Barony

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 produces a combination that ranks 2275th out of 3717 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This ranking, while not flattering at first glance, reflects the game’s unique computational demands rather than a fundamental weakness in either component. The RTX 4080 is a top-tier GPU by any measure, sitting at the 86th percentile among all GPUs, while the Ryzen 7 3700X holds the 84th percentile among CPUs. The data suggests that Barony, a 2015 roguelike, does not scale with the massive GPU resources available, and the measured frame rates confirm that the 4080 is often underutilized, especially at lower resolutions and settings. The combo’s percentile rank indicates that many other pairings—likely those with more modern CPUs—achieve better results, but the absolute FPS numbers remain high, with the worst-case average at 4K Ultra still hitting 57 FPS. The takeaway is clear: this is a capable pairing for Barony, but the CPU and GPU are not equally stressed across the tested scenarios, and the ranking reflects the bottleneck shifting toward the processor in many configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame of 2275 out of 3717 places this pairing in the 61st percentile of all tested combos for Barony, meaning roughly 61% of other CPU-GPU combinations outperform it in this specific title. That is a surprising result for a GPU that ranks in the 86th percentile overall and a CPU in the 84th percentile, but Barony’s roguelike nature—procedural generation, complex game logic, and relatively simple graphics—means the GPU’s raw power often goes to waste. The RTX 4080’s average benchmark score of 54247 dwarfs its nearest rivals, including the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209, a 0.1% gap) and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828, where the 4080 trails by 1.1%), yet those rivals would likely rank similarly in this game due to the CPU-driven workload. The Ryzen 7 3700X, with an average benchmark score of 34260, is nearly identical to its nearest competitors: the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (34222, just 0.1% behind), the AMD EPYC 4244P (34220, 0.1% behind), and the Intel Core i5-13450HX (34333, where the 3700X is 0.2% behind). These near-ties suggest that the 3700X is not a performance outlier, and its age (released in 2019) shows in Barony’s single-threaded tendencies. The rank of 2275 means that a majority of tested combos deliver higher average FPS, but the actual measured FPS figures—ranging from 57 at 4K Ultra to 208 at 1080p Low—are still playable or better in every scenario. The discrepancy between the component’s high general percentile and the combo’s middling game rank is the key story: Barony does not reward the 4080’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory or its 9728 shading units, and the 3700X’s 8 cores and 16 threads are often more than needed, yet the game’s engine seems to favor newer CPU architectures.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 brings a substantial feature set to Barony, but the game’s measured FPS data shows that its capabilities are only partially utilized. The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, with a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz. Memory clocks are listed at 1400 MHz with 22.4 Gbps effective, and the chip (AD103, Ada Lovelace architecture) contains 9728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. For a roguelike like Barony, which typically renders simple geometric environments and text-heavy UI, these specifications are extreme overkill. The measured FPS confirms this: at 1080p Low, the average is 208 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 148 FPS—a 29% reduction that suggests the GPU is still not the limiting factor even at the highest settings. The RTX 4080’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567 and passmark G3D score of 34457 place it in the 86th percentile, but those benchmarks stress GPU compute and rasterization in ways Barony does not. The GPU’s nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54209 versus 54247 (0.1% ahead for the 4080), but neither would show a meaningful difference in Barony because the game’s frame rates are capped by other factors. The 4080’s 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are irrelevant for Barony, which likely uses no ray tracing or DLSS in its default rendering path. The GPU’s role here is to provide a high ceiling: even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 57, which is playable, and at 4K Low, it jumps to 116 FPS. The data indicates that the 4080 is more than sufficient for Barony at any resolution and setting, and the bottlenecks lie elsewhere—specifically in how the game’s CPU-bound logic interacts with the 3700X.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS across resolutions reveals a clear pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drops depends heavily on the settings preset. Starting at 1080p with Low settings, the average FPS is 208. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 182 FPS (a 12.5% decrease), and at 4K Low, the average falls to 116 FPS (a 44.2% decrease from 1080p). This steep drop at 4K Low indicates that the GPU is finally being challenged, though 116 FPS is still smooth. For High settings, the scaling is more moderate: 1080p High averages 181 FPS, 1440p High drops to 139 FPS (a 23.2% decrease), and 4K High falls to 80 FPS (a 55.8% decrease from 1080p). The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 1080p Ultra averages 148 FPS, 1440p Ultra drops to 100 FPS (a 32.4% decrease), and 4K Ultra falls to 57 FPS (a 61.5% decrease from 1080p). These numbers point to the GPU becoming the limiting component at 4K, especially with higher settings, but the CPU still matters at lower resolutions. The gap between 1080p Low (208 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (148 FPS) is 60 FPS, which is larger than the gap between 1080p Low and 1440p Low (26 FPS). This suggests that at 1080p, the game is partly CPU-bound, as increasing settings from Low to Ultra does not scale linearly with GPU load. At 4K, however, the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes the primary constraint, as evidenced by the 4K Low to 4K Ultra spread of 59 FPS (116 to 57). The medium preset offers a middle ground: 1080p Medium averages 198 FPS with a min of 169 and max of 228, while 1440p Medium averages 174 FPS (min 148, max 200), and 4K Medium averages 102 FPS (min 87, max 117). The min FPS values at Medium settings show that even at 4K, the frame rate rarely dips below 87 FPS, indicating good stability. Overall, the resolution scaling data shows that Barony is highly playable across all tested configurations, but the limiting component shifts from CPU at 1080p to GPU at 4K, with the 3700X holding back performance at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo, particularly at 1440p and 4K. At 1440p Medium, the average FPS is 174, with a minimum of 148 and a maximum of 200, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay and leaves headroom for demanding scenes. At 4K Medium, the average is 102 FPS with a minimum of 87 and maximum of 117, which is excellent for a 4K experience and still exceeds typical display refresh rates. The High preset is also viable, but the performance cost is notable: 1440p High drops to 139 FPS (20% lower than Medium) and 4K High falls to 80 FPS (22% lower than Medium). The Ultra preset is the least recommended for this combo at 4K, where the average of 57 FPS may cause noticeable stutter in fast-paced roguelike combat, though it remains playable. At 1080p, the choice is less critical because all presets exceed 148 FPS, but Medium (198 FPS) provides a significant jump over Ultra (148 FPS) with likely minimal visual differences in a game with Barony’s simple graphics. The Low preset offers the highest frame rates (208 FPS at 1080p, 182 at 1440p, 116 at 4K), but it sacrifices visual fidelity for marginal gains, and given that Medium is only 10 FPS slower at 1080p (198 vs 208) and 8 FPS slower at 1440p (174 vs 182), the trade-off is not worth it. At 4K, the gap widens (116 vs 102), but 102 FPS is still superior to most gaming experiences. The data shows that Medium is the sweet spot: it delivers 174 FPS at 1440p and 102 FPS at 4K, which are both excellent figures, while offering better visuals than Low. For players with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors, Medium’s 198 FPS is close to the Low preset’s 208 FPS, so the visual upgrade is essentially free. The Ultra preset, while tempting, reduces performance by 16% at 1080p (148 vs 198 for Medium) and 44% at 4K (57 vs 102), with likely negligible visual improvements in a roguelike that uses procedural textures and minimal post-processing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of how this combo performs across three resolutions and four settings presets, with the Medium preset offering the only min/max values. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 208 FPS, while Medium averages 198 FPS with a minimum of 169 and maximum of 228. High drops to 181 FPS, and Ultra falls to 148 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 60 FPS, with Ultra being 29% slower than Low. At 2560x1440, Low averages 182 FPS, Medium averages 174 FPS (min 148, max 200), High averages 139 FPS, and Ultra averages 100 FPS. The spread is 82 FPS, with Ultra 45% slower than Low. At 3840x2160, Low averages 116 FPS, Medium averages 102 FPS (min 87, max 117), High averages 80 FPS, and Ultra averages 57 FPS. The spread is 59 FPS, with Ultra 51% slower than Low. The min FPS values at Medium settings are particularly telling: at 1080p, the minimum of 169 FPS is still higher than the average FPS for High at any resolution except 1080p, and at 4K, the minimum of 87 FPS is above the 60 FPS standard. The max FPS values show headroom: 228 FPS at 1080p Medium, 200 at 1440p Medium, and 117 at 4K Medium. These figures indicate that the combo is consistently fast, but the relative performance drops as settings increase are larger at higher resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the bottleneck at 4K Ultra. For instance, at 1080p, going from Medium to Ultra reduces FPS by 25% (198 to 148), but at 4K, the same setting change reduces FPS by 44% (102 to 57). The data also shows that the Low preset’s 4K average of 116 FPS is higher than the High preset’s 1440p average of 139 FPS, which suggests that resolution has a greater impact on performance than settings do. Specifically, dropping from 1440p High to 4K Low increases FPS from 139 to 116, a 17% improvement, while dropping from 4K High to 4K Low increases FPS from 80 to 116, a 45% improvement. This indicates that for players prioritizing frame rate, lowering settings is more effective than lowering resolution at 4K, but lowering resolution is more effective at 1080p and 1440p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X plays a critical role in Barony, and the measured FPS data suggests that it is the limiting factor at lower resolutions and settings. The CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, built on TSMC’s 7 nm process with the Zen 2 architecture (codenamed Matisse). Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a 32 MB L3 cache, with dual-channel DDR4 memory support providing 51.2 GB/s of bandwidth. In benchmarks, the 3700X scores 2092 in Cinebench R15 multi-core and 204 in single-core, with Geekbench scores of 8899 (multi-core) and 1593 (single-core). Its PassMark multi-thread score is 22458, and single-thread is 2656. These numbers place it at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, but its nearest rivals show how close it is to modern chips: the AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 scores 34222 (0.1% behind the 3700X’s 34260), the AMD EPYC 4244P scores 34220 (0.1% behind), and the Intel Core i5-13450HX scores 34333 (0.2% ahead). This near-tie means the 3700X is not a weak CPU by general standards, but Barony’s performance pattern—where 1080p Low (208 FPS) is only 27% faster than 1080p Ultra (148 FPS)—suggests the game is not purely GPU-bound. The fact that 1080p Low and 1080p Medium are within 5% of each other (208 vs 198 FPS) further indicates that the CPU is limiting the maximum achievable frame rate, as the GPU has plenty of headroom at such low settings. The 3700X’s single-thread performance, as measured by Cinebench R15 single-core (204) and Geekbench single-core (1593), is likely the key factor, as roguelikes often rely on single-threaded game logic for procedural generation and AI. The multi-thread score of 2092 in Cinebench R15 shows that the 8-core/16-thread configuration is strong, but Barony may not utilize all cores effectively, leaving the CPU’s per-core performance as the bottleneck. The measured FPS at 1440p Low (182 FPS) versus 1080p Low (208 FPS) shows a 12.5% drop, which is less than the 44% drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low (208 to 116 FPS), confirming that the GPU becomes more relevant at higher resolutions. However, the 3700X’s age (released in 2019) means it lacks the higher boost clocks of newer CPUs, and the combo’s rank of 2275 out of 3717 reflects this: many combos with newer CPUs achieve higher FPS in Barony’s CPU-bound scenarios. The CPU’s TDP of 65 W and PCIe Gen 4 support (24 lanes) are adequate, but the 3700X’s memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, while fine for most games, may be a minor constraint in data-heavy roguelike levels. In summary, the Ryzen 7 3700X provides enough multi-threaded power for Barony, but its single-thread performance caps frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, making it the primary reason the combo does not rank higher. The GPU, meanwhile, is only fully utilized at 4K with higher settings, where the 4080’s 16 GB of VRAM and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth come into play. For players using this combo, the data suggests that aiming for 1440p Medium (174 FPS) or 4K Medium (102 FPS) is optimal, as these settings balance the CPU and GPU loads, but the CPU will still prevent the extreme frame rates seen with newer processors.