Barony

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination delivers exceptional frame rates in Barony, a 2015 roguelike that is far more demanding than its genre classification might suggest. The measured data shows a system capable of maxing out high-refresh-rate displays at 1440p, while still maintaining playable performance at 4K Ultra. This analysis breaks down the scaling behavior, competitive positioning, and optimal settings based strictly on the measured FPS rows.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound workload, but with an unusual magnitude of performance headroom. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 637 FPS, which drops to 403.5 FPS at 1440p Low, and further to 211.8 FPS at 4K Low. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p Low represents a 36.6% reduction in frame rate, while the jump from 1440p to 4K Low cuts performance by 47.5%. This pattern indicates that the RTX 5080’s raw throughput is the limiting factor as pixel count rises, but the CPU is more than capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions.

At the highest settings, the scaling becomes more pronounced. The 1080p Ultra result of 291.7 FPS drops to 182.6 FPS at 1440p Ultra, a 37.4% decline, and then to 96 FPS at 4K Ultra, another 47.6% reduction. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that Barony’s rendering pipeline scales linearly with pixel count, with no unexpected bottlenecks emerging at any resolution. The RTX 5080’s 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 16 GB of GDDR7 VRAM appear sufficient to avoid capacity or bandwidth stalls, as evidenced by the smooth scaling.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 345.3 FPS (637 vs 291.7), while at 4K, the gap narrows to 115.8 FPS (211.8 vs 96). This indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU’s compute units become the primary constraint, reducing the relative impact of quality settings. For competitive play, the 1080p Low setting yields over 600 FPS, which is far beyond any display refresh rate, while 4K Ultra still manages nearly 100 FPS, making it viable for slower-paced roguelike gameplay.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 75th out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the top 4.4% of all configurations in the database. This high percentile is notable given the game’s release in 2015, as it suggests the title’s engine is well-optimized for modern multi-threaded CPUs and high-end GPUs. The CPU’s 89th percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 36029, complements the GPU’s 89th percentile standing, creating a balanced pairing.

The CPU’s nearest rivals show how tightly clustered the 9700X is within its performance tier. The Intel Core i5-14500HX sits just 0.2% ahead, while the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H trails by 0.4%. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 is 0.6% behind, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H lags by 0.8%. These small deltas indicate that the 9700X’s 8-core, 16-thread configuration with a 5.50 GHz boost clock is near the top of its class, though not decisively ahead of mobile-oriented rivals. In Barony, this CPU strength likely prevents any frame rate dips in CPU-intensive scenes, such as procedural generation or entity updates.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5080’s nearest rivals are less conventional. The Intel Arc A570M is 1.6% ahead, while the Intel Arc Pro A60 is 1.9% behind, and the Intel Arc A580 is 2.5% behind. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500X trails by 2.6%. This grouping suggests that the RTX 5080’s average benchmark score of 59188 places it in a competitive segment, but the measured FPS in Barony shows it performing far better than these rivals would imply, given the game’s specific demands. The combo rank of 75 out of 1702 reflects both components working in harmony, with no single part dragging down the overall result.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 plays a dominant role in Barony’s performance, as evidenced by the resolution scaling analysis. The GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is critical for the game’s texture streaming at 4K resolution. The base clock of 2295 MHz boosts to 2617 MHz under load, with memory running at 1875 MHz or 30 Gbps effective. These clocks, combined with 10752 shading units and 112 ROPs, allow the card to maintain high frame rates even at Ultra settings.

The GPU’s compute capabilities are substantial, with an FP32 throughput of 56.28 TFLOPS and a texture rate of 879.3 GTexel/s. In Barony, which relies heavily on particle effects and dynamic lighting for its dungeon environments, the 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores may not be fully utilized, but the raw shader performance is more than adequate. The measured data shows that at 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 472.4 FPS, which indicates the GPU is not a bottleneck at this resolution, but rather the CPU’s frame submission rate becomes the ceiling.

The RTX 5080’s 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with a PassMark G3D score of 36565, underscores its position as a high-end part. However, its nearest rivals in the database are primarily Intel Arc products, which are not typically associated with top-tier gaming performance. This discrepancy suggests that the benchmark database’s comparison pool skews toward a broader range of GPUs, and the RTX 5080’s actual gaming performance in Barony far exceeds what its average score might predict. The 293.1 GPixel/s pixel rate and 56.28 TFLOPS FP16 performance ensure that even the most demanding visual effects in the roguelike genre are handled without issue.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1080p, all settings produce playable frame rates, with Low at 637 FPS, Medium at 472.4 FPS, High at 405.4 FPS, and Ultra at 291.7 FPS. For a 144Hz or 240Hz monitor, the High setting offers the best balance, providing 405.4 FPS while likely including enhanced visual features. The Ultra setting at 291.7 FPS still exceeds most high-refresh displays, but the 113.7 FPS drop from High to Ultra may not be worth the visual gain in a fast-paced roguelike.

At 1440p, the High setting delivers 258.4 FPS, which is ideal for 240Hz displays, while Medium provides 298.2 FPS for those seeking even higher frame rates. The Ultra setting at 182.6 FPS is still smooth for 144Hz monitors, and the Low setting at 403.5 FPS offers maximum responsiveness for competitive play. The data suggests that 1440p High is the sweet spot, as it provides a 41.5% performance improvement over 4K High while maintaining visual fidelity.

For 4K, the situation changes significantly. The Ultra setting drops to 96 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast action. The High setting at 133.9 FPS is the recommended choice for 4K, as it provides a 39.5% improvement over Ultra while likely offering most of the visual benefits. The Medium setting at 158.8 FPS is also viable, and the Low setting at 211.8 FPS ensures high refresh rates even at this resolution. Given that Barony is a roguelike with top-down perspective, the difference between High and Ultra may be less noticeable than in first-person titles, making High the pragmatic choice for 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data reveals a consistent pattern across all resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 637 FPS at Low, 472.4 FPS at Medium, 405.4 FPS at High, and 291.7 FPS at Ultra. The scaling from Low to Medium represents a 25.9% reduction, while Medium to High drops by 14.2%, and High to Ultra falls by 28.1%. This uneven scaling suggests that the Ultra preset introduces disproportionately heavy effects, likely including advanced shadows and post-processing.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results are 403.5 FPS at Low, 298.2 FPS at Medium, 258.4 FPS at High, and 182.6 FPS at Ultra. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is remarkably consistent: 36.6% for Low, 36.9% for Medium, 36.3% for High, and 37.4% for Ultra. This uniformity indicates that the rendering workload scales predictably with pixel count, with no unexpected overhead at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are 211.8 FPS at Low, 158.8 FPS at Medium, 133.9 FPS at High, and 96 FPS at Ultra. The step from 1440p to 4K reduces performance by 47.5% at Low, 46.8% at Medium, 48.2% at High, and 47.4% at Ultra. These consistent percentage drops confirm that the RTX 5080’s memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s is sufficient to handle the 4K pixel throughput without introducing latency or stutter. The minimum and maximum FPS values are not recorded in the data, but the average scores alone demonstrate that this combination is more than capable of delivering a smooth experience across all tested configurations.