Barony

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER pairing delivers a striking performance profile in Barony, a roguelike where frame rates reach extraordinary heights. This combination ranks 117th out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the top 7% of all systems, yet the data reveals that the CPU is frequently the limiting factor, especially at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a dramatic scaling curve from 1080p to 4K, with the most revealing drop occurring between 1080p and 1440p. At High settings, the system delivers 379.7 FPS at 1920x1080, which drops by 36% to 242.2 FPS at 2560x1440, and then falls another 48% to 126.7 FPS at 3840x2160. This pattern indicates that while the RTX 4080 SUPER is certainly being exercised at higher resolutions, the Ryzen 5 5600 is holding back performance at 1080p.

The Low settings row makes this CPU bottleneck even more apparent. At 1080p Low, the system produces 598.9 FPS, but at 1440p Low it still manages 379.2 FPS, and at 4K Low it reaches 198.5 FPS. The resolution scaling here is nearly linear, suggesting that the GPU is not the primary constraint even at 4K. If the GPU were the sole limiting factor, we would expect a more pronounced drop when pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. Instead, the 4K Low result is only 33% of the 1080p Low figure, which points to the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads struggling to feed the GPU at lower settings.

The gap between High and Ultra settings at each resolution provides additional insight. At 1080p, the difference between High (379.7 FPS) and Ultra (275.3 FPS) is 104.4 FPS, whereas at 4K the same settings gap shrinks to 33.9 FPS (126.7 vs 92.8). This compression at higher resolutions suggests that as GPU load increases, the CPU has more headroom to keep up, making the GPU the dominant factor at 4K.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER is a formidable part of this equation, with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus providing 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for Barony, a roguelike that does not demand massive texture pools. The GPU's 10240 shading units and 320 texture mapping units allow it to process the game's simple geometry quickly, which explains why even at 4K Ultra the system maintains 92.8 FPS.

The clock speeds of 2295 MHz base and 2550 MHz boost are modest by modern standards, but the Ada Lovelace architecture's efficiency shines through. The GPU's 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is clearly not being fully utilized at 1080p, where the CPU limits output. The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce this capability: its Passmark G3D score of 34245 places it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, with the nearest rival being the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 53489 average score, a mere 0.2% difference.

The 4K Ultra result of 92.8 FPS is the only data point where the GPU appears to be the clear bottleneck. This suggests that for most playable settings, the RTX 4080 SUPER has significant headroom, and the system's overall performance is constrained by other components.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide clear guidance for optimal settings. At 4K, High settings (126.7 FPS) offer the best balance, as Ultra (92.8 FPS) dips below the 100 FPS threshold that many players prefer for smooth gameplay. Medium at 4K (146.3 FPS) provides a substantial 15.5% improvement over High while likely maintaining most visual quality.

At 1440p, the situation is more nuanced. Ultra settings (170.2 FPS) are entirely playable and deliver the best visual fidelity. High settings (242.2 FPS) seem redundant at this resolution, as the extra 72 FPS over Ultra is unlikely to be perceptible on most displays. Medium (281.2 FPS) and Low (379.2 FPS) push frame rates into territory that exceeds the refresh rate of virtually all monitors, making them unnecessary unless the user has a very high refresh rate display.

For 1080p, the recommendation is straightforward: Ultra settings (275.3 FPS) provide an excellent experience. The CPU bottleneck at this resolution means that choosing High (379.7 FPS) or Medium (444.4 FPS) only yields marginal practical benefits, as most displays cannot show these frame rates. Low settings (598.9 FPS) are only relevant for competitive play at the highest refresh rates available.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS table reveals a consistent pattern across all settings. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 598.9 FPS on Low, 444.4 FPS on Medium, 379.7 FPS on High, and 275.3 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from Low to Ultra represents a 54% reduction in frame rate, which is substantial but still leaves the system far above playable thresholds.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results show 379.2 FPS on Low, 281.2 FPS on Medium, 242.2 FPS on High, and 170.2 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra here is 55%, nearly identical to 1080p, indicating the same relative performance curve.

At 3840x2160, the system produces 198.5 FPS on Low, 146.3 FPS on Medium, 126.7 FPS on High, and 92.8 FPS on Ultra. The Low to Ultra reduction is 53%, again consistent. This consistency across resolutions suggests that the performance scaling is driven by settings complexity rather than resolution, with the CPU handling the additional work at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra in Barony?

A: Yes, the measured 92.8 FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra comfortably exceeds 60 FPS, providing a significant margin for demanding scenes.

Q: What is the best resolution to use with a 240Hz monitor?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings deliver 242.2 FPS, which slightly exceeds a 240Hz display's refresh rate. For 1080p, even Ultra settings at 275.3 FPS surpass this threshold.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the CPU is the limiting factor. The Ryzen 5 5600's 6 cores and 12 threads produce 598.9 FPS at Low settings, but the relative performance gains from lowering settings diminish, indicating CPU constraints.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU scores 53610 on average, which is only 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT at 53489, making them effectively equivalent in raw compute.

Q: Does this system's frame rate scale linearly with resolution?

A: No, the scaling is sub-linear. From 1080p High (379.7 FPS) to 4K High (126.7 FPS), the frame rate drops to 33% of the original despite a 4x increase in pixels, indicating that the CPU becomes relatively less limiting at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the lowest playable frame rate measured?

A: The minimum measured average is 92.8 FPS at 4K Ultra settings, which remains well above common 60 FPS thresholds for smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, fabricated on TSMC's 7 nm process. Its base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz are modest, but the 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps mitigate latency in games like Barony that may have unpredictable memory access patterns.

The CPU's benchmark results place it in the 79th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 21765. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-11700F, scores 21957, a 0.9% difference that puts the Ryzen 5 5600 slightly behind. However, the CPU's single-thread performance is particularly relevant for Barony, as roguelikes often have a primary simulation thread that limits frame rates.

The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 598.9 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum output for this game. The Ryzen 5 5600's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2584 and multi-core score of 18309 indicate strong single-thread capabilities, but the 6-core limit becomes evident when comparing to higher-core-count processors. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1737 and 4-thread score of 3313 suggest that the CPU can handle moderate thread counts well, but the game may not fully utilize all 12 threads.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 117th out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the top 6.9% of all systems tested. This high rank is primarily driven by the GPU's exceptional performance, as the CPU's 79th percentile ranking is below the GPU's 88th percentile.

The discrepancy between the CPU and GPU rankings explains the system's behavior. The RTX 4080 SUPER is capable of far higher frame rates than the Ryzen 5 5600 can feed, particularly at lower resolutions. This is evident in the 1080p results, where the system achieves nearly 600 FPS on Low settings, but the CPU's limitations prevent it from reaching even higher values.

The combo rank of 117 suggests that many of the 1702 tested combos use more powerful CPUs, likely with higher core counts or newer architectures. The Ryzen 5 5600's 6 cores and 12 threads, while adequate for most games, become a bottleneck in Barony when paired with such a high-end GPU. This creates an interesting dynamic: the system is overkill for 4K gaming, where the GPU dominates, but underpowered for maximum frame rates at 1080p, where the CPU becomes the limiting factor.