Barony

Resolution Scaling

Barony is a roguelike that scales unusually hard with resolution, and this AMD Ryzen 5 7600 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 combination makes that clear. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 449.2 FPS. Crank the resolution to 4K at the same Low preset, and the average drops to 149.6 FPS — a 66.7% reduction in frame rate. That is a massive penalty for a game that is not graphically demanding by modern standards, and it signals that the GPU is doing far more heavy lifting than the CPU at higher pixel counts.

The step from 1080p to 1440p is also steep. At 1440p High, average FPS sits at 178.7, versus 287.2 FPS at 1080p High. That is a 37.8% drop from moving one resolution step up. The 4K High result of 94.5 FPS is less than a third of the 1080p High result. This pattern — consistent, large FPS losses at every resolution increase — indicates that the RTX 3080's rasterization throughput is the primary limiter once pixel count rises, regardless of the CPU's headroom.

Interestingly, the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, Low produces 449.2 FPS while Ultra produces 206.5 FPS, a 242.7 FPS spread. At 4K, that spread compresses to 80.5 FPS (149.6 Low vs 69.1 Ultra). The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond what Ultra settings demand, so the frame rate ceiling is set by the graphics workload. At 4K, the GPU is saturated even at Low settings, so the additional shading work from Ultra settings has less relative impact on the final average.

The 1440p numbers reinforce this interpretation. At Medium settings, the combo delivers 211.2 FPS at 1440p, which drops to 108.8 FPS at 4K Medium. Similarly, 1440p Ultra yields 128.4 FPS, while 4K Ultra yields 69.1 FPS. In every setting tier, the 4K result is roughly 46-54% of the 1440p result. That consistent halving points to a GPU-bound scenario at 4K, where the RTX 3080's 10 GB memory and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed to their practical limits for this engine.

For players targeting high refresh rates, 1080p is clearly the sweet spot — even Ultra settings clear 200 FPS. At 1440p, High settings remain comfortably above 144 FPS at 178.7. The 4K Ultra figure of 69.1 FPS is playable for a roguelike, but it is not a high-refresh experience. The data shows this combo is best suited to 1080p and 1440p gaming for Barony, with 4K reserved for lower presets.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 is the defining component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the resolution scaling behavior. Built on the Ampere architecture with the GA102 chip, this GPU packs 8,704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. Its boost clock of 1710 MHz and base clock of 1440 MHz are modest for a high-end card, but the sheer number of cores compensates. The 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus provides 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial for a game like Barony that appears to scale heavily with fill rate and memory throughput at higher resolutions.

The GPU's benchmark profile confirms its position. In PassMark G3D, it scores 25,086, placing it in the 80th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival in average score is the AMD Radeon Pro Duo at 35,860, a 0.2% difference, and the AMD Radeon 880M at 35,646, a 0.4% difference. The RTX 3080's average benchmark score is 35,787, which is nearly identical to these rivals — proof of how close the top-tier GPU field is in synthetic tests. In DirectX 12 PassMark, it scores 100, while DirectX 11 yields 207 and DirectX 9 yields 258, suggesting stronger legacy API performance relative to modern API workloads.

The VRAM allocation is worth noting. Barony is not a texture-heavy title by contemporary standards, yet the 4K Ultra result of 69.1 FPS suggests the 10 GB frame buffer is not the bottleneck at this resolution — the compute throughput is. The GPU's pixel rate of 164.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s are the metrics that matter for a game with simple geometry but potentially many on-screen effects. The data shows that at 4K, the RTX 3080 is rendering at a rate consistent with its pixel throughput limits, not its memory capacity limits.

The GPU's end-of-life production status and 320 W TDP indicate it is a previous-generation flagship that still holds up well. Its FP32 performance of 29.77 TFLOPS is identical to its FP16 performance (1:1 ratio), which is unusual and reflects the Ampere architecture's design priorities. For Barony, which is not known for heavy compute shaders, this raw throughput translates directly into the high frame rates observed at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a Zen 4 (Raphael) part with 6 cores and 12 threads, base clock of 3.80 GHz, and boost clock of 5.10 GHz. Its 65 W TDP and 5 nm process node from TSMC make it an efficient choice, but for Barony, the CPU's role is largely about feeding the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 449.2 FPS, which is likely near the engine's own simulation ceiling — the CPU must process game state, AI, and rendering commands faster than the GPU can draw frames.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show strong single-thread performance. In Cinebench R23, it scores 3,246 single-core and 22,992 multi-core. The single-core score is particularly relevant for a roguelike, where game logic is often serial and cannot fully utilize multiple threads. The 3DMark single-thread score of 999 and 2-thread score of 1,938 reinforce that this CPU has excellent per-core capability. In PassMark, it scores 3,910 single-thread and 27,058 multi-thread, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (26,574, delta 0.2%), Intel Core i9-12900HK (26,672, delta -0.2%), and Intel Core i9-11900K (26,546, delta 0.3%). These deltas are negligible — the Ryzen 5 7600's average score of 26,617 is effectively tied with its competition. This means the CPU is not a differentiating factor in Barony's performance; the GPU determines the outcome.

With 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth on DDR5, the CPU has ample resources for game data. The 3DMark max threads score of 6,503 versus 16-thread score of 6,499 shows that scaling beyond 6 cores yields almost nothing — Barony, like most roguelikes, is not heavily threaded. The CPU's 12 threads are more than sufficient, and the data indicates that even at 4K Low (149.6 FPS), the CPU is not the limiting factor. The bottleneck shifts entirely to the GPU as resolution increases.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ranks 541st out of 1,702 tested combos in Barony. That places it in the top 31.8% of all configurations tested — a solid but not elite position. Given that the GPU is in the 80th percentile and the CPU is in the 83rd percentile individually, the combo ranking is slightly below what either component alone might suggest. This is likely because Barony's performance is so heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions that the CPU's excellent single-thread scores do not translate into a top-tier combo ranking.

The rank of 541 out of 1,702 means there are 540 combos that achieve higher frame rates in this game. Those higher-ranked combos likely feature newer GPUs with more rasterization throughput, such as the RTX 40-series successors. The RTX 3080's end-of-life status and the fact that its nearest rivals are all within 1% deltaPct in average score suggest that the GPU is at the edge of a performance plateau. The data shows that for Barony specifically, the combo's 4K Ultra result of 69.1 FPS is respectable, but the 1080p results above 200 FPS at every setting tier are where this combination truly shines.

The combo's position also reflects the game's release date of 2015. Barony is not a modern AAA title with ray tracing or advanced effects, so older high-end GPUs like the RTX 3080 can still produce high frame rates. The 541st rank out of 1,702 is likely influenced by the fact that many newer combos with RTX 40-series cards or RX 7000-series cards achieve higher raw FPS, even if the playable experience at 1440p is already beyond what most monitors can display.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Barony?

A: The highest recorded average is 449.2 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 1080p Ultra, it still reaches 206.5 FPS.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average FPS is 69.1. This is the most demanding configuration tested, and it remains playable but not high-refresh.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in Barony?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary limiter. At 1080p Low, the CPU can push 449.2 FPS, but as resolution increases to 4K, the FPS drops to 149.6 at Low, showing the GPU saturates first.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested configurations?

A: It ranks 541st out of 1,702 total combos tested in Barony, placing it in the top 31.8% of all configurations.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 3080's average benchmark score is 35,787. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro Duo, scores 35,860 (0.2% higher), while the AMD Radeon 880M scores 35,646 (0.4% lower). All are within 1% of each other.

Q: What is the best resolution for high refresh rate gaming with this combo?

A: At 1440p High, the combo delivers 178.7 FPS, which is above 144 Hz. At 1080p, every setting tier exceeds 200 FPS, making it ideal for 240 Hz displays.