Barony

Barony, a roguelike with a 2015 release, presents an interesting benchmark scenario for the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER combination. The measured data indicates a system that transitions from being heavily GPU-bound at high resolutions to increasingly CPU-bound at lower resolutions. The performance profile is defined by the interplay between the 6-core, 12-thread Zen CPU and the TU104-based graphics card, with the classic 2000-series feature set.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop reveals the system's bottleneck characteristics. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 200.7 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops this to 125.4 FPS, a reduction of 37.5%. The jump to 4K High further reduces performance to 68.9 FPS, which is a 45.1% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline at 4K strongly indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary limiting component at higher pixel counts.

The scaling behavior is more nuanced when examining the Low settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 319.2 FPS, which is exceptionally high and suggests the CPU is nearing its practical limit for this game. At 1440p Low, the frame rate falls to 201.3 FPS, a 36.9% decrease. However, at 4K Low, the system still manages 105.4 FPS, which is a 47.6% drop from 1440p. The fact that 4K Low (105.4 FPS) is still higher than 1080p Ultra (142.8 FPS) but lower than 1080p High (200.7 FPS) illustrates that the game's settings have a more substantial impact on the GPU load than the resolution alone.

The data reveals that the CPU bottleneck is most pronounced at 1080p Low, where the 319.2 FPS figure suggests the Ryzen 5 2600's single-thread performance is the ceiling. The CPU's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1579 and Passmark single-thread score of 2239 are modest by modern standards, and this roguelike's logic-heavy nature likely relies on a few threads. As resolution increases, the GPU takes over as the limiting factor, evidenced by the 50.7 FPS result at 4K Ultra, which is the lowest measured score and shows the RTX 2070 SUPER struggling with the pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth demands of 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combination?

A: The highest measured average is 319.2 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings, indicating a scenario where the CPU is the primary constraint.

Q: How does the system perform at 4K with the highest settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops to 50.7 FPS, showing that the RTX 2070 SUPER is heavily taxed at this resolution and quality level.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the system achieves 201.3 FPS on Low settings but only 91.3 FPS on Ultra, a reduction of 54.6% when enabling the highest quality presets.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data suggests it is at lower resolutions; at 1080p Low, the 319.2 FPS result is likely limited by the CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration and its 3.90 GHz boost clock, as the GPU has less work to do.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER's memory configuration affect 4K performance?

A: The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for the game, but the 4K Ultra result of 50.7 FPS indicates the GPU's compute throughput (9.062 TFLOPS FP32) is the limiting factor rather than memory capacity.

Q: What is the system's overall ranking for this game?

A: The combination ranks 1047 out of 1702 tested configurations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database for Barony performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the dominant component in this system for most tested scenarios. Its TU104 chip, built on a 12 nm process at TSMC, contains 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs. The GPU's memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit interface, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications directly correlate with the measured results, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU's pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s become critical.

The GPU's clock behavior is important to consider. With a base clock of 1605 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, the RTX 2070 SUPER operates at a high frequency for its generation. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1651 and Passmark G3D score of 18169 confirm its position in the market, though the percentileVsAllGpus of 65 indicates it sits below the top tier. The nearest rival data shows a tight competition: the RTX 2070 SUPER is 0.5% behind the NVIDIA RTX A400 and 0.9% ahead of the GTX TITAN Z, but 2.3% behind the RTX 4060 Mobile. This suggests the GPU is a solid mid-range performer that can handle 1440p well but struggles at 4K Ultra.

The measured FPS data supports this analysis. At 4K Ultra, the 50.7 FPS average shows the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU has relatively less work per frame. The transition from 1080p Low (319.2 FPS) to 4K Low (105.4 FPS) represents a 67% performance drop, which is primarily attributable to the GPU's inability to maintain fill rate at 4K. The GPU's 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present but likely underutilized in Barony, as the game's roguelike nature does not typically employ ray tracing or DLSS. The 12 Ultimate (12_2) DirectX support and Vulkan 1.4 API compatibility ensure the GPU can handle modern rendering paths, but the game's age means it likely uses simpler techniques.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four quality settings. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 319.2 FPS on Low, 234.3 FPS on Medium, 200.7 FPS on High, and 142.8 FPS on Ultra. The step from Low to Medium is a 26.6% reduction, while the step from High to Ultra is a 28.9% reduction. This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are disproportionately costly on the RTX 2070 SUPER, likely related to shadow quality or post-processing.

At 2560x1440, the scores are 201.3 FPS on Low, 147.1 FPS on Medium, 125.4 FPS on High, and 91.3 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from Low to Ultra represents a 54.6% reduction in frame rate. The 1440p results show the system is still capable of high refresh rate gaming on Medium and High settings, which aligns with the GPU's mid-range positioning. The 125.4 FPS at High is notably close to the 1080p Ultra result of 142.8 FPS, indicating that resolution scaling at this tier is roughly equivalent to a one-step quality increase.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly: 105.4 FPS on Low, 78.8 FPS on Medium, 68.9 FPS on High, and 50.7 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low result is interesting because it is still above 60 FPS, but the Ultra setting falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. The gap between 4K Medium (78.8 FPS) and 4K High (68.9 FPS) is 12.6%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 26.4%, showing that the Ultra preset has a compounding effect at 4K. The data indicates that for 4K gaming, users should stick to Medium or High settings to maintain playable frame rates.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen+ (Pinnacle Ridge) architecture, fabricated on a 12 nm process at GlobalFoundries. With a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz, this CPU provides adequate single-threaded performance for Barony. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1579 and Passmark single-thread score of 2239 are modest, and the CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 77 places it above average but not exceptional. The nearest rival data shows a tight grouping: the Ryzen 5 2600 is 0.4% behind the Intel Core i5-1345U and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U, indicating its performance is comparable to modern mobile chips.

The CPU's role in Barony is most evident at 1080p Low, where the 319.2 FPS result suggests the processor is the limiting factor. The 3.90 GHz boost clock on a single core is the primary driver for this scenario, as roguelike games typically rely on a main game logic thread. The CPU's L3 cache of 16 MB shared across all cores is adequate for the game's data patterns, but the 46.9 GB/s memory bandwidth on a dual-channel DDR4 setup could be a constraint when the game generates complex procedural levels.

The Passmark multithread score of 13160 and Cinebench R23 multicore score of 11186 show the CPU's capability in heavily threaded workloads, but Barony likely does not utilize all 12 threads effectively. The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is the bottleneck, as increasing resolution from 1080p Low to 1440p Low only reduces performance by 36.9% (from 319.2 to 201.3 FPS), which is less than the 47.6% drop from 1440p Low to 4K Low (from 201.3 to 105.4 FPS). This indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor more quickly as resolution increases, while the CPU's performance ceiling is reached at lower resolutions. The system's rank of 1047 out of 1702 combos reflects this balanced but not overpowered configuration, where neither component is a clear standout in this specific game.