Barony

Barony is a 2015 roguelike that, despite its age, shows a surprisingly wide performance spread across settings and resolutions when paired with the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050. The measured data reveals a configuration that is capable of very high frame rates at mainstream resolutions but requires careful settings management to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS results, the role of each component, and how this specific combo ranks against other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data indicates that the optimal settings preset depends heavily on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1920x1080, the Ryzen 5 7400F and RTX 5050 combination delivers exceptional performance across all presets, with the Low preset hitting 302 FPS average and even the demanding Ultra preset achieving 138 FPS average. For users with 1080p displays, the High preset at 193 FPS average provides an excellent balance between visual fidelity and headroom, easily saturating 144Hz and 165Hz displays. The Medium preset, with a 225 FPS average and a minimum of 191 FPS, is also a strong choice for competitive play where frame consistency matters more than maximum visual quality.

Stepping up to 2560x1440, the data shows that the High preset remains highly viable at 122 FPS average, which is ideal for 120Hz and 144Hz monitors. The Medium preset delivers 142 FPS average with a minimum of 120 FPS, making it the best choice for users who want to maximize frame rates while maintaining reasonable graphical quality. The Ultra preset drops to 87 FPS average, which is still playable but may not fully utilize high-refresh-rate panels. At this resolution, the Low preset's 191 FPS average is largely unnecessary unless targeting extreme refresh rates, making High or Medium the recommended choices for most users.

At 3840x2160, the performance picture changes dramatically. The Ultra preset falls to 46 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and should be avoided. The High preset manages 64 FPS average, just barely clearing 60 FPS but with no minimum FPS data to confirm consistency. The Medium preset at 74 FPS average, with a minimum of 63 FPS and maximum of 85 FPS, provides the best experience at 4K, offering a playable frame rate with some headroom above the 60 FPS baseline. The Low preset at 100 FPS average is the only 4K option that provides substantial margin, but it sacrifices significant visual quality. For 4K users, the Medium preset is the clear recommendation, as it is the only measured setting that combines a decent average with a minimum FPS above 60.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a chip designated GB207 containing 16,900 million transistors on a 149 mm² die. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2317 MHz and a boost clock of 2572 MHz, paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a memory bandwidth of 320.0 GB/s. The memory runs at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective speed. This memory configuration is a critical factor in Barony's 4K performance, as the 8 GB capacity and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth directly influence how the GPU handles higher-resolution textures and geometry.

The GPU's compute resources include 2560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units, along with 20 ray tracing cores and 80 tensor cores. The pixel rate is 82.30 GPixel/s and texture rate is 205.8 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 13.17 TFLOPS. These specifications place the RTX 5050 in a specific performance tier, as indicated by its 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 21035. The nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark data include the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL with an average score of 21153 (a delta of -0.6%), the AMD Radeon HD 8970M at 21237 (-1%), the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT at 20713 (+1.6%), and the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile at 21379 (-1.6%). This clustering shows the RTX 5050 sits in a competitive band where small benchmark differences translate to meaningful FPS changes in demanding scenarios.

In Barony, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution rises. At 1080p, the RTX 5050 has ample headroom, with even the Ultra preset achieving 138 FPS average, suggesting the GPU is not the primary bottleneck at this resolution. However, at 4K, the GPU's limits become apparent, with the Ultra preset dropping to 46 FPS average and the High preset at 64 FPS. The Medium preset's 74 FPS average with a 63 FPS minimum indicates that the GPU is still capable of maintaining playable frame rates at 4K, but only with reduced settings. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is likely a contributing factor, as higher settings at 4K may approach or exceed this limit, causing performance degradation. The GPU's 66th percentile ranking overall confirms it is a mid-range part that excels at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain high settings at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 ranks 1775th out of 2935 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 60.5th percentile of all configurations. This ranking reflects the mid-range nature of both components. The CPU's percentile ranking among all CPUs is 83rd, indicating it is a strong performer relative to the broader CPU market, while the GPU's 66th percentile ranking shows it is more modestly positioned. The combo rank of 1775 suggests that in Barony, the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU's higher percentile would likely allow for better performance if paired with a more powerful GPU.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark data—the Intel Core i5-14600T with an average score of 32707 (0.1% delta), the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H at 32697 (0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H at 32812 (-0.2%), and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 at 32662 (0.3%)—all have nearly identical average scores, indicating the Ryzen 5 7400F is well-matched against these competitors. This tight clustering means the CPU is not a source of significant performance differentiation in this combo. The GPU's rivals, as noted earlier, show a similar pattern of close scores, reinforcing that the RTX 5050's performance is consistent with its tier.

The combo rank of 1775 out of 2935 means that approximately 1160 tested combinations performed better in Barony, while the majority of the remaining 1775 performed worse. This places the combo in the lower-middle portion of the distribution, which is expected given the RTX 5050's 66th percentile GPU ranking. The data suggests that users seeking higher rankings in Barony would benefit more from a GPU upgrade than a CPU upgrade, as the Ryzen 5 7400F's 83rd percentile CPU ranking indicates it has headroom to support faster graphics cards.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS data shows a clear progression across settings. The Low preset achieves 302 FPS average, which is exceptionally high and indicates minimal CPU or GPU bottleneck at this resolution. The Medium preset delivers 225 FPS average with a minimum of 191 FPS and maximum of 258 FPS, showing strong consistency. The High preset drops to 193 FPS average, while the Ultra preset achieves 138 FPS average. The gap between Low and Ultra is 164 FPS, representing a 54% reduction in frame rate from the lowest to highest settings, which is a significant but manageable range for a roguelike title.

At 2560x1440, the same settings progression yields 191 FPS average on Low, 142 FPS average on Medium with a minimum of 120 FPS and maximum of 163 FPS, 122 FPS average on High, and 87 FPS average on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at each settings level is notable: Low falls by 111 FPS, Medium by 83 FPS, High by 71 FPS, and Ultra by 51 FPS. This pattern indicates that lower settings see a larger absolute FPS reduction, suggesting that at lower settings, the resolution change has a more pronounced effect on the GPU workload relative to the total frame time.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops further. The Low preset achieves 100 FPS average, Medium delivers 74 FPS average with a minimum of 63 FPS and maximum of 85 FPS, High drops to 64 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 46 FPS average. The range from Low to Ultra at 4K is 54 FPS, which represents a 54% reduction, similar to the percentage drop at 1080p. However, the absolute values are much lower, and only the Low and Medium presets maintain average frame rates above 60 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 63 FPS is the only 4K setting that guarantees a frame rate above 60 FPS, making it the only reliable choice for smooth gameplay at this resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 reveals important information about the limiting component in this system. At 1080p Low, the 302 FPS average is so high that it suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck, as the GPU is clearly capable of rendering frames faster than most displays can show. Moving to 1440p Low, the FPS drops to 191, a 37% reduction, which is close to the 56% increase in pixel count from 1080p to 1440p, indicating the GPU is becoming the primary limiter. At 4K Low, the FPS drops to 100, a 48% reduction from 1440p, while the pixel count increases by 125%, showing that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are not scaling linearly with resolution.

The scaling behavior across settings provides further insight. At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 225 at 1080p to 142 at 1440p (37% reduction) and then to 74 at 4K (48% reduction from 1440p). At High settings, the drops are from 193 to 122 (37%) and then to 64 (48%). At Ultra settings, the drops are from 138 to 87 (37%) and then to 46 (47%). This consistent pattern across all settings—a ~37% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a ~48% reduction from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at resolutions above 1080p. The CPU's influence is minimal at these resolutions, as the Ryzen 5 7400F's performance does not appear to constrain the frame rates, given the consistent scaling pattern.

The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical across all settings presets suggests that the GPU's workload is scaling predictably with resolution, and the RTX 5050's 8 GB VRAM and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth are the limiting factors at 4K. The 4K Ultra frame rate of 46 FPS is particularly telling, as it represents a 67% reduction from the 1080p Ultra frame rate of 138 FPS, while the pixel count increases by 400%. This non-linear scaling points to memory bandwidth saturation or VRAM capacity issues at 4K with high settings, rather than a pure compute limitation.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 7000 series, based on the Zen 4 architecture with the Raphael codename. It operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts up to 4.70 GHz, with a 65 W TDP and support for DDR5 memory on the AMD Socket AM5 platform. The CPU features 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. Its memory bus is dual-channel with a bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s, and it supports ECC memory. The CPU is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 6,570 million transistors on a 71 mm² die.

In Barony, the CPU's role is primarily visible at lower resolutions where the GPU has headroom. At 1080p Low, the 302 FPS average suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls and game logic updates to sustain extremely high frame rates. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21765 and single-core score of 3072 indicate strong per-thread performance, which is important for a roguelike that may have complex procedural generation and AI logic. The PassMark multi-thread score of 25645 and single-thread score of 3689 further confirm the CPU's balanced performance profile.

However, the data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The consistent FPS scaling patterns across resolutions and settings, as described in the Resolution Scaling section, demonstrate that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases. The CPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, compared to the GPU's 66th percentile, indicates that the CPU is relatively stronger in the broader market context. This is supported by the CPU's nearest rivals, all of which have average scores within 0.3% of the Ryzen 5 7400F, showing it performs at the top of its tier. In Barony, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 5050, even at 1080p where frame rates exceed 300 FPS, confirming that the GPU is the performance limiter across all measured scenarios.

FAQ

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

A: The Medium preset at 3840x2160 is the only 4K setting that maintains a minimum FPS above 60, with an average of 74 FPS and a minimum of 63 FPS. The High preset averages 64 FPS, which is borderline, while Ultra drops to 46 FPS average.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 7400F compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 7400F has an average benchmark score of 32750, which is nearly identical to its nearest rivals: the Intel Core i5-14600T at 32707 (0.1% delta), the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H at 32697 (0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H at 32812 (-0.2%), and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 at 32662 (0.3%).

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 302 FPS average, while the Ultra preset achieves 138 FPS average, representing a 164 FPS difference or a 54% reduction from Low to Ultra.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor, as indicated by the consistent FPS scaling patterns across resolutions. The CPU's 83rd percentile ranking versus the GPU's 66th percentile, combined with the fact that the GPU's workload scales predictably with resolution, confirms the RTX 5050 is the bottleneck.

Q: What are the minimum FPS values for the Medium preset at each resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, the Medium preset has a minimum of 191 FPS. At 2560x1440, the minimum is 120 FPS. At 3840x2160, the minimum is 63 FPS. These are the only measured settings with minimum FPS data.

Q: How does the RTX 5050 rank among all GPUs, and what does this mean for Barony?

A: The RTX 5050 ranks in the 66th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 21035. This mid-range positioning means it can handle Barony at high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but requires reduced settings at 4K to maintain playable frame rates, as evidenced by the measured FPS data.