Barony

Barony is a roguelike that scales dramatically with hardware, and this particular pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 produces a fascinating dataset. The measured results show a system that can obliterate the game at lower settings, but one where the CPU becomes a clear bottleneck at the highest resolutions. The 6-core, 12-thread processor, with a 3.60 GHz base and 4.20 GHz boost clock, is the central constraint here, while the 32 GB GDDR7 memory on the GPU is effectively a non-factor for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows make it clear that the "Ultra" preset is the only setting where this combo faces any real challenge, and even then, it remains comfortably playable. At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate drops to 105.9 FPS, which is still smooth, but it represents a significant step down from the 148.1 FPS seen at 4K High. The jump from High to Ultra costs roughly 42 FPS at 4K, indicating that the Ultra preset introduces a heavy load that taxes the system in a way the High preset does not. For the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, the High preset is the clear winner. It delivers 148.1 FPS at 4K and 275.6 FPS at 1440p, proving it is both visually demanding and highly playable. The Medium preset offers a middle ground, but the data shows it is only 22.9 FPS faster than High at 4K (171 vs 148.1), which is not worth the visual compromise when High is already so strong. Low settings are for those chasing absurd refresh rates, as it hits 571.1 FPS at 1080p, but for a roguelike, the visual clarity of the High preset is more valuable than the headroom, especially since High already exceeds 144 FPS at 1440p and 4K.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090’s role in this game is to provide overwhelming headroom that is only partially utilized. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, with 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, is massive overkill for Barony, a title that clearly does not require that capacity. The benchmark results indicate the GPU is rarely the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the card pushes 571.1 FPS, which suggests it is waiting on the CPU to feed it data. The 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost clocks are high, but the real story is the sheer number of processing units, including 21,760 shading units. This raw power means that even at 4K Ultra, where the game is most demanding, the GPU still manages to output 105.9 FPS. However, the difference between 1080p and 4K at the same settings shows the GPU is scaling as expected, just not as steeply as one might predict if it were the sole bottleneck. The data suggests that the GPU is so fast that the CPU’s limits become the primary governor of performance at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is telling. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 436.7 FPS at 1080p to 275.6 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 148.1 FPS at 4K. This is a reduction of 36.9% from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 46.3% drop from 1440p to 4K. These are substantial decreases, but the absolute numbers remain high. The pattern changes with the Ultra preset, where the drop is more dramatic: from 317.4 FPS at 1080p to 201.3 FPS at 1440p, and then down to 105.9 FPS at 4K. The fact that the 1080p Ultra score of 317.4 FPS is lower than the 1080p High score of 436.7 FPS indicates that the Ultra preset is adding a significant workload that even this GPU cannot overcome without the CPU bottlenecking. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is nearly identical in percentage terms across High and Ultra, suggesting that once the resolution increases, the GPU workload becomes more uniform and the CPU’s influence wanes slightly. This points to a system where the CPU is the primary limiter at 1080p and 1440p, but the GPU becomes more relevant at 4K, yet still never fully saturates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete picture across all resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the performance is exceptionally high across the board. Low settings produce 571.1 FPS, Medium yields 511.1 FPS, High achieves 436.7 FPS, and Ultra still manages 317.4 FPS. This shows that at 1080p, even the most demanding preset is well above the refresh rate of any typical monitor. Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers remain impressive: Low hits 434.9 FPS, Medium 322.2 FPS, High 275.6 FPS, and Ultra 201.3 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is still above 200 FPS, demonstrating the combo’s strength. At 3840x2160, the performance becomes more moderate but remains playable. Low settings deliver 225.8 FPS, Medium 171 FPS, High 148.1 FPS, and Ultra 105.9 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only one that dips below 120 FPS, but it is still a smooth experience. The gap between Low and Ultra widens with resolution: 253.7 FPS at 1080p, 233.6 FPS at 1440p, and 119.9 FPS at 4K. This indicates that the Ultra preset’s extra effects tax the GPU more heavily at higher resolutions, while the CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions compresses the range.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested combinations, this pairing of the Ryzen 5 5500 and RTX 5090 ranks 28th out of 1,702 combos for this game. This is a strong position, placing it in the top 1.6% of all tested systems. The ranking reflects that while the GPU is among the most powerful available, the CPU is holding the combo back from the very top tier. The data suggests that a faster processor would likely push this combo into the top 10, given that the GPU has more to give at lower resolutions. The percentileVsAllCpus for the Ryzen 5 5500 is 79, indicating it is in the upper fifth of all CPUs, but its nearest rivals, like the Intel Core i5-12500 with a deltaPct of -0.1, show it is not a leader. The GPU, with a percentileVsAllGpus of 94, is near the top of its class, but the combo rank of 28 shows that the CPU is the limiting factor in achieving a higher position. The measured FPS at 1080p Low of 571.1 FPS is likely capped by the CPU’s single-thread performance, which is a known constraint for this processor.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 5500’s role is the critical bottleneck in this configuration. With 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, it is a capable mid-range processor, but it cannot keep up with the RTX 5090’s immense output. The benchmark scores show a single-thread score of 836 in 3dmark, which is modest, and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2319. These figures suggest that while the CPU is fine for general tasks, it lacks the raw single-thread speed needed to feed the GPU at low resolutions. The 3dmark 2-thread score of 1645 and 4-thread score of 3151 indicate that the CPU’s multi-threading helps at higher settings, but the game’s primary thread is likely the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the FPS jumps to 571.1, but this is only 134.4 FPS higher than the 1080p High score of 436.7, which is a smaller relative difference than the GPU’s capabilities would suggest. The L3 cache of 16 MB and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are adequate, but not exceptional. The data clearly shows that the CPU’s 3.60 GHz base and 4.20 GHz boost clocks are not sufficient to fully unlock the GPU. If the goal is to maximize frame rates beyond 300 FPS at 1080p, this CPU will be the wall, and the results confirm that the combo’s rank of 28 out of 1,702 is more a signal of the GPU’s strength than the CPU’s.