Barony

# Barony with AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 produces remarkably high frame rates in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The data shows this combination ranks 105th out of 1702 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top 6.2% of all configurations. The measured results span four settings presets across three resolutions, with average FPS ranging from a minimum of 97.4 at 4K Ultra to a maximum of 495 at 1080p Low. These figures indicate a system with extraordinary headroom, even at the most demanding settings, making the bottleneck analysis particularly revealing for what is likely a CPU-bound scenario at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but not uniform across settings presets. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 495 at 1920x1080 to 222.8 at 3840x2160, a reduction of 55%. At High settings, the drop is more severe in percentage terms: from 419 at 1080p to 138.8 at 4K, representing a 66.9% decrease. Medium settings show a similar pattern, declining from 443.6 to 165.3, a 62.7% reduction. Ultra settings experience the steepest percentage decline, falling from 306.6 at 1080p to 97.4 at 4K, a 68.2% drop.

These scaling patterns suggest that at lower resolutions, the Ryzen 7 3700X with 8 cores and 16 threads becomes the limiting factor, particularly at Low and Medium presets where the GPU has less work to do. The 4K results, by contrast, show the RTX 4090 being pushed harder, yet even at 4K Ultra the system maintains nearly 100 FPS average. The transition from 1440p to 4K reveals the steepest relative performance cliff: at High settings, FPS drops from 266 at 2560x1440 to 138.8 at 3840x2160 (a 47.8% loss), while at Low settings the decline is from 417.3 to 222.8 (a 46.6% loss). This indicates that 4K resolution roughly halves the frame rate across all presets, pointing to the GPU becoming the dominant constraint at that resolution.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090's specifications are crucial to understanding these results. With 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, the card has ample resources for Barony's roguelike rendering needs. The GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz and base clock of 2235 MHz, combined with 16,384 shading units, provide massive compute throughput that explains the high frame rates even at 4K. The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, features 76,300 million transistors across a 609 mm² die, enabling 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

The benchmark data shows the RTX 4090's percentile ranking at 91 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 66,473. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests are the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (deltaPct -0.4%), NVIDIA Tesla P40 (deltaPct 0.5%), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (deltaPct -0.9%), and NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (deltaPct -1.3%). These comparisons are from general compute benchmarks, not Barony specifically, but they establish the GPU's position in the broader hardware landscape. In Barony, the GPU's role becomes increasingly pronounced as resolution climbs; at 4K Ultra, the 97.4 FPS average suggests the card is still not fully saturated, given that roguelike titles typically have simpler geometry and lighting than modern AAA games.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on optimal settings. At 1920x1080, even Ultra settings deliver 306.6 FPS average, which far exceeds any display refresh rate currently available. The jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 112.4 FPS (from 419 to 306.6), a 26.8% reduction, but the absolute numbers are so high that users can select Ultra without concern. At 2560x1440, Ultra maintains 193.6 FPS, still well above 144 Hz displays, while High offers 266 FPS for those with 240 Hz panels. The Medium preset at 1440p (312.5 FPS) provides diminishing returns over High, suggesting High is the sweet spot for 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the decision becomes more nuanced. Ultra delivers 97.4 FPS, which is suitable for 60 Hz displays but falls short of 120 Hz panels. High at 4K produces 138.8 FPS, comfortably exceeding 120 Hz requirements. Medium at 4K (165.3 FPS) offers additional headroom but at the cost of visual fidelity. The data suggests that for 4K gaming, High settings provide the best balance between visual quality and performance, as the gap between High and Ultra (41.4 FPS) is larger than the gap between Medium and High (26.5 FPS), indicating diminishing returns from the Ultra preset. Low settings are only advisable for competitive play at 1080p or 1440p where maximum frame rates matter more than visuals.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average FPS is 495, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Can this system maintain 100+ FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 97.4, just below the 100 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4090's average benchmark score is 66,473, which is 0.4% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66,733) and 0.5% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla P40 (66,127).

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 1440p at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 419 at 1920x1080 to 266 at 2560x1440, a 36.5% reduction.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 3700X rank among all CPUs?

A: The Ryzen 7 3700X has a percentile ranking of 85 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28,631.

Q: What is the largest FPS gap between consecutive settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the largest gap is between Low (222.8 FPS) and Medium (165.3 FPS), a difference of 57.5 FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, based on the Zen 2 architecture (Matisse codename), provides 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This 7 nm processor, manufactured by TSMC with 3,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die, has 32 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory on a dual-channel bus with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU's benchmark scores are substantial: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 19,087, while single-core hits 2,694. Geekbench multicore scores 8,083 and single-core 1,672. PassMark multithread results show 22,458, with single-thread at 2,656.

The Ryzen 7 3700X's percentile ranking of 85 places it in the upper tier of CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28,631. Its nearest rivals are extremely close: the Intel Core i5-12600 (deltaPct -0.1%), Intel Core i5-12600H (deltaPct -0.1%), AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT (deltaPct 0.1%), and AMD EPYC 7203P (deltaPct 0.2%). This clustering within 0.2% performance delta indicates that the 3700X is positioned in a highly competitive segment.

In Barony, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions. The fact that 1080p Low (495 FPS) is only 19% faster than 1080p High (419 FPS) suggests that even at Low settings, the CPU is not fully saturating the GPU. The 1080p results across all settings (ranging from 306.6 to 495 FPS) are so high that they exceed what most displays can show, implying the CPU is delivering frames faster than they can be displayed. However, the relatively modest FPS gains from reducing settings at 1080p (495 vs 443.6 vs 419 vs 306.6 for Low, Medium, High, Ultra) indicate that the GPU is still the primary driver of performance differences, with the CPU providing a solid foundation that does not bottleneck even at these extreme frame rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values across settings are: Low 495, Medium 443.6, High 419, and Ultra 306.6. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a total reduction of 188.4 FPS (38.1%), with the largest single-step drop occurring between High and Ultra (112.4 FPS). The Medium to High transition costs only 24.6 FPS, while Low to Medium costs 51.4 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 417.3, Medium 312.5, High 266, and Ultra 193.6. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 223.7 FPS (53.6%). The largest drop is again between High and Ultra (72.4 FPS), followed by Medium to High (46.5 FPS) and Low to Medium (104.8 FPS). The Low to Medium gap here is the most substantial at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the values are: Low 222.8, Medium 165.3, High 138.8, and Ultra 97.4. The total reduction from Low to Ultra is 125.4 FPS (56.3%). The step differences are: Low to Medium 57.5 FPS, Medium to High 26.5 FPS, and High to Ultra 41.4 FPS. This pattern differs from lower resolutions, where the High to Ultra gap was the largest.

Resolution scaling across settings shows that Low settings scale most linearly with resolution: 495 (1080p) to 417.3 (1440p) to 222.8 (4K). Medium settings drop from 443.6 to 312.5 to 165.3. High settings go from 419 to 266 to 138.8. Ultra settings decline from 306.6 to 193.6 to 97.4. The 4K results are consistently around 50-55% of the 1080p values, while 1440p results range from 63% (High) to 84% (Low) of 1080p.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 105 out of 1,702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the top 6.2% of all configurations. This ranking is noteworthy because the CPU is from the 3000 series, which was released in 2019, while the GPU is from the 40-series launched in 2022. The pairing of an older mid-range CPU with a flagship GPU still produces top-tier results in this game.

The high ranking relative to the CPU's overall percentile (85) suggests that Barony is not particularly CPU-intensive, allowing the RTX 4090 to dominate the performance picture. The GPU's percentile of 91 among all GPUs, combined with its position in the combo ranking, indicates that the RTX 4090 is the primary driver of this configuration's success in Barony. The fact that this combo ranks 105th despite the CPU being several generations old suggests that many higher-ranked configurations likely pair the RTX 4090 with newer, faster CPUs, but the performance difference in this game is minimal given the extremely high frame rates already achieved.

The data implies that for Barony specifically, the RTX 4090's raw power is sufficient to overcome any potential CPU limitations at 4K, while at lower resolutions the CPU's 8-core/16-thread configuration with 4.4 GHz boost clock provides enough single-thread performance to keep frame rates in the hundreds. This combo's rank of 105 out of 1,702 confirms that it is an exceptional performer for this title, with only about 6% of tested configurations exceeding its results.