Barony

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 produces a notably smooth experience in Barony, a 2015 roguelike that is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions. The measured data shows this combination delivers from 67 FPS at 4K Ultra to 442 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating the RX 9070’s 16 GB of VRAM is never a limiting factor in this title. The combo ranks 1127th out of 3717 tested configurations, placing it in the upper third of all pairings. This analysis draws exclusively from benchmark results and hardware specifications to explain why this pairing behaves as it does across nine distinct resolution and settings combinations.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo in Barony?

A: The highest average frame rate is 442 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is more than double the 202 FPS recorded at the same resolution with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops to 67 FPS, which is the lowest recorded value across all tested configurations. The step from Medium to Ultra at 4K costs 41 FPS on average.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 3600 or the RX 9070 the more likely bottleneck in this game?

A: Benchmark results indicate the CPU becomes the primary constraint at lower resolutions, as the 1080p Low score of 442 FPS far exceeds what the GPU’s compute benchmarks would suggest for a roguelike. The GPU’s 16 GB VRAM and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are ample for Barony’s visual complexity.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between 1440p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the 2560x1440 average is 178 FPS, while 3840x2160 yields 93 FPS. This represents an 85 FPS reduction when moving from 1440p to 4K, a 47.8% decrease.

Q: Does the RX 9070’s percentile ranking (69th among all GPUs) align with its in-game performance?

A: The GPU’s 69th percentile ranking reflects general compute workloads, but in Barony, the pairing’s overall rank of 1127 out of 3717 (69.7th percentile) is consistent. The CPU’s 71st percentile ranking is nearly identical, suggesting balanced performance.

Q: Which settings preset offers the most consistent frame pacing based on available data?

A: Medium settings at 1080p provide the only complete min/max data set in the measured results, with an average of 329 FPS and a min of 279 FPS. This 50 FPS spread is tighter than the 99 FPS spread at 1440p Medium.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 brings substantial graphics resources to Barony, although the game’s roguelike nature means many of its capabilities remain underutilized. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. For a title like Barony, which has modest texture and geometry demands, this memory configuration provides headroom that never approaches saturation. The card’s 3584 shading units and 128 ROPs operate at a base clock of 1330 MHz, a game clock of 2070 MHz, and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. These clocks are relevant because the measured frame rates at 4K Ultra suggest the GPU is working harder than at lower resolutions, yet still maintaining playable performance.

The RX 9070’s architecture is RDNA 4.0, fabricated on a 4 nm process at TSMC, with 53,900 million transistors across a 357 mm² die. Its FP32 throughput is 36.13 TFLOPS, and the pixel rate is 322.6 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s. In Barony, these theoretical peaks translate into real-world performance that scales predictably with resolution. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 67 at Ultra to 146 at Low. The 79 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K demonstrates that the GPU is the primary driver of performance at this resolution, as the CPU has more headroom to feed frames.

Comparing the RX 9070 to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, it scores 25,381 on Passmark G3D, sitting 0.6% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z and 1.1% above the RTX 3080 Mobile, while trailing the RX 6800S by 0.8% and the RTX 2080 SUPER by 1.2%. These small margins indicate that the RX 9070 is competitively positioned among high-end cards, yet Barony’s frame rates at 1080p (282 FPS at High) suggest that the CPU, not the GPU, is the limiting factor in that scenario. The GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,290 further confirms its mid-to-high tier standing, but the game’s low graphical complexity means the card rarely operates at full load outside of 4K Ultra.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is particularly noteworthy for a roguelike. Barony’s procedurally generated levels and blocky visual style do not require large texture caches, so the memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s is more than sufficient. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 67 is the only sub-100 result in the entire dataset, and it remains well above playable thresholds. The GPU’s support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6 ensures compatibility with modern rendering paths, though Barony’s age means it likely relies on simpler API calls.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 3000 series, built on Zen 2 architecture with the Matisse codename. Its base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.20 GHz are modest by contemporary standards, but they prove sufficient for Barony’s single-threaded and lightly threaded workloads. The CPU’s 32 MB shared L3 cache and 512 KB L2 cache per core provide low-latency access to game logic and AI routines. In synthetic benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 3600 achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15,045 and a single-core score of 2,124, which places it in the 71st percentile among all CPUs.

The CPU’s role becomes evident when examining the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo hits 442 FPS, which is 196 FPS higher than the 246 FPS gap between 1080p High (282 FPS) and 4K High (93 FPS). This disproportionate increase at low settings indicates that the Ryzen 5 3600 is capable of producing frames faster than the RX 9070 can render them at lower resolutions. The CPU’s Passmark multithread score of 17,700 and single-thread score of 2,562 further corroborate this, as the single-thread performance is strong enough to drive high frame rates in a game that likely uses a single main thread.

The 3DMark thread scaling results show the CPU’s performance trajectory: 1,361 for 2 threads, 2,579 for 4 threads, 3,844 for 8 threads, and 4,605 for 16 threads. This scaling pattern suggests that Barony may benefit from up to 8 threads, but beyond that, gains are marginal. The CPU’s nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Intel Core i7-1260P (0.2% higher), Intel Core i5-11400 (0.2% higher), AMD EPYC 7573X (0.2% higher), and AMD EPYC 7742 (0.2% lower). These tight margins mean the Ryzen 5 3600 is essentially tied with several other CPUs in overall compute performance, yet its specific architecture may favor Barony’s workload.

At 4K resolutions, the CPU’s load decreases relative to the GPU, as seen in the 4K Low score of 146 FPS versus the 1080p Low score of 442 FPS. This 296 FPS difference is almost entirely attributable to GPU resolution scaling, not CPU limitations. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and 7 nm process node keep thermals manageable, allowing sustained boost clocks during extended gaming sessions. The dual-channel DDR4 memory support, with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, is adequate for feeding the CPU’s cache hierarchy, though it lags behind the GPU’s memory bandwidth by an order of magnitude.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 3600 and RX 9070 ranks 1127th out of 3,717 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 69.7th percentile of all configurations. This ranking is notably consistent with the individual component percentiles: the CPU sits in the 71st percentile, and the GPU sits in the 69th percentile. This alignment suggests that neither component is dramatically over- or under-performing relative to the other, creating a balanced pairing for this specific game.

The ranking implies that 2,590 other combos outperform this one, while 1,126 combos are slower. Given that the CPU is a 2019 release and the GPU is a 2025 release, the ranking reflects a modern GPU paired with an older mid-range CPU. In a game like Barony, which is likely more CPU-dependent at high frame rates, the CPU’s age may cap performance at lower resolutions. However, the measured 1080p Ultra score of 202 FPS is still exceptionally high, indicating that the combo ranks well above average even in the most demanding CPU scenario.

Comparing the combo’s in-game rank to its synthetic benchmarks, the CPU’s average benchmark score of 17,035 and the GPU’s average of 23,877 both fall in the mid-60th to 70th percentiles. The combo’s 69.7th percentile in Barony is almost exactly the midpoint of these two values, reinforcing the balanced nature of the pairing. The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-11400, has an average score 0.2% higher, while the GPU’s nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, is 1.2% higher. These small synthetic differences do not translate into meaningful in-game disparities, as Barony’s frame rates are so high that any bottleneck is masked by sheer performance.

The rank also contextualizes the measured FPS data. A combo ranked 1127th still delivers 67 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is above the 60 FPS threshold typically considered playable. This suggests that even combos ranked lower than this one likely achieve acceptable performance in Barony, given the game’s relatively low graphical demands. The fact that this pairing falls in the upper third of all tested combos, despite the CPU’s age, underscores the RX 9070’s capability to handle 4K gaming without compromise.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates, with a clear progression across settings. Low settings produce 442 FPS average, which is the single highest value in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 329 FPS average, with a minimum of 279 FPS and a maximum of 378 FPS. High settings reduce the average to 282 FPS, while Ultra settings drop further to 202 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 240 FPS, indicating that the CPU is capable of driving over 400 FPS when the GPU is not heavily taxed, but the GPU’s rendering load at Ultra brings the average down to just over 200 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but begin to show GPU scaling pressure. Low settings average 279 FPS, which is a 163 FPS drop from 1080p Low but still above 60 FPS by a wide margin. Medium settings average 207 FPS, with a minimum of 176 FPS and a maximum of 239 FPS. High settings produce 178 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 128 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 151 FPS, smaller than the 1080p gap, indicating that the GPU is becoming a more significant factor at this resolution. The 1440p Medium settings show a 63 FPS spread between min and max, which is tighter than the 99 FPS spread at 1080p Medium.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. Low settings average 146 FPS, which is still highly playable and only 133 FPS below the 1080p Low score. Medium settings average 108 FPS, with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 125 FPS. High settings reduce the average to 93 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 67 FPS. The 4K Ultra score is the only result below 90 FPS across all resolutions and settings, and it remains above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is 79 FPS, which is the smallest absolute delta among the three resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the limiting factor here.

The medium settings rows are the only ones with complete min/max data across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the average is 329 FPS with a 279 FPS minimum, representing a 15.2% drop from the average to the minimum. At 1440p Medium, the average is 207 FPS with a 176 FPS minimum, a 15.0% drop. At 4K Medium, the average is 108 FPS with a 92 FPS minimum, a 14.8% drop. This consistent ratio suggests that frame pacing is stable across resolutions at Medium settings, with no anomalous stutters or drops.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all three resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 329 FPS average, which is only 113 FPS below Low but 47 FPS above High. The complete min/max data for Medium (279-378 FPS) indicates a stable experience, whereas other presets lack this granularity. For players with high refresh rate monitors, Medium at 1440p still produces 207 FPS average, comfortably exceeding 144 Hz displays while providing better visual fidelity than Low.

For 4K gaming, the choice between Medium and High is more nuanced. Medium at 4K averages 108 FPS, while High averages 93 FPS, a 15 FPS difference. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 67 FPS, which is below the 90 FPS threshold that many players consider ideal for smooth motion. Given that Medium provides the only complete min/max data at 4K (92-125 FPS), it is the recommended preset for 4K, as it maintains an average above 100 FPS while staying above 90 FPS even in minimum frame scenarios.

If maximizing frame rate is the priority, Low settings at 1080p yield 442 FPS, which is the highest measured value. This preset is suitable for competitive play or for users with 360 Hz displays, though the visual downgrade may be significant. At 1440p, Low still delivers 279 FPS, which exceeds most high-refresh monitors’ capabilities. The Ultra preset is only recommended at 1080p, where it achieves 202 FPS, as the 4K Ultra score of 67 FPS may not provide a smooth experience on high refresh rate panels.

The data indicates that the combo’s performance scales predictably with settings, and there are no anomalous results that would suggest a specific setting causes instability. The High preset at 1080p (282 FPS) and 1440p (178 FPS) both exceed 144 Hz, making it a viable alternative to Medium for users who prioritize visual quality over absolute frame rate. However, the lack of min/max data for High presets means that Medium remains the safer recommendation for guaranteed smoothness, as its measured minimums are consistently above 90 FPS across all resolutions.