Barony

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers an exceptionally strong performance profile in Barony, ranking in the top tier of tested combinations. The data shows this combo ranks 53rd out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the 97th percentile of all systems evaluated. This pairing excels across all resolution and settings combinations, with performance scaling that reveals a system primarily limited by the CPU at lower resolutions and by the GPU at 4K, offering a deep reservoir of frame rate headroom for a game that is not visually demanding by modern standards.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 307.1 FPS, but this drops to 191.3 FPS at 1440p and further to 98.6 FPS at 4K. This represents a 68% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU becomes the primary limiting component at higher resolutions. The scaling is more dramatic at lower settings: with Low settings, the system produces 644.7 FPS at 1080p, which falls to 418.1 FPS at 1440p and 221.2 FPS at 4K, a 66% drop.

The data suggests that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, as the frame rates exceed what most displays can even show, while the RTX 4090's immense processing power is underutilized. At 4K, the GPU load increases substantially, yet the system still maintains a high 98.6 FPS at Ultra settings—a figure that many lower-end systems cannot match even at 1080p. The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens at higher resolutions: at 1080p the difference is 337.6 FPS (from 307.1 to 644.7), while at 4K it narrows to 122.6 FPS (from 98.6 to 221.2). This compression indicates that GPU throughput becomes the dominant constraint as pixel count rises, with the CPU's role diminishing relatively.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 644.7 FPS, achieved at 1080p with Low settings. This illustrates the CPU's capability to feed frames at extreme rates when GPU load is minimal.

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

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system maintains an average of 98.6 FPS. This is a playable frame rate for most users and demonstrates that even at the most demanding tested configuration, the RTX 4090 provides sufficient headroom.

Q: Is the system more CPU-bound or GPU-bound in this game?

A: The data indicates a shift in bottleneck. At 1080p, the extremely high frame rates (up to 644.7 FPS) suggest CPU limitation, while the significant FPS drop at 4K points to GPU constraint. The RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM and high bandwidth are not stressed in this title, but its raw compute is still the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Q: How much performance is lost when going from Medium to Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings yield 312.9 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 191.3 FPS. This represents a 38.9% reduction in frame rate, showing that the Ultra preset imposes a substantial performance cost for the visual quality increase.

Q: What is the rank of this combo among all tested systems?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 53rd out of 1702 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the top 3.1% of all tested systems, indicating near-flagship performance.

Q: Does the frame rate difference between Low and High settings remain constant across resolutions?

A: No, the delta varies. At 1080p, High is 424.6 FPS versus 644.7 FPS for Low, a gap of 220.1 FPS. At 4K, High is 137.7 FPS and Low is 221.2 FPS, a gap of 83.5 FPS. The performance gap narrows as resolution increases due to growing GPU load.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate performance for this combination. At 1080p, Medium produces 495.8 FPS, which is only 148.9 FPS lower than Low but 88.7 FPS higher than High. The transition from Medium to High at 1080p costs 71.2 FPS (from 495.8 to 424.6), while going from High to Ultra costs 117.5 FPS (from 424.6 to 307.1). This suggests diminishing returns as settings increase.

At 1440p, Medium delivers 312.9 FPS, comfortably above the 144Hz refresh rate that most high-end monitors support. Even at 4K, Medium maintains 163.1 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay on 120Hz or 144Hz displays. The Ultra preset, while visually superior, drops to 98.6 FPS at 4K—still playable but with a noticeable reduction in smoothness. For users with high-refresh-rate displays, the Medium preset at 1440p or High at 1080p are optimal choices, as they provide high FPS without sacrificing too much visual fidelity. The data shows that the Low preset is only recommended for competitive play where maximum frame rates are paramount, as it sacrifices visual quality for a 33% FPS boost over Medium at 1080p.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination holds the 53rd position out of 1702 tested combos in Barony. This top-3.1% placement confirms that this pairing is one of the most capable systems available for this game, despite the CPU being a generation older than the GPU. The high rank is driven by the RTX 4090's exceptional performance, as the data shows the GPU ranks in the 91st percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU ranks in the 84th percentile among all CPUs.

The combo's ranking reflects the game's relatively low system requirements, meaning that even mid-range hardware can achieve high frame rates. However, this pairing's ability to maintain 98.6 FPS at 4K Ultra places it far above the median tested combo. The rank is particularly impressive given that Barony is a roguelike with a 2015 release date, suggesting that the game's engine is not heavily optimized for modern multi-core processors. The combination's strong showing is therefore more attributable to raw hardware power than to efficient software utilization.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X features 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 3 architecture fabricated on a 7 nm process. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz can boost up to 4.70 GHz, providing strong single-threaded performance that is crucial for a game like Barony, which likely does not utilize all available cores. The CPU's benchmark results confirm its capability: it achieves a single-thread score of 943 in 3dmark and 3445 in Passmark single-thread tests, indicating solid per-core performance.

In this game, the CPU's role becomes apparent at lower resolutions where frame rates exceed 400 FPS. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 644.7 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum frame generation limit. The CPU's multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23571, provides ample headroom for background tasks but is not the primary driver of gaming performance. The data suggests that the 5800X is not the bottleneck in most scenarios, as even at 4K Ultra the frame rate is 98.6 FPS, which still leaves the CPU with capacity to spare. However, the single-thread performance is the limiting factor at 1080p, where the GPU is not fully utilized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 644.7 FPS on Low, 495.8 FPS on Medium, 424.6 FPS on High, and 307.1 FPS on Ultra. These figures demonstrate that the system is capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors to their limits at 1080p, with even the Ultra preset exceeding 300 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates drop to 418.1 FPS on Low, 312.9 FPS on Medium, 269.5 FPS on High, and 191.3 FPS on Ultra. At 1440p, the system still provides excellent performance, with all settings maintaining frame rates well above 144 FPS. At 3840x2160, the system produces 221.2 FPS on Low, 163.1 FPS on Medium, 137.7 FPS on High, and 98.6 FPS on Ultra. The 4K results show that even the most demanding preset remains playable, though the Ultra setting dips below the 100 FPS threshold.

The progression from Low to Ultra at each resolution shows a consistent pattern: Low settings provide the highest frame rates, followed by Medium, High, and Ultra. The performance gap between Low and Ultra is 337.6 FPS at 1080p, 226.8 FPS at 1440p, and 122.6 FPS at 4K. This diminishing gap highlights the increasing GPU load at higher resolutions, which reduces the relative impact of settings changes.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is a flagship GPU with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and a 384-bit memory bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. Its base clock of 2235 MHz can boost to 2520 MHz, and it features 16384 shading units. The GPU's benchmark results are exceptional, with a Passmark G3D score of 38194 and a 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9223, placing it in the 91st percentile among all GPUs.

In Barony, the RTX 4090's role is primarily to handle the increasing pixel count at higher resolutions. The data shows that the GPU is not fully utilized at 1080p, where frame rates are likely CPU-limited. However, at 4K, the GPU's raw compute power becomes the determining factor, with the Ultra preset requiring significant processing to maintain 98.6 FPS. The GPU's 24 GB VRAM is far more than Barony requires, as the game likely uses less than 8 GB even at 4K Ultra. The high memory bandwidth and texture rate (1,290.2 GTexel/s) ensure that texture-heavy scenes do not cause stuttering, while the 176 ROPs handle pixel throughput efficiently. The GPU's performance relative to its nearest rivals, such as the Tesla T4 (0.4% lower average score), confirms that the RTX 4090 is operating near the top of its class, making it the primary driver of this combo's strong showing in Barony.