Barony

# Barony with AMD Ryzen 5 3600 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers exceptional performance in Barony, ranking 469th out of 1702 tested combos — placing it in the top 27.5% of all configurations. This pairing demonstrates a strong balance where the GPU handles the visual workload decisively at lower resolutions, while the CPU's 6-core/12-thread design with a 4.20 GHz boost clock keeps frame pacing consistent even at 4K Ultra. The data shows this combo is overkill for 1080p gaming, but it remains a highly capable 1440p and 4K setup for this roguelike title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 469.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 153.2 FPS at 3840x2160 — a 67.4% reduction. This massive scaling factor indicates that the RTX 4070's Ada Lovelace architecture is the primary limiter at 4K, though the numbers remain far above playable thresholds.

The scaling pattern becomes even more pronounced at Ultra settings. The drop from 216.5 FPS at 1080p to 72.2 FPS at 4K represents a 66.6% decrease, nearly identical to the Low preset's scaling. This consistency across settings suggests that resolution, not graphical complexity, dictates the performance ceiling. At 2560x1440, the combo maintains 133.4 FPS at Ultra and 295.5 FPS at Low, showing that 1440p is the sweet spot where both components contribute meaningfully without either becoming a bottleneck.

Interestingly, the gap between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K. At High settings, the transition from 1080p (296.7 FPS) to 1440p (187.2 FPS) costs 36.9% performance, while moving from 1440p to 4K (98.5 FPS) costs 47.4%. This nonlinear scaling points to the GPU's 12 GB GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth handling 1440p comfortably, but the 4K resolution begins to strain the memory subsystem.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 469 out of 1702 tested configurations places it in the top 27.5% of all tested pairings in Barony. This is a strong result given that the CPU comes from the older Zen 2 architecture, yet the GPU's 81st percentile ranking among all GPUs compensates effectively.

The Ryzen 5 3600's nearest rivals show how close the CPU competition is. The Intel Core i5-11400 trails by just 0.1% in average benchmark score, while the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS is 0.2% ahead. The AMD Ryzen 5 1600 sits 0.2% behind, and the AMD EPYC 9274F is 0.3% behind — all within a razor-thin margin that suggests the CPU is not the differentiator here. The CPU's 76th percentile vs all CPUs confirms it is middling by modern standards, but in Barony, the GPU carries the load.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4070's nearest rivals reveal interesting dynamics. The AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 scores 0.6% higher in average benchmarks, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A is 1.9% ahead — an odd pairing given the MX570 A is a mobile part. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile leads by 2.2%, and the AMD Radeon RX 5300M trails by 2.5%. These tiny deltas suggest that the benchmark scores are tightly clustered, but the RTX 4070's 29.15 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 46 RT cores give it substantial real-world headroom in gaming workloads.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly favors High settings as the optimal balance for this combo. At 1080p, High delivers 296.7 FPS — already far beyond any display's refresh rate capabilities — while Medium offers 348.5 FPS and Low reaches 469.7 FPS. The incremental gains from lowering settings at 1080p are meaningless in practice, so High is the sensible choice for visual fidelity.

At 1440p, High produces 187.2 FPS, which comfortably exceeds 144 Hz displays. Medium hits 220.8 FPS, but the visual quality trade-off is unnecessary given that High already provides headroom. At 4K, High drops to 98.5 FPS, which is still excellent for a 60 Hz display but falls short of 120 Hz panels. For 4K gaming, Medium at 114.2 FPS offers a better match for high-refresh displays, while Ultra at 72.2 FPS remains playable for slower-paced roguelike gameplay.

Ultra settings are only recommended for 1080p (216.5 FPS) or 1440p (133.4 FPS) where the performance hit is acceptable. At 4K, Ultra's 72.2 FPS is a 26.7% drop from High, making it the only setting where the combo begins to feel constrained. The data indicates that High is the default recommendation, with Medium as a fallback for 4K high-refresh scenarios.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of 4K gaming in Barony?

A: Yes. The measured data shows 98.5 FPS at 4K High and 72.2 FPS at 4K Ultra, both well above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 3600 compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 3600 scores an average benchmark of 18129, putting it 0.1% behind the Intel Core i5-11400, 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS, and 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 1600 — a statistically negligible spread.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 at High settings delivers 187.2 FPS, offering the best combination of visual quality and frame rate headroom for high-refresh displays.

Q: Does the RTX 4070 bottleneck at any resolution?

A: The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, with a 66.6% performance drop at Ultra settings, but it never falls below playable thresholds.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: It ranks 469th out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the top 27.5% of all pairings tested.

Q: Is the RTX 4070's 12 GB VRAM sufficient for Barony?

A: The measured frame rates at 4K Ultra (72.2 FPS) suggest the 12 GB GDDR6X memory with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is adequate, as performance remains playable without indication of VRAM limitations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is the dominant component in this pairing, evidenced by its 81st percentile ranking among all GPUs and its benchmark scores. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3854 and Geekbench OpenCL score of 168006 demonstrate substantial compute capability, while the Passmark G3D score of 26927 confirms strong rasterization performance.

The GPU's clock behavior is telling: a base clock of 1920 MHz and boost clock of 2475 MHz, combined with 5888 shading units and 184 TMUs, explains why the combo scales so aggressively with resolution. The 64 ROPs and 158.4 GPixel/s pixel rate handle the fill-rate demands of 4K, while 455.4 GTexel/s texture rate keeps texture-heavy scenes fluid. The 12 GB GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 504.2 GB/s bandwidth, which becomes the limiting factor at 4K Ultra — the 66.6% FPS drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings mirrors the bandwidth constraints.

The RTX 4070's 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores are underutilized in Barony, as the game's roguelike genre doesn't emphasize ray tracing. The 29.15 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 29.15 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1) suggest the GPU has headroom for future titles, but in this game, the pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the key metrics driving the measured results.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 plays a supporting role in this combo, with its 6 cores and 12 threads providing adequate processing power without becoming a bottleneck. The CPU's 76th percentile ranking vs all CPUs and average benchmark score of 18129 place it in the mid-range, but Barony's requirements are modest enough that the CPU keeps pace.

The CPU's nearest rivals all score within 0.3% of each other, indicating that the Ryzen 5 3600's performance envelope is well-established and not a differentiator. The 3DMark scores — 4605 for 16 threads, 3844 for 8 threads, and 2579 for 4 threads — show decent multi-threaded scaling, while the single-thread score of 696 is adequate for the game's logic and physics calculations. The Cinebench R23 scores of 15045 multicore and 2124 singlecore confirm balanced performance across workloads.

The 4.20 GHz boost clock on a 65 W TDP with Zen 2 architecture (7 nm process, 3,800 million transistors) provides efficient processing. The 32 MB shared L3 cache is particularly relevant for roguelike games with procedural generation, as it reduces memory latency for frequently accessed game state data. The DDR4 dual-channel memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient, though the PCIe Gen 4 interface with 16 lanes ensures the GPU has ample bandwidth for data transfer.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers exceptional performance across all settings. Low settings achieve 469.7 FPS, Medium hits 348.5 FPS, High reaches 296.7 FPS, and Ultra maintains 216.5 FPS. These numbers are so high that the CPU becomes the theoretical limiter at Low settings, where the GPU is underutilized.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains impressive but shows more differentiation. Low settings produce 295.5 FPS, Medium delivers 220.8 FPS, High achieves 187.2 FPS, and Ultra settles at 133.4 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 15.2%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 28.7% — indicating that Ultra settings impose a significant cost.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's workload becomes the dominant factor. Low settings yield 153.2 FPS, Medium reaches 114.2 FPS, High drops to 98.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 72.2 FPS. The transition from High to Ultra at 4K costs 26.7% performance, the largest single-setting drop in the dataset. Across all resolutions, the combo never drops below 72.2 FPS, meaning every configuration tested remains playable, but the 4K Ultra setting is the only one approaching the lower bounds of high-refresh gaming.