Barony

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers exceptional performance in Barony, a roguelike title that scales aggressively with modern hardware. The measured data shows this combination achieving triple-digit frame rates at every setting and resolution tested, with even the most demanding configuration holding above 100 FPS. This analysis breaks down the optimal settings, the role of each component, and how the pairing stacks up against the broader database of tested hardware.

Settings Recommendations

For a game like Barony, where fast reaction times and smooth movement are critical, the measured frame rates indicate that players can prioritize visual fidelity without sacrificing responsiveness. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 331 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any display, while the High preset pushes that to 462 FPS. The Medium preset sits between at 538 FPS, and Low reaches 643 FPS. Given that the Ultra preset still clears 300 FPS, there is no practical reason to drop below it at 1080p unless the user is chasing every possible frame for competitive play.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 209 FPS, which remains well above the refresh rate of most high-end monitors. The High preset jumps to 292 FPS, Medium to 340 FPS, and Low to 457 FPS. The data shows that Ultra at 1440p keeps the experience smooth, but the 83 FPS gap between Ultra and High suggests that the extra visual features come at a measurable cost. For users with 144Hz displays, Ultra is the ideal choice here, as it maintains a comfortable margin above the refresh ceiling.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes slightly. The Ultra preset averages 109 FPS, which is still playable but drops closer to the 60-120 Hz range that many 4K monitors use. The High preset improves this to 152 FPS, offering a significant 43 FPS advantage over Ultra. Medium sits at 178 FPS, and Low reaches 239 FPS. Given the substantial jump from Ultra to High, the High preset at 4K appears to be the sweet spot, providing a smoother experience while retaining most of the visual quality. The Ultra preset's 109 FPS average is acceptable for slower-paced play, but for a roguelike where dodging and timing matter, the High preset's higher frame rate is the recommended configuration.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset offers the only measured minimum FPS data, with values of 151 FPS at 4K, 289 FPS at 1440p, and 458 FPS at 1080p. These figures confirm that even the worst-case frame times are well above any threshold for stutter or lag. The best experience per the measured rows is High at 4K, Ultra at 1440p, and Ultra at 1080p, as each maximizes visual quality while keeping frame rates far beyond the point of diminishing returns.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant force in this pairing, and the benchmark results leave no doubt about its capability. The GPU's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is more than ample for Barony's demands at any resolution. The data shows that the GPU scales almost linearly with resolution, suggesting that memory bandwidth and capacity are not bottlenecks in this title. The 32 GB frame buffer is particularly notable, as it ensures that even at 4K with Ultra settings, the game has plenty of headroom for textures and assets without any risk of spilling into system memory.

The clocks on the RTX 5090 D are listed with a base of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These figures translate directly into the raw compute performance that Barony leverages. The GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate are reflected in the high average frame rates across the board. The card's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs in the database reinforces its position as a top-tier part, and the measured FPS numbers show that it is not leaving performance on the table.

The nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (1.1% slower in average benchmark score), the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (1.6% faster), and two NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants (2.1% and 2.4% faster). These deltas are small, but the RTX 5090 D's actual gaming performance in Barony is what matters here. The data shows that the GPU alone is capable of driving 4K Ultra at 109 FPS, which confirms its architecture. The Blackwell 2.0 architecture, built on a 5 nm process with 92,200 million transistors, delivers the kind of headroom that allows the CPU to become the limiting factor only at lower resolutions and settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, plays a supporting role in this configuration. The CPU's base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz, combined with 32 MB of L3 cache, provide solid single-thread and multi-thread performance. The benchmark data for the CPU shows a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15476 and a single-core score of 1574.5, which place it in the 81st percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H (0.1% faster in average score), the Intel Xeon Phi 7210 (0.4% slower), the Intel Core i5-13500HX (0.5% slower), and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT (0.6% faster).

In Barony, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the average FPS hits 643, which is nearly three times the 4K Ultra figure. This gap indicates that at lower resolutions and settings, the game becomes increasingly CPU-bound, as the GPU has more than enough headroom to render frames as fast as the CPU can issue draw calls. The 8-core, 16-thread configuration of the 5800X handles the game's logic and physics well, but the data suggests that even this capable processor is the limiting factor at the highest frame rates.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s and DDR4 support are adequate for Barony, though they are not current-generation compared to newer platforms. The 3DMark scores, such as 7586 for 16 threads and 943 for single-thread, reflect a balanced processor that does not bottleneck the RTX 5090 D except in the most extreme CPU-bound scenarios. At 1440p Ultra, the average FPS drops to 209, which is a 37% reduction from 1080p Ultra's 331 FPS, showing that the GPU is starting to take over the workload as resolution increases. At 4K Ultra, the 109 FPS average is a 67% reduction from 1080p Ultra, confirming that the GPU is the primary driver at higher resolutions, but the CPU still needs to keep up with the game's simulation.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 7 5800X and RTX 5090 D ranks 41st out of 2935 tested combos in the database for Barony. This top 1.4% placement is a strong indicator of the overall capability of this pairing. The rank reflects not just the GPU's raw power but also the CPU's ability to feed it without creating a severe bottleneck. In a game like Barony, which has roguelike elements that can involve complex procedural generation and many entities on screen, the CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are sufficient to maintain high frame rates, though the ranking suggests that there are 40 other combinations that do the job even better.

The data shows that this combo sits in the upper echelon of all tested systems, but it is not at the absolute top. The 41st rank out of 2935 implies that there are combinations with newer CPUs or more balanced pairings that edge it out. However, for the vast majority of users, this level of performance is overkill for Barony, as the game is not particularly demanding compared to modern AAA titles. The ranking should be interpreted as a confirmation that this hardware is more than capable of maxing out the game at any resolution, rather than a statement that it is the definitive best setup.

The percentile rankings of the individual components support this view. The GPU's 92nd percentile and the CPU's 81st percentile indicate that both parts are above average, but the combo rank is higher than either component's individual percentile, which suggests that the pairing works well together. The GPU's nearest rivals are all within 2.4% in average benchmark score, but the actual in-game performance shows the RTX 5090 D pulling far ahead of what those synthetic scores might predict, thanks to its architectural advantages in real-world workloads.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of how the workload shifts from CPU-bound to GPU-bound as resolution increases. At 1080p, the average FPS across all settings ranges from 331 (Ultra) to 643 (Low), with a spread of 312 FPS. This wide variance is a hallmark of a CPU-limited scenario, where the GPU is waiting for the CPU to deliver data. The gap between Low and Medium is 105 FPS, between Medium and High is 76 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 131 FPS, showing that the CPU's performance ceiling is hit even at the lowest settings.

Moving to 1440p, the average FPS drops to a range of 209 (Ultra) to 457 (Low), with a spread of 248 FPS. The reduction in frame rates from 1080p is significant but not proportional, indicating that the GPU is starting to take on more of the workload. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 248 FPS, compared to 312 FPS at 1080p, showing that the GPU's increased pixel workload is beginning to constrain performance.

At 4K, the average FPS ranges from 109 (Ultra) to 239 (Low), with a spread of 130 FPS. This is a dramatic reduction from the lower resolutions and clearly indicates that the GPU is now the limiting component. The drop from 1080p Ultra (331 FPS) to 4K Ultra (109 FPS) is a 67% reduction, while the drop from 1080p Low (643 FPS) to 4K Low (239 FPS) is a 63% reduction. These percentages show that the GPU is the dominant factor at 4K, and the CPU's role diminishes as resolution increases.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows an average FPS reduction of about 36% across all settings, while the scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a further reduction of about 48%. This non-linear scaling is typical of a GPU that becomes the bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the pixel throughput requirements grow faster than the CPU's ability to issue commands. The data confirms that at 1080p, the Ryzen 7 5800X is holding back the RTX 5090 D, but at 4K, the GPU is fully utilized and the CPU is no longer a concern.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average FPS at 643, with no minimum or maximum recorded. The Medium preset averages 538 FPS, with a minimum of 458 FPS and a maximum of 619 FPS, providing a narrow band of performance. The High preset averages 462 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 331 FPS. These numbers show a clear hierarchy, with each step up in settings costing a significant number of frames. The Medium preset's minimum of 458 FPS is still higher than the Ultra preset's average, indicating that even the most demanding settings are far from stressing the hardware at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 457 FPS, which is nearly identical to the 1080p High result. The Medium preset averages 340 FPS, with a minimum of 289 FPS and a maximum of 391 FPS. The High preset averages 292 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 209 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a 248 FPS difference, which is substantial but smaller than the 312 FPS difference at 1080p. The Medium preset's minimum of 289 FPS ensures that even the worst-case frame times are above the refresh rates of most 1440p monitors.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 239 FPS, which is the only resolution where Low drops below the 300 FPS mark. The Medium preset averages 178 FPS, with a minimum of 151 FPS and a maximum of 204 FPS. The High preset averages 152 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 109 FPS. The data shows that at 4K, the gap between Low and Ultra is 130 FPS, which is the smallest spread across all resolutions. The Medium preset's minimum of 151 FPS is still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and even the Ultra preset's 109 FPS average is comfortable for most users.

Across all resolutions and settings, the Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values, making it the most stable configuration in terms of frame pacing. The High and Ultra presets have no minimum or maximum data, but their averages are consistent with the expected scaling. The measured FPS breakdown confirms that this combo can handle Barony at maximum settings in 4K, with the Ultra preset's 109 FPS average being the only configuration that approaches the lower end of high-refresh-rate territory. For users seeking the absolute best experience, the High preset at 4K offers a 152 FPS average, which is a 39% improvement over Ultra while likely sacrificing only minor visual details.