Barony

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and Intel Arc B570 combination delivers a surprisingly robust experience in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The measured data shows this pairing produces high frame rates across most settings, though the GPU becomes a clear limiting factor at maximum quality presets. This analysis walks through the benchmark results, focusing on how the 10 GB VRAM buffer, the 6-core CPU, and the specific in-game settings interact to produce the observed FPS figures.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 156 FPS, which is well above standard display refresh rates and indicates a smooth experience. This is a strong result for a roguelike, where fast, responsive gameplay is often critical.

Q: How does the GPU's VRAM capacity affect performance at 4K?

A: The Intel Arc B570 has 10 GB of GDDR6 memory. At 3840x2160, the average FPS drops from 81 on Low settings to 37 on Ultra. The data suggests that the combination of high resolution and Ultra settings places a significant load on the GPU, resulting in the lowest frame rates in the dataset.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the main limiting factor, especially at higher resolutions and settings. For instance, at 1080p Low, the CPU pushes 245 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU only manages 37 FPS. The scaling pattern shows the GPU's workload increasing faster than the CPU's as resolution climbs.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a balance of quality and performance?

A: The Medium preset provides the best compromise. At 1440p, it yields 115 FPS, and at 4K, it maintains 60 FPS. This is the only 4K setting that achieves a 60 FPS average while still offering a visual upgrade over Low.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: This specific combination ranks 2344 out of 2935 tested combos in Barony. While the rank is in the lower half, the absolute FPS figures are high, suggesting the ranking is influenced by other factors or that many more powerful combos have been tested.

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: The average FPS drops from 156 at 1920x1080 to 52 at 3840x2160. This represents a significant performance reduction of approximately 67%, highlighting the heavy rendering demand that 4K resolution places on the Intel Arc B570.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is the central component in this analysis, with its VRAM and clock speeds directly influencing the benchmark results. The GPU features 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. Its base and boost clocks are both set at 2500 MHz. This memory configuration is substantial for a game like Barony, which, despite its roguelike genre, appears to scale heavily with GPU capabilities at high resolutions.

The data shows a clear pattern: as the resolution increases, the GPU's workload becomes more demanding. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 245 FPS. This number drops to 154 FPS at 2560x1440 and 81 FPS at 3840x2160 with the same Low preset. This demonstrates that even at the lowest quality settings, the GPU is under significant stress at 4K. The jump in workload is not linear; moving from 1440p to 4K at Low settings results in a 73 FPS drop, while moving from 1080p to 1440p only results in a 91 FPS drop.

The 10 GB VRAM buffer is likely a key factor in enabling the card to handle 4K textures without performance cliffs. However, the benchmark results show that the GPU's compute capabilities, not just its memory, are stressed. The Ultra preset at 4K yields only 37 FPS, which is the lowest score in the entire dataset. This suggests that the shading units and texture units are saturated with the combined load of high resolution and maximum quality effects. The GPU's pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s are the physical limits being tested here, and the results show they are insufficient for a locked 60 FPS experience at 4K Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience for this hardware combination. The Low preset provides the highest frame rates, achieving 245 FPS at 1080p and 81 FPS at 4K. However, this preset likely sacrifices significant visual quality. The Ultra preset, conversely, provides the most visual fidelity but suffers from the lowest performance, with 112 FPS at 1080p and only 37 FPS at 4K.

The Medium preset emerges as the optimal choice for this combo. At 1920x1080, it delivers a very high 182 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any high-refresh-rate monitor. At 2560x1440, it maintains a strong 115 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay. Most importantly, at 3840x2160, it is the only preset that reaches the 60 FPS target, with an average of 60 FPS and a minimum of 51 FPS. This makes Medium the best option for users who want to play at 4K without dipping below playable frame rates.

For users with 1080p or 1440p monitors, the High preset is also a viable option, offering better visuals than Medium with average FPS of 156 and 99, respectively. The data shows that the step from Medium to High at 1440p costs 16 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs 28 FPS. This indicates diminishing returns on performance as you push to the highest settings. The optimal path is to use Medium for a guaranteed smooth experience, or High if you are willing to accept slightly lower frame rates for better image quality.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested hardware combinations for Barony, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and Intel Arc B570 holds a rank of 2344 out of 2935 total combos. This places it in the lower 20th percentile of tested systems. This ranking might seem counterintuitive given the high raw FPS numbers, but it reflects the fact that many other tested combos likely include more powerful (and expensive) CPUs and GPUs that achieve even higher frame rates.

The GPU's own benchmark percentile is 65, meaning it performs better than 65% of all GPUs in the database. This is a solid score. The CPU's percentile is 73, outperforming 73% of all CPUs. When combined, they produce a system that is capable of high frame rates in Barony, but the comboRankInGame of 2344 suggests that the game is not particularly demanding on the CPU, allowing other GPU-heavy combos to surpass it in the rankings.

The rank indicates that while this setup is competent, it is not at the top of the performance pyramid. The data shows that the system is well-balanced, but the GPU is the limiting factor in most scenarios, particularly at higher resolutions. The high FPS at 1080p (e.g., 245 FPS on Low) shows the CPU is not holding the GPU back at lower resolutions, but the 4K Ultra result of 37 FPS demonstrates that the GPU is the component that prevents this combo from achieving higher rankings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. For a game like Barony, which is a roguelike, the CPU's role is primarily to manage game logic, AI, and physics calculations. The data suggests that this CPU is more than capable of handling these tasks, as it does not appear to be the bottleneck in any of the measured scenarios.

Evidence for this comes from the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system hits 245 FPS. If the CPU were the primary bottleneck, we would expect this number to be similar across all resolutions. However, the FPS drops significantly as resolution increases, with 154 FPS at 1440p and 81 FPS at 4K. This indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as its rendering workload increases, while the CPU has headroom to spare.

The CPU's single-thread performance, as indicated by a 3dmark_single_thread score of 836, is likely sufficient for the game's main thread. Its multi-thread capabilities, shown in a cinebench_r23_multicore score of 16429, provide ample processing power for any background tasks or game systems that use multiple threads. The 16 MB of L3 cache also helps reduce memory latency, which can be beneficial for game performance. In this combination, the CPU provides a stable foundation that allows the GPU to be the primary driver of frame rate, which is the expected behavior for a modern gaming system at high resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The comprehensive FPS data reveals a clear performance hierarchy across different settings and resolutions.

At 1920x1080, the system is capable of very high frame rates. On Low settings, it averages 245 FPS. Moving to Medium, the average drops to 182 FPS, with a minimum of 155 FPS and a maximum of 209 FPS. High settings yield 156 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 112 FPS. All of these results are above 100 FPS, making 1080p a very smooth experience for any preset.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but begins to show the GPU's limits. Low settings achieve an average of 154 FPS. Medium settings produce 115 FPS, with a minimum of 98 FPS and a maximum of 132 FPS. High settings drop to 99 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 71 FPS. The step from High to Ultra at 1440p is a 28 FPS reduction, which is the largest relative drop between any two settings at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly stressed. Low settings are the only preset that provides a high frame rate, averaging 81 FPS. Medium settings drop to exactly 60 FPS, with a minimum of 51 FPS and a maximum of 69 FPS. High settings average 52 FPS, and Ultra settings dip to 37 FPS. The data shows that 4K gaming is only viable on Low or Medium settings for this hardware combination.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep, and the pattern reveals the limiting component. At High settings, the average FPS goes from 156 at 1080p, to 99 at 1440p, to 52 at 4K. This is a clear demonstration of the GPU's workload increasing with pixel count. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is a 57 FPS loss, while the reduction from 1440p to 4K is a 47 FPS loss. While the absolute drop is smaller, the percentage loss is significant.

This scaling behavior points directly to the GPU as the primary bottleneck. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect frame rates to plateau or drop much less as resolution increases. The fact that FPS continues to drop consistently with each resolution step shows that the Intel Arc B570 is running out of pixel processing power. The 200.0 GPixel/s pixel rate is the hardware limit that governs this scaling.

The data for the Low preset provides further insight. The FPS drops from 245 at 1080p to 154 at 1440p to 81 at 4K. The relative performance loss is similar to High settings, but the absolute frame rates are higher. This indicates that while the GPU is still the bottleneck, it has more headroom at lower quality settings. The Medium preset shows a similar pattern, with 182, 115, and 60 FPS at the respective resolutions. The conclusion is clear: the Intel Arc B570 is the component that determines the frame rate in Barony, and its performance scales predictably with the rendering resolution.