Barony

Barony, a roguelike with a 2015 release, is not typically a title used to stress modern flagship hardware, yet the measured data for the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination reveals a performance profile that is heavily dependent on resolution and settings. The benchmark results show a system capable of delivering extremely high frame rates, but the scaling pattern indicates a shift in bottleneck from the CPU at lower resolutions to the GPU at higher ones. At 1080p, the average frame rates are so high that they approach the practical limits of display technology, while 4K Ultra demands significantly more from the graphics card, resulting in a substantial performance drop.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data across the three tested resolutions shows a clear and predictable decline as pixel count increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly between settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate scales from 522 FPS at 1920x1080, down to 392 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 205 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 61% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K, which is a significant hit, but the absolute numbers remain exceptionally high. The scaling at Ultra settings is even more dramatic, with average frame rates dropping from 284 FPS at 1080p, to 180 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 94 FPS at 4K. This is a 67% decrease from 1080p to 4K, demonstrating that the most demanding settings amplify the load on the rendering pipeline.

The pattern suggests that at 1080p and 1440p with lower settings, the CPU is the primary limiting factor. The Ryzen 5 5600F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is likely maxed out in this older game engine, preventing the RTX 5080 from reaching its full potential. This is evidenced by the relatively small frame rate gains when moving from Low to Medium settings at 1080p (522 FPS to 462 FPS), which indicates the CPU is unable to feed the GPU any faster. However, as resolution increases to 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The pixel fill rate and shading demands of 4K overwhelm the graphics card, causing the frame rate to scale more directly with graphical settings. The 205 FPS at 4K Low versus 94 FPS at 4K Ultra shows a 118% difference, highlighting that the GPU is the dominant constraint at this resolution.

When comparing the scaling from 1440p to 4K, the data shows a consistent drop of roughly 48% across all settings. This consistency suggests that the transition to 4K uniformly increases the GPU workload, regardless of the graphical complexity. In contrast, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is less uniform, with Low settings dropping by 25% and Ultra settings dropping by 37%. This variance reinforces the idea that at 1080p, the CPU is holding back performance, especially at lower settings, and the full weight of the GPU is only felt when the resolution increases.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achieved by this combination?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 522 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: How does the RTX 5080 perform at 4K in Barony?

A: At 3840x2160, the average frame rates range from 205 FPS on Low settings to 94 FPS on Ultra settings, with High settings producing 131 FPS and Medium settings producing 152 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more of a limiting factor at 1440p?

A: The data suggests the CPU is still a significant factor at 2560x1440. The average frame rates of 392 FPS on Low and 250 FPS on High are extremely high, but the scaling from Low to Medium (392 to 292 FPS) is not as large as the scaling from Medium to High (292 to 250 FPS), indicating a mix of CPU and GPU limitations.

Q: What is the lowest average frame rate recorded in the test data?

A: The lowest average frame rate is 94 FPS, which occurs at 3840x2160 resolution with Ultra settings.

Q: Does the game show a preference for more CPU cores or higher clock speeds?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600F, with a base clock of 3.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.00 GHz, achieves very high frame rates. However, at 1080p Low, the frame rate ceiling appears to be limited by the CPU's single-thread performance, as the GPU is not fully utilized.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its capabilities are clearly reflected in the 4K performance metrics. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth provide ample resources for the texture and geometry data required at high resolutions. The benchmark results show that even at 4K Ultra, the card is able to maintain a playable average of 94 FPS, which reflects its raw compute power. The GPU's architecture, Blackwell 2.0, with its 10752 shading units, is well-suited for the traditional rasterization workload that Barony presents.

The clock speeds of the RTX 5080, with a base of 2295 MHz and a boost of 2617 MHz, contribute to its ability to handle the increasing pixel count. The scaling from 4K Low to 4K Ultra shows a 54% drop in average frame rate (205 FPS to 94 FPS), which is a direct result of the increased shader and pixel processing demands. The GPU's 112 ROPs and 879.3 GTexel/s texture rate are critical for maintaining high fill rates at 4K, and the data shows that the card is the primary bottleneck at this resolution. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8637 and the Passmark G3D score of 36565 provide additional context for its performance, placing it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs.

The fact that the RTX 5080 is not fully utilized at 1080p is evident from the frame rate data. The difference between 1080p Low and 1080p Medium is only 60 FPS (522 to 462 FPS), while the difference between 1080p High and 1080p Ultra is 113 FPS (397 to 284 FPS). This non-linear scaling suggests that at lower settings, the CPU is unable to issue draw calls fast enough, leaving the GPU idle. The GPU's role becomes more pronounced as the resolution increases, and it is only at 4K that its full potential is tested.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination ranks 208th out of 2935 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the top 7% of all configurations, which is a strong result for a game that is not heavily threaded. The high rank is primarily due to the exceptional performance of the RTX 5080 at 4K, where the GPU's power is the deciding factor. In a game like Barony, which has a simple visual style, the raw throughput of the graphics card is more important than advanced features.

The CPU's contribution to this rank is significant but secondary. The Ryzen 5 5600F has an average benchmark score of 36945, which places it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core Ultra 5 225, have a nearly identical average score of 36938, indicating that the CPU is performing exactly as expected for its class. The combination's rank of 208 suggests that it outperforms the vast majority of other pairings, but it is not at the very top. The data implies that users with higher-end CPUs, such as those with more cores or higher clocks, might achieve slightly better frame rates at 1080p, but the difference would be negligible at 4K.

The rank also highlights the importance of the GPU in this specific title. The RTX 5080's percentile of 87 versus the CPU's percentile of 85 indicates that the GPU is the stronger component relative to its peers. This is consistent with the resolution scaling analysis, which shows the GPU becoming the bottleneck at 4K. The combination's overall rank is a reflection of the balance between the two components, with the GPU providing the high-end performance and the CPU providing sufficient support to avoid severe bottlenecks at most settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, based on the Zen 3 architecture, provides the processing foundation for this system. With 6 cores and 12 threads, it is a capable processor for gaming, but its role in Barony is nuanced. The CPU's Passmark single-thread score of 2872 and multithread score of 19236 indicate that it has solid single-core performance, which is crucial for older game engines that rely heavily on one or two threads. The base clock of 3.00 GHz and boost clock of 4.00 GHz are moderate, but they are sufficient to drive frame rates above 500 FPS at 1080p Low.

The data shows that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, particularly at lower settings. The fact that the average frame rate at 1080p Low (522 FPS) is higher than at 1080p Medium (462 FPS) is counterintuitive, but it suggests that the CPU is working as hard as it can to process the game logic and physics, regardless of the graphical load. The CPU's L3 cache of 32 MB (shared) helps to reduce memory latency, but the dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s is a potential limitation for a game that might require frequent data transfers.

At 1440p, the CPU is still a factor, but the gap between settings narrows. The drop from Low (392 FPS) to Medium (292 FPS) is 100 FPS, while the drop from Medium to High (250 FPS) is 42 FPS. This indicates that the CPU is still near its limit at these settings, but the GPU is starting to take on more of the workload. At 4K, the CPU is no longer a bottleneck, as the frame rates are entirely dictated by the GPU's ability to render the higher resolution. The Ryzen 5 5600F's performance is adequate for this game, and it does not appear to hold back the RTX 5080 at the highest resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are exceptionally high, starting at 522 FPS on Low and dropping to 462 FPS on Medium, 397 FPS on High, and 284 FPS on Ultra. The Medium setting is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values, showing a range of 393 to 532 FPS, which indicates some frame time variance, but the overall experience is extremely smooth.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are still very high, but they show a clear step down from 1080p. The Low setting produces 392 FPS, Medium produces 292 FPS, High produces 250 FPS, and Ultra produces 180 FPS. The Medium setting again has recorded minimum and maximum values of 248 and 336 FPS, respectively. These numbers suggest that 1440p is a sweet spot for this combination, offering high refresh rate performance without pushing the GPU to its absolute limit.

At 3840x2160, the performance is more moderate, but still impressive. The average frame rates are 205 FPS on Low, 152 FPS on Medium, 131 FPS on High, and 94 FPS on Ultra. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 130 FPS and a maximum of 175 FPS, which is a tighter range than at lower resolutions, indicating more consistent frame pacing. The 4K Ultra result of 94 FPS is the only average below 100 FPS in the entire dataset, but it remains well within the playable range for a roguelike title. This breakdown confirms that the combination is capable of delivering a high-refresh-rate experience at 1080p and 1440p, and a solid 4K experience at High settings or below.