Archeage

# Archeage with Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The pairing of Intel's Core Ultra 5 235 with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 in Archeage produces a fascinating dataset that reveals a game heavily constrained by its 2014 engine roots rather than modern hardware limits. Across 12 measured configurations spanning three resolutions and four quality presets, the results show a system capable of extreme frame rates at lower settings, yet one that stumbles under the weight of Ultra preset demands at 4K. This analysis breaks down what the measurements indicate about CPU scaling, GPU headroom, and where the optimal experience lies for this MMORPG.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck sits in this combination. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 300 FPS at 1920x1080 to 205 FPS at 2560x1440 — a 31.7% reduction — and then to 117 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 61% total decline from the 1080p baseline. This steep curve suggests that even at Low settings, the RTX 5090's immense rendering capabilities are being progressively taxed as pixel count rises, though the absolute numbers remain exceptionally high throughout.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern with 271 FPS at 1080p, 183 FPS at 1440p (a 32.5% drop), and 105 FPS at 4K (a 61.3% drop from 1080p). Notably, the 1440p-to-4K transition for Medium costs 78 FPS, while the 1080p-to-1440p step costs 88 FPS — indicating fairly consistent scaling per resolution increment. However, the High preset tells a different story: 184 FPS at 1080p, 124 FPS at 1440p (32.6% drop), and 71 FPS at 4K (61.4% drop from 1080p). The proportional losses are nearly identical across Low, Medium, and High, suggesting a uniform rendering load increase.

The Ultra preset behaves anomalously. Starting at 126 FPS at 1080p, it drops 32.5% to 85 FPS at 1440p, then plummets to 48 FPS at 4K — a 43.5% drop from 1440p and a 61.9% decline from the 1080p figure. This sharper falloff at 4K Ultra points to the GPU being pushed to its limits by Archeage's Ultra settings, which likely include effects that scale super-linearly with resolution. The fact that 4K Ultra yields only 48 FPS — barely above the 30 FPS playability threshold for many players — while 1080p Ultra achieves 126 FPS indicates that resolution scaling on Ultra is not a linear relationship.

The data implies that at 1080p and 1440p across all presets except Ultra, the CPU is likely the limiting factor, particularly at Low settings where 300 FPS at 1080p suggests the RTX 5090 is far from saturated. The consistent ~61% total drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets reveals that Archeage's engine applies resolution scaling in a remarkably uniform fashion, regardless of quality level — a sign of fixed rendering pipeline costs that dominate at higher pixel counts.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows offer a clear hierarchy for players prioritizing smoothness versus visual fidelity. At 4K, the Medium preset delivers 105 FPS average with a minimum of 89 FPS and maximum of 120 FPS, making it the highest quality setting that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. The High preset at 4K drops to 71 FPS, which remains playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes typical of MMORPG combat with many players on screen. Ultra at 4K falls to 48 FPS, which many would consider marginal for a game where reaction times matter.

At 1440p, the picture improves substantially. High settings produce 124 FPS average, while Medium reaches 183 FPS with a minimum of 155 FPS and maximum of 210 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p delivers 85 FPS, which is perfectly playable and offers the best balance of visual quality and performance at this resolution. Given that 1080p Ultra achieves 126 FPS, the 1440p Ultra figure of 85 FPS represents a 32.5% penalty for the resolution increase — a reasonable trade-off for sharper imagery.

For 1080p, the data shows that Ultra settings at 126 FPS are entirely viable, and even the most demanding configuration in the entire dataset — 1080p Ultra — clears the 120 FPS threshold that many competitive players target. The Low preset at 1080p hits 300 FPS, which is likely beyond what any display can show and suggests the CPU is the ceiling at this point. The Medium preset's minimum of 231 FPS at 1080p indicates exceptional frame pacing stability, with the 271 FPS average representing a 40 FPS gap between average and minimum — a variance that could indicate occasional CPU hitches in busy areas.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the target display. For 4K users, Medium is the sweet spot, offering 105 FPS average and staying above 89 FPS even in worst-case measured scenarios. For 1440p users, Ultra at 85 FPS provides the full visual experience without sacrificing smoothness. For 1080p users, the Ultra preset at 126 FPS is the obvious choice, as it delivers maximum quality at frame rates that exceed nearly all 1080p displays' refresh capabilities.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 brings 14 cores and 14 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. This configuration — notably lacking Hyper-Threading, as the thread count equals the core count — presents an interesting profile for Archeage, a 2014 MMORPG that likely does not scale across many threads. The CPU's L3 cache totals 24 MB shared, with 3 MB L2 per core and 192 KB L1 per core, providing ample cache for a game that predates modern multi-threaded engines.

Benchmark data for the Ultra 5 235 shows strong single-thread performance: 2085 in Cinebench R23 single-core, 875 in R20 single-core, and 210 in R15 single-core. These scores place the CPU in the 89th percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 46062. The nearest rivals — AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 at 46030 (0.1% slower), Intel Core i9-13900HX at 46098 (0.1% faster), AMD EPYC 4364P at 45970 (0.2% slower), and AMD EPYC 7303 at 45960 (0.2% slower) — all cluster within a 0.3% band, indicating this CPU sits in a tightly contested performance tier.

The 1080p Low result of 300 FPS is particularly revealing. This is almost certainly a CPU-limited scenario, as the RTX 5090 can render far more than 300 FPS in low-complexity scenes. The fact that 1080p Medium reaches 271 FPS and 1080p High reaches 184 FPS shows that as settings increase, the GPU gradually takes over the bottleneck, but the CPU's ceiling is clearly above 300 FPS in this game. The 14 threads may help with background tasks and game logic, but Archeage's core rendering loop appears to be lightly threaded, given the near-linear FPS scaling with resolution at Low settings.

The CPU's PassMark integer math score of 87948 and floating point math score of 117951 suggest robust compute capabilities that exceed what a 2014 MMORPG would require. The data compression score of 390711 and encryption score of 29293 further indicate a well-rounded processor. However, the single-thread PassMark score of 4516 is the more relevant metric for Archeage, and it aligns with the observed high frame rates at low resolutions where single-thread performance dominates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core Ultra 5 235 and RTX 5090 in Archeage achieves a rank of 38 out of 2761 tested combos, placing it in the top 1.4% of all configurations in this database. This ranking is notable because it exceeds what the individual component percentiles might suggest — the CPU sits in the 89th percentile versus all CPUs, and the GPU in the 92nd percentile versus all GPUs, yet their combined performance in this specific game outperforms 98.6% of all tested pairings.

The rank of 38 out of 2761 means 37 other CPU-GPU combinations produce higher average frame rates in Archeage. Given the RTX 5090's position as a flagship GPU — with a launch MSRP of 1,999 USD — the fact that it does not rank first in this game highlights how CPU-bound Archeage can be at lower resolutions. The GPU's nearest rivals in aggregate benchmarks — NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (0.3% higher score), Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (0.6% higher), AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (1.1% higher), and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (1.4% lower) — are all older or different-class products, yet the RTX 5090's raw benchmark lead does not translate into a dominant Archeage position.

The gap between the combination's rank and the GPU's raw power suggests that Archeage's engine has fundamental limits that even the most powerful hardware cannot overcome. The 4K Ultra result of 48 FPS, despite the RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth, points to software inefficiencies rather than hardware constraints. The combo's rank of 38 indicates that other pairings with faster CPUs or better-optimized configurations achieve higher frame rates, particularly in CPU-bound scenarios at 1080p.

This ranking also implies that players seeking the absolute highest frame rates in Archeage might benefit more from CPU upgrades than GPU upgrades, given that the RTX 5090 is already near the top of GPU performance charts. The 92nd percentile GPU ranking versus the combo's 98.6th percentile game rank suggests that the combination is well-balanced for this specific title, even if it does not top the charts.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a formidable piece of hardware: 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus providing 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, with a boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz. The GPU's 21760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. Its 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance places it among the fastest consumer GPUs ever produced, with a 92nd percentile ranking versus all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 79842.

In Archeage, the GPU's role becomes increasingly prominent as resolution and settings rise. At 4K Ultra, the 48 FPS result — a 61.9% drop from 1080p Ultra's 126 FPS — demonstrates that the RTX 5090 is being pushed hard by the game's most demanding configuration. The 32 GB VRAM is far more than Archeage requires, given that even 4K Ultra textures would likely use less than 16 GB, so memory capacity is not a limiting factor. The memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, however, may play a role in the 4K scaling, as higher resolutions increase memory traffic.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 39650 and DirectX 12 score of 185 indicate strong DirectX performance, which is relevant since Archeage likely utilizes DX11 or DX12 features. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 376728 and OpenCL score of 334370 show the GPU's compute capabilities are robust, though these are unlikely to impact Archeage directly. The RTX 5090's 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are effectively unused in this MMORPG, as Archeage predates ray tracing and DLSS integration.

The GPU's 5 nm process node, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, represents current-generation manufacturing. The 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU indicate significant power requirements, but the measured FPS data shows that the GPU's thermal and power headroom is sufficient for sustained high frame rates. The fact that 1080p Low achieves 300 FPS — likely a CPU cap — while 4K Ultra achieves 48 FPS suggests the GPU has a wide performance envelope in this game, constrained primarily by the engine's rendering efficiency at high settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measurements span a wide range. The Low preset delivers an average of 300 FPS, with no minimum or maximum recorded. Medium settings produce 271 FPS average, 231 FPS minimum, and 312 FPS maximum. High settings average 184 FPS. Ultra settings average 126 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 174 FPS, representing a 58% reduction from Low to Ultra — a substantial penalty for the extra visual features.

At 2560x1440, the values shift downward predictably. Low settings average 205 FPS. Medium settings produce 183 FPS average, 155 FPS minimum, and 210 FPS maximum. High settings average 124 FPS. Ultra settings average 85 FPS. The 1440p results show a 120 FPS difference between Low and Ultra, with the Low-to-Medium gap of 22 FPS being notably smaller than the Medium-to-High gap of 59 FPS — indicating that High settings introduce a significant rendering cost.

At 3840x2160, the performance envelope tightens considerably. Low settings average 117 FPS. Medium settings produce 105 FPS average, 89 FPS minimum, and 120 FPS maximum. High settings average 71 FPS. Ultra settings average 48 FPS. The 4K data reveals a 69 FPS spread from Low to Ultra, with the Medium-to-High drop of 34 FPS being the largest single-step reduction in the entire dataset. The 4K Ultra result of 48 FPS is the only measured configuration to fall below 60 FPS, and it barely clears the 30 FPS threshold for acceptable playability.

The minimum FPS data, available only for Medium settings, shows that 4K Medium has a 16 FPS gap between average (105) and minimum (89), 1440p Medium has a 28 FPS gap (183 to 155), and 1080p Medium has a 40 FPS gap (271 to 231). This pattern suggests that as resolution decreases, the variance in frame times increases, likely due to CPU bottlenecks causing occasional stutters at higher frame rates. The maximum FPS values for Medium — 120 at 4K, 210 at 1440p, and 312 at 1080p — indicate that the GPU can burst well above average in simple scenes, but sustained performance is more conservative.

FAQ

Q: What is the best 4K setting for this CPU-GPU combo in Archeage?

A: The Medium preset at 4K delivers 105 FPS average with a minimum of 89 FPS, making it the highest quality setting that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. High settings drop to 71 FPS, and Ultra falls to 48 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 the bottleneck in Archeage at 1080p?

A: No. The 1080p Low result of 300 FPS is likely CPU-limited, as the RTX 5090 can render far more frames in low-complexity scenes. The CPU's single-thread performance — 2085 in Cinebench R23 single-core — becomes the limiting factor at lower resolutions.

Q: How does the combo rank against other tested configurations?

A: This combination ranks 38th out of 2761 tested combos in Archeage, placing it in the top 1.4% of all pairings. The CPU is in the 89th percentile versus all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 92nd percentile versus all GPUs.

Q: What explains the large FPS drop from 1080p to 4K on Ultra settings?

A: Ultra settings at 4K produce 48 FPS versus 126 FPS at 1080p, a 61.9% decline. This steeper falloff compared to other presets suggests Ultra settings include effects that scale super-linearly with resolution, pushing the GPU harder than the uniform ~61% drop seen on Low, Medium, and High.

Q: Does the CPU's lack of Hyper-Threading affect Archeage performance?

A: The Ultra 5 235 has 14 cores and 14 threads, meaning no Hyper-Threading. However, Archeage, released in 2014, likely does not scale across many threads, so the single-thread performance — 4516 in PassMark single-thread — is more relevant than thread count.

Q: What are the measured minimum FPS values for Medium settings?

A: At 4K Medium, the minimum is 89 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 155 FPS; and at 1080p Medium, it is 231 FPS. These values indicate that frame pacing is more consistent at higher resolutions, with the 1080p Medium showing a 40 FPS gap between average and minimum.