Barony

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a robust experience in Barony, a 2015 roguelike that scales impressively across resolutions and settings. The measured data shows this combo is far from a bottleneck at standard high refresh rates, though its limits become apparent at 4K Ultra, where the GPU workload takes precedence. This analysis breaks down the performance metrics, optimal settings, and how this specific pairing compares to other tested configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The performance trajectory from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates a shift in the limiting component. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 167.5 FPS, which jumps to 264.5 FPS on Low settings. This substantial headroom at 1080p indicates that the CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads boosting up to 5.00 GHz, is easily feeding the GPU.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. The High preset delivers 104 FPS, while Low settings reach 165.1 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent, with the High preset losing about 38% of its frame rate, suggesting the graphics card is beginning to take on more work, but the Ryzen 5 7500F still has ample processing power to spare.

The transition to 3840x2160 tells a different story. Here, the RTX 2060 becomes the primary constraint. At High settings, the average FPS falls to 53, a significant reduction from the 104 FPS seen at 1440p. More tellingly, the gap between presets narrows at 4K: Low settings hit 86.8 FPS, while Medium manages 65.1 FPS. This compression of performance between presets at 4K indicates that the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are saturated, leaving less room for settings-based scaling.

The data shows that at 1080p and 1440p, the system is operating in a CPU-friendly zone where the RTX 2060's 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192-bit bus are sufficient for high frame rates. However, at 4K, the 336.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth and the GPU's raw compute power—measured at 6.451 TFLOPS FP32—become the definitive factors. The 42 FPS result at 4K Ultra is the lowest observed, demonstrating that this resolution is only viable for lower to medium presets, or for players who prioritize visual fidelity over a locked 60 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the most balanced experience is achieved at 2560x1440 with the High preset, yielding 104 FPS. This provides a strong visual quality improvement over Medium (120.6 FPS) while maintaining a frame rate that comfortably exceeds 100 FPS, which is ideal for the fast-paced, procedural dungeons of Barony.

For players targeting 1080p, the Ultra preset at 122.6 FPS is the recommended choice. The data shows that the GPU has enough headroom at this resolution to handle the highest settings without compromising smoothness, as even the most demanding preset stays well above the 100 FPS threshold. The 167.5 FPS on High suggests that Ultra is a negligible cost for the visual uplift.

At 4K, the situation requires compromise. The High preset at 53 FPS is playable but hovers near the edge of what might be considered smooth. The Medium preset at 65.1 FPS is the safest recommendation for 4K, offering a 23% performance increase over High while still providing a substantial graphical upgrade over Low (86.8 FPS). The Low preset at 86.8 FPS is the best choice for players who prioritize a high refresh rate experience at 4K, but it sacrifices the visual depth that makes the roguelike's environments more readable.

The data suggests that a "High" setting at 1440p is the sweet spot for this hardware combination, as it balances the CPU's capability and the GPU's rendering limits. Pushing to Ultra at this resolution drops the frame rate to 78.7 FPS, which is still smooth but represents a 24% performance penalty for often marginal visual gains.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 plays a definitive role in shaping the performance envelope of this combo, particularly as resolution increases. The GPU's base clock of 1365 MHz boosts to 1680 MHz, and its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specifications are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the card's 1920 shading units and 48 ROPs deliver the high frame rates seen in the data.

The VRAM capacity becomes a relevant factor at 4K. The 6 GB frame buffer is not a direct bottleneck in the measured results, but the significant drop in FPS between 1440p and 4K (from 104 to 53 FPS on High) suggests that the GPU is working at its absolute limit. The card's 201.6 GTexel/s texture rate and 80.64 GPixel/s pixel rate are heavily taxed at 3840x2160, as evidenced by the performance gap between Low and Ultra settings narrowing to just over a 2x difference (86.8 vs 42 FPS).

The RTX 2060's Turing architecture, built on TSMC's 12 nm process with 10,800 million transistors, provides a solid baseline. Its 30 RT cores and 240 Tensor cores are present, but the game's roguelike style does not rely heavily on these features. Instead, the card's raw rasterization performance and memory bandwidth are the key metrics. The data indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, but it also shows that the card retains enough power to handle high refresh rates at more common resolutions, making it a capable partner for the Ryzen 5 7500F in this title.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Ryzen 5 7500F and RTX 2060 achieves a combo rank of 1379 out of 1702 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all configurations, which is consistent with the hardware's age and market positioning.

The CPU itself, however, is a strong performer. The Ryzen 5 7500F holds an 82nd percentile ranking against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24993. It sits within 0.4% of its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i7-11850H (24974, +0.1%) and AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX (24897, +0.4%), while being essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (25057, -0.3%). This indicates the CPU is not the weak link in this pairing.

The GPU's ranking is more modest. The RTX 2060 sits in the 58th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16074. It compares closely to the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (15996, +0.5%) and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15786, +1.8%), while trailing the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and Pro 5700 (both 16351, -1.7%). This places the GPU in the mid-range, which explains why the combo's overall rank in Barony is not higher. The data suggests that while the CPU is a top-tier component, the GPU holds the combo back from achieving a higher rank among the 1702 tested configurations.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achieved by this combo in Barony?

A: The highest observed average frame rate is 264.5 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Is this combo capable of running Barony at 4K with high settings?

A: Yes, it runs at an average of 53 FPS at 3840x2160 with High settings, which is playable, though not ideal for a locked 60 FPS experience.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 7500F compare to its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-11850H?

A: The Ryzen 5 7500F has an average benchmark score of 24993, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-11850H's 24974 score.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Ultra and Low settings at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 78.7 FPS, while the Low preset averages 165.1 FPS, a difference of 86.4 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 2060 have more or less compute power than the AMD Radeon RX 7600S?

A: The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 16074, which is 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600S's score of 15996.

Q: What rank does this CPU+GPU combination hold among all tested combos in Barony?

A: This combination ranks 1379 out of 1702 tested combos in the game.