Barony

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Barony, a 2015 roguelike title. The measured data indicates that this combination is far beyond the demands of the game at all tested resolutions, making the choice of settings primarily about balancing visual fidelity against the diminishing returns of extreme refresh rates.

Settings Recommendations

Given the hardware's capability, the optimal settings preset is High for most users, particularly at 4K. At 3840x2160, the High preset produces an average of 139.5 FPS, which is a comfortable margin above standard 120Hz displays. The Ultra preset, while offering the highest visual quality, drops the 4K average to 100.3 FPS. While still playable, this sacrifices the fluidity that the High preset provides. The data suggests that the visual jump from High to Ultra is not worth a 28% performance penalty at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves 268.6 FPS, while Ultra maintains a very high 191.6 FPS. For users with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors (240Hz or above), the High preset is the superior choice, as it allows the system to fully utilize the display's potential. The Medium preset, at 314.1 FPS, offers little practical benefit over High, as both are already beyond the refresh rate of virtually all monitors on the market.

At 1920x1080, every preset yields an average above 300 FPS. The Ultra preset is the clear recommendation here, as it provides the highest visual fidelity with a still-massive 301.9 FPS average. The performance difference between presets at 1080p, while numerically large (e.g., 622.5 FPS on Low vs 301.9 FPS on Ultra), is imperceptible in practice because the system is heavily CPU-bound at this resolution. Consequently, users should select Ultra to maximize graphical quality without any discernible loss in smoothness. The data shows that the Low preset, which produces 622.5 FPS, is effectively a waste of visual quality for no practical gain.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming with this hardware?

A: The High preset is recommended for 4K. It produces an average of 139.5 FPS, which is significantly higher than the Ultra preset's 100.3 FPS, providing a smoother experience while maintaining high visual quality.

Q: Can this combo run the game at 1080p with maximum settings?

A: Yes. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 301.9 FPS. This is far beyond the refresh rate of any standard monitor, ensuring a perfectly smooth experience.

Q: How does the RTX 4090's performance compare to its nearest rivals in general benchmarks?

A: In the average benchmark score used for this database, the RTX 4090 scores 66473. This is 0.5% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla P40's score of 66127, but 0.9% lower than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56's score of 67097. It sits in the 91st percentile of all GPUs.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests a CPU limitation at lower resolutions. Moving from 1440p High (268.6 FPS) to 1080p High (423 FPS) shows a large jump, but the scaling from 4K to 1080p is not linear, indicating the CPU is limiting the maximum frame rate at 1080p.

Q: What is the difference in frame rate between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset averages 314.1 FPS, while the High preset averages 268.6 FPS. The difference is 45.5 FPS, but both are well above the refresh rate of most monitors, making the High preset the better choice for improved visuals.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 5600GT's multi-threaded performance compare to the Intel Core i7-10700?

A: In the average benchmark score, the Ryzen 5 5600GT scores 20740, which is essentially identical to the Intel Core i7-10700's score of 20746, showing a 0% delta. They are functionally equivalent in this metric.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this configuration, yet its full potential is untapped by Barony. The GPU's specifications are formidable: a 24 GB GDDR6X memory pool on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, and its boost clock reaches 2520 MHz. The benchmark results reflect this power, with a Passmark G3D score of 38194 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 317684. It is placed in the 91st percentile of all GPUs.

Despite this, the measured frame rates show that the GPU is rarely the limiting factor. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is working hardest, producing 100.3 FPS, which is still a very high number for a demanding preset. The data indicates that the game's engine is not designed to stress a GPU of this class. The RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are immense, but the game's low graphical complexity means these resources are largely idle. The substantial VRAM allocation of 24 GB is also not a factor, as Barony's assets are unlikely to require even a fraction of this capacity. The GPU is effectively a high-performance engine idling in a low-speed zone, with the game's frame rate ceiling dictated more by the CPU and the game engine's own limitations than by the graphics card's raw capability.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are: Low 222.2 FPS, Medium 165.9 FPS, High 139.5 FPS, and Ultra 100.3 FPS. This shows a clear and expected progression, with the most significant drop occurring between High and Ultra, a 39.2 FPS difference. The transition from Low to Medium results in a 56.3 FPS reduction, while Medium to High is a 26.4 FPS drop.

At 2560x1440, the averages are significantly higher: Low 421 FPS, Medium 314.1 FPS, High 268.6 FPS, and Ultra 191.6 FPS. The pattern is similar, but the frame rates are roughly 1.5 to 1.9 times higher than their 4K counterparts. For instance, High at 1440p is 268.6 FPS compared to 139.5 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset at 1440p (191.6 FPS) is still faster than the High preset at 4K (139.5 FPS), highlighting the resolution's significant impact on load.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates reach very high levels: Low 622.5 FPS, Medium 492.8 FPS, High 423 FPS, and Ultra 301.9 FPS. The Low preset is the only one to exceed 600 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to 121.1 FPS, but the absolute numbers are so high that the difference is immaterial. The data shows a clear pattern: the relative performance cost of each settings tier is consistent across resolutions, but the absolute cost in FPS is much larger at lower resolutions because the baseline frame rate is higher.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights into the system's bottleneck. Moving from 1080p High (423 FPS) to 1440p High (268.6 FPS) results in a 36.5% drop in frame rate. Moving from 1440p High to 4K High (139.5 FPS) results in a further 48.1% drop. This non-linear scaling is a classic indicator of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions.

If the GPU were the sole limiting factor, the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K would be roughly proportional to the pixel count increase (approximately 1.78x for 1080p to 1440p, and 2.25x for 1440p to 4K). The data shows a much smaller drop than this, particularly at 1080p. For example, the jump from 4K High (139.5 FPS) to 1080p High (423 FPS) is a 3.03x increase in frame rate, which is far less than the 4x increase in pixel count from 4K to 1080p. This indicates that the CPU cannot feed frames to the GPU fast enough at 1080p, capping the performance. The gap between the 1080p and 1440p results is also smaller than expected, further supporting this conclusion. The GPU begins to become more of a limiting factor at 4K, where the pixel fill rate demands are higher, but the CPU's single-thread performance (a 3dmark_single_thread score of 913) is still the primary constraint on maximum FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It carries a 16 MB L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 17272 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2438 in single-core. Its average benchmark score of 20740 places it in the 78th percentile of all CPUs, and it trades blows with the Intel Core i7-10700 (0% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (+0.3% delta).

In Barony, the CPU's role is critical for achieving high frame rates, especially at 1080p. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 622.5 FPS, a figure that is likely near the game engine's physical limit. The CPU's strong single-thread performance, evidenced by the 3dmark_single_thread score of 913, is the key driver for this. However, the game does not appear to be heavily multi-threaded, as the 12-thread capability does not translate into proportional scaling. The 3dmark_2_threads score of 1794 is much lower than the max_threads score of 5554, but the game's frame rate suggests it relies on a few fast cores rather than all of them.

The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are more than sufficient for the game's logic, and the 16 MB L3 cache helps with data locality. The memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s is adequate, but the CPU's performance ceiling is the main factor preventing even higher frame rates at 1080p. The data indicates that while the RTX 4090 is capable of rendering the game at enormous speeds, the Ryzen 5 5600GT's processing power is the upper bound for output, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU's render time is no longer the primary constraint.