159-215 FPS range — this is effectively a locked high-refresh experience. At 1440p Medium, the 126 FPS average with a 107 FPS minimum keeps gameplay smooth on 1440p displays at 120Hz.

High settings at 1080p produce 127 FPS average, which is still excellent but represents a 32% drop from Medium — the visual uplift may not justify losing 60 FPS. At 1440p High, 86 FPS average remains playable but falls short of the Medium tier's consistency. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields 87 FPS, which is the same as High at 1440p, making Ultra at 1080p comparable to High at 1440p in performance terms.

For 4K displays, Medium settings at 72 FPS average (61 FPS minimum) is the only tier that provides a consistently playable experience. High at 4K (49 FPS) dips below the 60 FPS threshold, and Ultra at 4K (33 FPS) is only suitable for slow-paced content. Low settings at any resolution provide the highest frame rates but sacrifice visual fidelity that the game's 2014-era graphics already limit.

The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo: it offers the largest performance margin over High while maintaining acceptable visual quality. For competitive play, 1080p Low at 211 FPS gives the maximum frame rate possible with this hardware. For immersive play, 1440p Medium at 126 FPS offers the best compromise between sharpness and smoothness.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the configuration demonstrates its peak performance range. Low settings achieve an average of 211 FPS, which is the highest measured average across all resolutions and presets. Medium settings deliver 187 FPS average with a minimum of 159 and maximum of 215 FPS — the maximum recorded frame rate for the entire dataset. High settings produce 127 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 87 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 124 FPS, showing how dramatically settings impact performance at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the performance hierarchy remains consistent but compressed. Low settings average 142 FPS, Medium averages 126 FPS with a 107-145 FPS range, High averages 86 FPS, and Ultra averages 58 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 84 FPS at 1440p, indicating the GPU's increasing limitation at higher pixel counts. The Medium preset at 1440p provides a minimum of 107 FPS, which comfortably exceeds the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the configuration shows its limitations. Low settings average 81 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 62% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings average 72 FPS with a 61-83 FPS range — the minimum of 61 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold. High settings drop to 49 FPS average, falling below the smoothness threshold. Ultra settings produce only 33 FPS average, making 4K Ultra effectively unplayable for action-oriented content. The transition from 1440p to 4K costs roughly 43-45% of performance across all presets, a consistent penalty that reflects the 2.25x pixel count increase.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K provides substantial computational headroom for Archeage. With 24 cores and 32 threads, it offers massive parallel throughput, scoring 39,399.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 21,697 in Geekbench multi-core. Its single-thread performance is equally impressive: 2,262.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 2,655 in Geekbench single-core. The CPU's 95th percentile ranking among all processors reflects its top-tier status.

The CPU's architecture uses Raptor Lake-R with a 10 nm process from Intel, featuring a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. The 36 MB of shared L3 cache, combined with 2 MB L2 cache per core, helps feed data to the cores efficiently. This cache hierarchy is likely beneficial for Archeage's MMO workloads, which often involve large numbers of players and objects in a single scene, creating heavy draw call and physics overhead.

The PassMark single-thread score of 4,697 and multi-thread score of 58,674 indicate exceptional per-core performance. For an MMORPG like Archeage, which historically relies heavily on single-thread performance for game logic and network processing, the i9-14900K's strong single-thread capabilities are crucial. The CPU's 32 threads handle background tasks and other players' actions in crowded zones, while its high boost clock maintains responsiveness in demanding scenarios.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 211 FPS — a figure that likely approaches the CPU's limit for this game's engine. The fact that 1440p Low drops to 142 FPS suggests that even at modest resolutions, the GPU begins to take over as the primary bottleneck. The CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks — 6,103 in Cinebench R15 multi-core and 324.5 in single-core — reinforces its capability to drive high frame rates in less GPU-intensive scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

In the Archeage benchmark database, this Intel Core i9-14900K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination ranks 863rd out of 3,708 tested configurations. This places it in the top 23.3% of all tested combos, which is a strong showing for a mid-to-high-end pairing. The rank reflects the system's ability to deliver playable frame rates across most resolutions and settings, with the 4K Ultra being the primary weak point.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for this ranking. The Intel Core i9-14900KF scores 79,371, which is 0.3% lower than the i9-14900K's 79,097 average benchmark score — effectively identical performance. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus scores 79,574 (0.6% lower), while the AMD EPYC 7413 scores 80,041 (1.2% lower). The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 scores 77,740, which is 1.7% higher than the i9-14900K. These close margins indicate the CPU is not a differentiating factor in this combo's ranking.

The GPU's synthetic rivalries are similarly tight. The RTX 4070's average benchmark score of 37,648 places it just 0.1% behind the Tesla P4 (37,628) and 0.4% ahead of the RX Vega 56 (37,507). The RTX 4080 Mobile scores 38,135, putting it 1.3% ahead. This clustering suggests that the GPU's performance tier is well-established, and the Archeage ranking of 863rd likely reflects the combination's overall balance rather than any single component's exceptional performance.

The 4K Medium result of 72 FPS and 1080p Low result of 211 FPS demonstrate the combo's versatility across resolution targets. The ranking of 863rd out of 3,708 means that 2,845 other configurations perform worse in this game, while 862 perform better. Given the CPU's 95th percentile ranking and GPU's 81st percentile ranking, the combo's top-23% game-specific ranking is slightly below what the component percentiles might suggest — likely due to Archeage's age and its potential inefficiency on modern hardware.