Barony

# Barony with AMD Ryzen 7 7700 + Intel Arc B570

Barony, the 2015 roguelike, presents an interesting case study for this particular CPU-GPU pairing. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 brings eight Zen 4 cores with 16 threads, while the Intel Arc B570 uses the Battlemage architecture with 10 GB of GDDR6 memory. The measured data across three resolutions and four settings presets reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution, but the relationship between CPU capability and frame rate is more nuanced than the raw component specs might suggest. The combo ranks 2344 out of 2935 tested combinations in this game, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the tested field. This ranking invites investigation into what exactly limits performance in Barony, and whether the bottleneck shifts between the CPU and GPU as resolution and settings change.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 156 FPS at 1080p to 99 FPS at 1440p, then to 52 FPS at 4K. This represents a 36.5% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 47.5% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The Low preset tells a similar story: 245 FPS at 1080p drops to 154 FPS at 1440p, then to 81 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset shows 182 FPS at 1080p, 115 FPS at 1440p, and 60 FPS at 4K. Ultra follows the same pattern with 112, 71, and 37 FPS respectively.

The fact that frame rates drop so dramatically with each resolution increase suggests the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. The Intel Arc B570, with its 10 GB of GDDR6 memory and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth, appears to be increasingly taxed as pixel count rises. However, examining the magnitude of the drops reveals something interesting. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly consistent across all settings, hovering around 36-38%. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper across the board, at around 47-48%. This consistent scaling pattern across different settings presets indicates that the resolution itself, rather than the specific graphical features enabled, is the dominant factor in the frame rate decline.

The data also shows that at 1080p, even the Ultra preset achieves 112 FPS, which is comfortably above 60 FPS. At 1440p, High and Medium both remain above 100 FPS, while Ultra drops to 71 FPS. At 4K, only the Low preset manages to stay above 60 FPS at 81 FPS. This scaling behavior suggests that players targeting 4K will need to make significant compromises in visual quality to maintain smooth gameplay, while 1080p and 1440p offer much more headroom. The minimum FPS values recorded for Medium settings (155 at 1080p, 98 at 1440p, 51 at 4K) show that even the lower frame rates remain playable at lower resolutions, but at 4K the minimum dips below 60 FPS, indicating potential stutter in demanding scenes.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is an eight-core, 16-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture with a 5 nm process. Its base clock is 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The CPU's benchmark scores demonstrate strong multi-threaded performance: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 18760 and a single-core score of 1930. The 3DMark tests show scaling from 1049 in single-thread to 8484 in 16-thread workloads, indicating that the processor scales well with additional threads. The Geekbench scores of 15371 multicore and 2525 single-core further confirm this pattern.

In the context of Barony, the CPU's role appears significant at lower resolutions where the GPU is less burdened. At 1080p, the frame rates are remarkably high across all settings, with Low reaching 245 FPS and even Ultra hitting 112 FPS. These numbers suggest that at this resolution, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to maintain high frame rates. The Ryzen 7 7700's 8 cores and 16 threads, combined with its 32 MB of shared L3 cache, likely handle the game's logic and draw calls efficiently.

However, the frame rates at 1080p do not scale linearly with settings. The difference between Low (245 FPS) and Ultra (112 FPS) is 133 FPS, a 54% reduction. This indicates that while the CPU can push very high frame rates at Low settings, the increased graphical workload at Ultra settings begins to shift the bottleneck toward the GPU, even at 1080p. The fact that the CPU's boost clock of 5.30 GHz likely allows it to maintain high single-thread performance is relevant here, as roguelike games often have significant single-threaded components in their game logic.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 87 among all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40081, places it in the upper tier of processors. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 (0.1% faster), Intel Core 5 221E (0.2% slower), and AMD Ryzen 9 270 (0.4% slower). These very small percentage differences suggest that the Ryzen 7 7700 is well-positioned in its performance class, and any frame rate differences in Barony are unlikely to be caused by CPU deficiencies when compared to these similar-performing processors. The data implies that at 1080p, where frame rates are highest, the CPU is doing its job effectively, and the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 156 FPS, while Medium achieves 182 FPS and Low reaches 245 FPS. Ultra sits at 112 FPS. For players with 60 Hz or 144 Hz monitors, even the Ultra preset at 112 FPS exceeds the refresh rate of most displays. The Medium preset at 182 FPS offers a substantial improvement over Ultra with only a modest visual quality reduction, making it a strong recommendation for competitive or fast-paced play. The Low preset at 245 FPS provides the highest frame rate but likely sacrifices too much visual fidelity for the average player.

At 2560x1440, the picture changes slightly. High delivers 99 FPS, Medium 115 FPS, Low 154 FPS, and Ultra 71 FPS. Here, the High preset at 99 FPS is still above 60 FPS and close to 100 FPS, making it a solid choice for most players. The Medium preset at 115 FPS offers a better balance of visual quality and frame rate, particularly for players with 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays. The Ultra preset at 71 FPS is playable but may not provide the smoothest experience, especially in fast-moving scenes. The minimum FPS for Medium at 1440p is 98, which means even the lowest frame rates remain above 60 FPS, ensuring consistent gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the options narrow considerably. Low is the only preset that achieves an average above 60 FPS at 81 FPS. Medium averages 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 FPS, which could result in occasional stutter. High drops to 52 FPS, and Ultra falls to 37 FPS. For 4K gaming, the Low preset appears to be the only viable option for maintaining smooth frame rates, while Medium might be acceptable for players who can tolerate occasional dips below 60 FPS. The data suggests that this combination is not well-suited for 4K gaming at higher settings, and players with 4K displays should consider either lowering resolution or accepting significant visual compromises. Across all resolutions, the Medium preset appears to offer the best balance of performance and visual quality, with the caveat that at 4K, even Medium struggles to maintain a consistent 60 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2344 out of 2935 tested combinations places this pairing in the 20th percentile of tested systems for Barony. This ranking is notably lower than what the individual component benchmark scores might suggest. The Ryzen 7 7700 sits in the 87th percentile among all CPUs, and the Intel Arc B570 sits in the 65th percentile among all GPUs. The fact that this combination ranks in the lower 20% of tested combos for this specific game indicates that Barony either does not scale well with the hardware, or that other combinations of components are better optimized for this title.

The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (0.1% faster), Intel Arc A750 (0.1% slower), and NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (0.4% faster). These very close benchmark scores suggest that the Arc B570 is performing at a level consistent with its peers in synthetic benchmarks, yet the in-game ranking may be influenced by driver optimization or game-specific factors. The Intel Arc B570's newer Xe2-HPG architecture, with its 2304 shading units and 144 texture mapping units, should theoretically handle a roguelike like Barony well, but the ranking suggests otherwise.

The discrepancy between the component-level performance and the in-game ranking could also be attributed to the specific resolution and settings tested. At 1080p, the frame rates are very high, but the ranking is based on the overall combination across all tested scenarios. Other combos with lower-performing CPUs but higher-performing GPUs, or vice versa, might achieve better frame rates in Barony due to the game's specific optimization patterns. The data indicates that this combo, while capable of high frame rates at lower resolutions, does not stand out relative to other tested systems. The fact that the CPU's nearest rivals all have very similar average benchmark scores (within 0.6% of the Ryzen 7 7700) suggests that CPU choice among top-tier processors has minimal impact on this game's performance, and the GPU likely plays a more significant role in the final ranking.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, codenamed Battlemage, using a 5 nm process from TSMC. It features 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output pipelines, along with 18 ray tracing cores. The GPU's memory configuration consists of 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus, providing 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 11.52 TFLOPS.

In Barony, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution rises. The frame rate drops from 1080p to 1440p and then to 4K suggest that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The 10 GB of VRAM is likely sufficient for a roguelike of this era, as the game released in 2015 and may not have demanding texture requirements. However, the 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth could limit performance when the game needs to access large amounts of texture data, particularly at 4K resolution where pixel throughput demands are highest.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a PassMark G3D score of 14195, placing it in the 65th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals with very similar scores include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (0.1% faster) and the Intel Arc A750 (0.1% slower). This suggests that the Arc B570 is performing at a level consistent with its expected class. The GPU's DirectX 12 benchmark score of 72 and Vulkan score of 96844 in Geekbench indicate that it can handle modern graphics APIs, which is relevant for a game that might use DirectX 11 or 12. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2649 provides additional context for its DirectX 12 performance.

The data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is not the limiting factor, as even Ultra settings achieve 112 FPS. However, at 1440p, the GPU begins to show strain, with Ultra dropping to 71 FPS. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, with even Medium settings struggling to maintain 60 FPS. The consistent scaling pattern across settings at each resolution confirms that the GPU's rendering capabilities are the primary constraint at higher pixel counts. The 150 W TDP and 450 W suggested PSU indicate that this is a mid-range GPU, and its performance in Barony reflects that positioning.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS is 245, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K resolution?

A: At 4K, the Low preset averages 81 FPS, and the Medium preset averages exactly 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 FPS. The High preset averages 52 FPS, and Ultra averages 37 FPS, both below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 7700 compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 7700 has an average benchmark score of 40081. The AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 is 0.1% faster, the Intel Core 5 221E is 0.2% slower, and the AMD Ryzen 9 270 is 0.4% slower.

Q: What is the Intel Arc B570's memory configuration?

A: The GPU has 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s and memory clock of 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective).

Q: What is the combo's ranking among tested systems in Barony?

A: The combo ranks 2344 out of 2935 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of tested systems.

Q: What are the CPU's core and thread counts?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Barony with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and Intel Arc B570 covers three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 245 FPS, Medium averages 182 FPS with a minimum of 155 and maximum of 209, High averages 156 FPS, and Ultra averages 112 FPS. At 2560x1440, Low averages 154 FPS, Medium averages 115 FPS with a minimum of 98 and maximum of 132, High averages 99 FPS, and Ultra averages 71 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low averages 81 FPS, Medium averages 60 FPS with a minimum of 51 and maximum of 69, High averages 52 FPS, and Ultra averages 37 FPS.

The data reveals a consistent pattern where the Medium preset provides the only complete FPS range data (minimum, average, and maximum) across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the Medium preset's minimum of 155 FPS and maximum of 209 FPS show a 54 FPS variance, indicating some frame time variability but overall smooth performance. At 1440p, the Medium preset ranges from 98 to 132 FPS, a 34 FPS variance. At 4K, the Medium preset ranges from 51 to 69 FPS, an 18 FPS variance. This narrowing variance at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently utilized as the rendering load increases.

The step from Low to Medium settings at each resolution produces a substantial FPS drop: at 1080p, from 245 to 182 (a 63 FPS reduction); at 1440p, from 154 to 115 (a 39 FPS reduction); at 4K, from 81 to 60 (a 21 FPS reduction). The smaller absolute drops at higher resolutions indicate that the GPU is already near its limits, so additional graphical features have less impact on frame rate. The step from High to Ultra produces similar patterns: at 1080p, from 156 to 112 (a 44 FPS reduction); at 1440p, from 99 to 71 (a 28 FPS reduction); at 4K, from 52 to 37 (a 15 FPS reduction). These diminishing returns at higher resolutions reinforce the conclusion that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at 4K, while at 1080p, the CPU has more headroom to maintain high frame rates even with increased graphical demands.