Barony

Barony is a light roguelike workload, and the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B570 handles it without difficulty at mainstream resolutions. The recorded data shows the combination clearing the 60 FPS playable threshold at every preset at 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, and at two of four presets at 3840x2160. This is a clear pass for a game released in mid-2015 running on modern discrete graphics hardware.

FAQ

Q: Can the Intel Core i5-9400 with an Intel Arc B570 run Barony at 60 FPS?

A: Yes. At 1920x1080 the combo averages 245 FPS on Low, 182 FPS on Medium, 156 FPS on High, and 112 FPS on Ultra, so every preset clears the 60 FPS threshold with a wide margin. At 2560x1440 the averages are 154, 115, 99, and 71 FPS from Low to Ultra, again all above 60. Only at 3840x2160 does the threshold start to bite: High averages 52 FPS and Ultra averages 37 FPS, both below the bar, while Medium lands exactly at 60 FPS.

Q: What is the single highest preset this pairing can use while staying at or above 60 FPS?

A: Ultra at 2560x1440, with an average of 71 FPS. That is the most demanding combination of resolution and settings recorded above the threshold. At 4K the best qualifying preset is Medium at 60 FPS on the nose.

Q: Is this combo a strong pairing for Barony relative to everything else tested?

A: It sits in the middle of the field. The pairing ranks 2985 out of 3717 tested combinations for this game, which places it below the top performers in the database but comfortably inside the range that plays Barony well, since even its weakest qualifying result (Medium at 4K) meets the 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the Core i5-9400 compare to similar CPUs in the database?

A: It is effectively dead even with its nearest rivals. The i7-1068NG7 scores within a fraction of a percent of it, as do the i7-10710U, the Ryzen 5 PRO 1500, and the i3-10305. All four sit within half a percent of the i5-9400's average benchmark result, so CPU-side differences among these chips will not change the Barony experience.

Q: How capable is the Arc B570 on its own merits?

A: It ranks in the 65th percentile of all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 20556. Its closest competitors, the GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, the Arc A750, the Quadro M4000M, and the Radeon R9 M390X, all land within half a percent of that average, meaning the B570 performs in the same bracket as a well-established mid-tier discrete card.

Q: Does Barony favor the CPU or the GPU in this pairing?

A: The GPU. The i5-9400 sits in the 47th percentile of all CPUs, but Barony's light rendering load means the Arc B570's headroom, not the processor, determines how high the frame rates climb and which presets stay playable at each resolution.

CPU and GPU Roles

For Barony on this pairing, the GPU is the component that shapes the experience, and the scaling data makes that unambiguous. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on Ultra drops the average from 112 FPS to 71 FPS, and moving up to 3840x2160 drops it further to 37 FPS. That resolution-driven falloff, roughly a 36 percent loss going from 1080p to 1440p and another large step to 4K, is the classic signature of a GPU-limited workload: the frame rate tracks the pixel count rather than the processor's ceiling.

The CPU's role is to stay out of the way, and the i5-9400 does. Its six cores and six threads, boosting to 4.10 GHz, delivered a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6629 and a single-core score of 935, numbers that sit near the middle of the CPU database at the 47th percentile. A 2015 roguelike does not demand heavy simulation throughput, and nothing in the measured results suggests processor bottlenecks: frame rates scale smoothly with settings and resolution across the entire grid, which is what GPU-bound behavior looks like. If the CPU were the limiting factor, lowering the resolution would stop raising the frame rate, and that does not happen here, with Low settings climbing from 81 FPS at 4K to 154 FPS at 1440p and 245 FPS at 1080p.

Within presets, the picture is consistent. Medium at 1080p averages 182 FPS with a recorded minimum of 155 and a maximum of 209, a tight spread that indicates steady delivery rather than stuttery, CPU-hitching output. The same holds at 1440p Medium, averaging 115 FPS with a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 132, and at 4K Medium, averaging 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 and a maximum of 69. In each case the gap between minimum and maximum is modest, so the i5-9400 is feeding the Arc B570 evenly rather than causing spikes and dips.

How This Combo Ranks

The pairing ranks 2985 out of 3717 combinations tested in Barony, which places it in the lower-middle portion of the field for this specific game. That ranking needs context: Barony is a 2015 roguelike with modest demands, so the leaderboard for it is crowded with combinations that all post very high frame rates, and ranking position reflects fine gradations between already-fast setups rather than a gap between playable and unplayable.

The raw numbers support that reading. Even the pairing's most demanding qualifying configuration, Ultra at 2560x1440, averages 71 FPS, and its most comfortable configuration, Low at 1920x1080, averages 245 FPS. A combination does not need to rank near the top of a leaderboard like this to deliver a complete experience of the game.

Component context explains the mid-field placement. The i5-9400 sits at the 47th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 2254, and its nearest rivals, the i7-1068NG7 at 2259, the i7-10710U at 2248, the Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 at 2246, and the i3-10305 at 2264, are all clustered within half a percent of it. The Arc B570 is the stronger half of the duo at the 65th GPU percentile with an average score of 20556, bracketed by the RTX 3070 Mobile at 20534, the Arc A750 at 20582, the Quadro M4000M at 20480, and the R9 M390X at 20662. A mid-range CPU from 2018 paired with a current mid-tier GPU lands, appropriately, mid-field in a game where thousands of faster combinations have also been measured.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC runs Barony, and it does so at every resolution that matters.

At 1920x1080 the verdict is total: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra all clear 60 FPS, with Ultra averaging 112 FPS, nearly double the threshold. At 2560x1440 the verdict is again total across all four presets, with Ultra averaging 71 FPS, High at 99 FPS, Medium at 115 FPS, and Low at 154 FPS. At 3840x2160 the verdict is conditional: Medium qualifies at exactly 60 FPS average, Low runs at 81 FPS, but High at 52 FPS and Ultra at 37 FPS fall short of the playable bar.

There is one caveat worth flagging. The Medium 4K result averages exactly 60 FPS with a recorded minimum of 51, meaning dips below the threshold occur during the run. Players who want a guaranteed cushion at 4K should use Low, which averages 81 FPS and keeps clear of the line even during drops. At 1080p and 1440p no such compromise is needed; Ultra is fully playable at both, and the Medium minimums of 155 FPS and 98 FPS respectively show enormous headroom over the threshold.

In short: full settings freedom at 1080p and 1440p, and a Low-to-Medium constraint at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080. Low averages 245 FPS. Medium averages 182 FPS with a minimum of 155 and a maximum of 209. High averages 156 FPS. Ultra averages 112 FPS. Every preset clears the 60 FPS threshold by a factor of nearly two or better, and the Ultra result leaves an 87 percent margin above the bar.

2560x1440. Low averages 154 FPS. Medium averages 115 FPS with a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 132. High averages 99 FPS. Ultra averages 71 FPS. The step up in pixels costs roughly a third of the frame rate at each preset, yet even Ultra keeps an 11 FPS cushion over the threshold.

3840x2160. Low averages 81 FPS. Medium averages 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 and a maximum of 69. High averages 52 FPS. Ultra averages 37 FPS. This is the only resolution where preset choice carries real consequences: two of the four presets fail the 60 FPS test, and the one that passes does so without headroom to spare, as its minimum of 51 demonstrates.

Across the full grid, the data shows a smooth, predictable response to both resolution and preset changes with no anomalous outliers, which is consistent with a well-behaved, GPU-bound rendering load. The tight minimum-to-maximum spreads at Medium across all three resolutions, 51 to 69 at 4K, 98 to 132 at 1440p, and 155 to 209 at 1080p, indicate stable frame delivery rather than erratic performance.

Best Settings per Resolution

1920x1080: Ultra, 112 FPS average. This is the most demanding preset available, and it clears 60 FPS with 52 FPS to spare. There is no reason to run anything lower at this resolution.

2560x1440: Ultra, 71 FPS average. Ultra remains the correct choice at 1440p, holding an 11 FPS margin over the threshold. High is available as a fallback at 99 FPS for players who want extra smoothness during dense scenes, but the recorded data shows Ultra is already comfortably playable.

3840x2160: Medium, 60 FPS average. Medium is the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS at 4K, but it lands exactly on the line with a recorded minimum of 51. Players sensitive to dips below 60 should step down to Low at 81 FPS, which preserves a solid margin. High at 52 FPS and Ultra at 37 FPS are not playable options at this resolution by the database's threshold standard.