Barony

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The data shows this combination is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while at 1080p the CPU becomes a more significant factor, though still producing triple-digit averages across all settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS data to explain where the bottleneck lies and how to configure the game for the best experience.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a classic resolution scaling curve, with performance dropping predictably as pixel count increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 449 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 284 FPS, a 36.7% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 148 FPS, which is 67.0% below the 1080p Low figure. This steep decline indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is doing substantial work as resolution climbs.

The scaling pattern changes with higher settings. At Ultra settings, the averages are 206 FPS at 1080p, 130 FPS at 1440p, and 68 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p Ultra is 36.9%, nearly identical to the Low setting percentage drop. However, the drop from 1440p to 4K Ultra is 47.7%, which is steeper than the Low setting's 47.9% drop. This suggests that at Ultra, the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute resources are being taxed more heavily at 4K.

Looking at the Medium settings, which have complete min/max data, the averages are 334 FPS at 1080p, 211 FPS at 1440p, and 110 FPS at 4K. The min FPS values tell a similar story: 284 FPS at 1080p, 179 FPS at 1440p, and 94 FPS at 4K. The gap between min and max FPS widens with resolution, from 100 FPS at 1080p to 63 FPS at 1440p to 33 FPS at 4K. This indicates that frame time consistency improves as the GPU becomes the limiting factor, since the CPU has more headroom to feed frames.

The 1080p to 4K scaling at Medium settings shows a 67.1% reduction in average FPS, which is consistent with the Low setting's 67.0% reduction. This uniformity across settings suggests that Barony's rendering workload scales predictably with pixel count, and the RTX 3080's 10 GB GDDR6X memory is sufficient to avoid capacity-related stutters at 4K, given the measured min FPS of 94 at Medium settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on Zen 3 architecture with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its benchmark scores show strong single-threaded performance, with a 3dmark_single_thread score of 882 and a passmark_single_thread score of 3256. The CPU's percentile ranking of 74 among all CPUs indicates it sits above average, and its average benchmark score of 20468 places it within 0.5% of its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V and AMD Ryzen 5 8500G.

In Barony, the CPU's role becomes apparent at 1080p, where the frame rates exceed 200 FPS even at Ultra settings. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 449 FPS average, which is likely near the point where the CPU's single-thread performance becomes a limiting factor. The 3dmark_2_threads score of 1737 and 3dmark_4_threads score of 3313 suggest that the CPU handles low-thread-count workloads well, which is typical for a roguelike where game logic and entity updates may not scale across many cores.

The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 18309 and singlecore score of 2584 provide context. The multicore-to-singlecore ratio is about 7.1x, which is reasonable for a 6-core/12-thread part. In Barony, the data shows that at 4K, the CPU is not the bottleneck — the FPS differences between settings (68 Ultra, 95 High, 110 Medium, 148 Low) are all attributable to GPU workload. At 1080p, the gap between Low (449 FPS) and Ultra (206 FPS) is 243 FPS, which is a 54.1% reduction. This large gap indicates that the GPU is still the primary constraint even at 1080p Ultra, but the CPU's ability to feed frames at 449 FPS shows it has ample headroom.

The CPU's 32 MB shared L3 cache and 6 cores are sufficient for Barony's roguelike mechanics, which typically involve procedural generation and AI decision-making that benefit from single-thread speed. The passmark_physics score of 1285 and passmark_integer_math score of 68396 suggest the CPU can handle the game's logic without becoming a limiting factor below 200 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 features the GA102 chip on Samsung's 8 nm process, with 28,300 million transistors. Its memory configuration is 10 GB of GDDR6X on a 320-bit bus, providing 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock is 1710 MHz, and it has 8704 shading units. The GPU's percentile ranking of 68 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23172, places it within 0.4% of its nearest rivals, including the NVIDIA P106-100 and AMD Radeon RX 6600M.

The GPU's role in Barony is clearly dominant across all measured settings. At 4K Ultra, the combo achieves 68 FPS average, which is the lowest measured result. At 4K High, it jumps to 95 FPS, a 39.7% improvement over Ultra. This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces settings that heavily tax the GPU, likely related to shadow quality, post-processing, or texture filtering. The GPU's 10 GB VRAM appears sufficient for 4K, as the Medium preset at 4K shows a min FPS of 94, indicating no VRAM-related stuttering.

The GPU's memory bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s is a key factor in the 4K results. The 320-bit bus and 19 Gbps effective memory clock provide substantial throughput, which is necessary for the high-resolution textures and effects that Barony's Ultra preset likely enables. At 1080p, the GPU is less stressed, allowing the combo to reach 449 FPS at Low settings. The GPU's FP32 performance of 29.77 TFLOPS and texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s contribute to the smooth scaling from Low to Ultra.

The measured FPS data shows that the RTX 3080 is well-matched to Barony's requirements. Even at 4K Ultra, the 68 FPS average is playable, though competitive players might prefer the 110 FPS at 4K Medium or the 148 FPS at 4K Low. The GPU's ray tracing cores (68) and tensor cores (272) are present but likely unused in this roguelike, as Barony's 2015 release predates widespread RT adoption.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ranks 1065 out of 3717 tested combinations in Barony, placing it in the 71st percentile of all combos. This ranking is strong but not top-tier, reflecting the fact that the CPU and GPU are both mid-to-high-end parts rather than flagship components. The CPU's percentile of 74 and GPU's percentile of 68 both sit above average, and their combination produces a result that is greater than either component's individual ranking would suggest.

This ranking indicates that in Barony, the combo outperforms the majority of tested systems. The 1065th position out of 3717 means that roughly 71% of all combos tested achieve lower frame rates. The fact that the combo rank (71st percentile) is higher than the GPU's individual percentile (68th) suggests that the Ryzen 5 5600's performance is well-suited to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 3080 in this game. If the CPU were a significant limiter, the combo rank would likely be closer to the GPU's percentile.

Compared to the nearest rivals in the CPU benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 5600's average score of 20468 is within 0.5% of the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (20454, 0.1% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G (20425, 0.2% delta). This tight clustering means that swapping to any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical results in Barony, since the game is not heavily CPU-bound at the resolutions measured. Similarly, the RTX 3080's average score of 23172 is within 0.4% of the NVIDIA P106-100 (23249, -0.3% delta) and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 (23250, -0.3% delta), indicating that the GPU's performance is typical for its class.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo averages 334 FPS with a min of 284 FPS and max of 384 FPS. This provides a consistent, high-refresh-rate experience that exceeds the capabilities of most monitors. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 211 FPS with a min of 179 FPS, still comfortably above 144 Hz for smooth gameplay. At 4K Medium, the average is 110 FPS with a min of 94 FPS, which is playable on high-refresh 4K displays.

The High preset also performs well, with 287 FPS at 1080p, 181 FPS at 1440p, and 95 FPS at 4K. The step from Medium to High at 4K costs 15 FPS (from 110 to 95), which is a 13.6% reduction. The step from High to Ultra at 4K costs 27 FPS (from 95 to 68), a 28.4% reduction. This suggests that the Ultra preset includes settings that are disproportionately expensive at 4K, likely related to shadow resolution or ambient occlusion.

For players with 60 Hz displays at 4K, the Ultra preset's 68 FPS average is sufficient, but it leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The Medium preset at 4K provides a 94 FPS minimum, which is a safer choice for maintaining smooth gameplay. For competitive play at 1080p, the Low preset's 449 FPS average is the best choice, though the Medium preset's 334 FPS average is more than adequate for any current display.

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the sweet spot for this combo. It provides a 110 FPS average at 4K, which is a 61.8% improvement over Ultra's 68 FPS, while only sacrificing some visual fidelity. At 1440p, Medium's 211 FPS average is ideal for 144 Hz monitors, and at 1080p, the 334 FPS average ensures the CPU or GPU is never the bottleneck in normal gameplay.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS values are as follows: Low settings produce an average of 449 FPS, Medium produces 334 FPS with a min of 284 and max of 384, High produces 287 FPS, and Ultra produces 206 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 243 FPS, with the largest single-step drop occurring from Low to Medium (115 FPS, a 25.6% reduction). The step from Medium to High costs 47 FPS (14.1%), and from High to Ultra costs 81 FPS (28.2%). The min FPS at Medium is 284, which is higher than the High average of 287, indicating that the Medium preset provides more consistent frame pacing.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low averages 284 FPS, Medium averages 211 FPS with a min of 179 and max of 242, High averages 181 FPS, and Ultra averages 130 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across settings: Low drops 36.7%, Medium drops 36.8%, High drops 36.9%, and Ultra drops 36.9%. This uniform scaling confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor at these resolutions, as the CPU's performance headroom does not change with resolution. The min FPS at Medium (179) is still above 144 FPS, making 1440p Medium an excellent choice for high-refresh monitors.

At 3840x2160, the measured averages are: Low at 148 FPS, Medium at 110 FPS with a min of 94 and max of 127, High at 95 FPS, and Ultra at 68 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced: Low drops 47.9%, Medium drops 47.9%, High drops 47.5%, and Ultra drops 47.7%. This suggests that the GPU is hitting a bandwidth or compute limit at 4K that is independent of the settings preset. The min FPS at Medium (94) is the only sub-100 FPS minimum recorded in the dataset, but it remains above 60 FPS, ensuring playability.

The complete dataset shows that the combo never drops below 68 FPS average at any resolution or settings combination. The highest measured average is 449 FPS at 1080p Low, and the lowest is 68 FPS at 4K Ultra. The Medium preset at all resolutions provides the best combination of high averages and recorded minimums, making it the recommended starting point for most players. The data also shows that the RTX 3080's 10 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor in Barony, as even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is consistent with the GPU's compute capabilities rather than showing signs of memory pressure.