Barony

How This Combo Ranks

This AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination ranks 479th out of 2,935 tested combos for Barony, placing it comfortably in the top 17% of all configurations measured. That is a strong showing for a game that is primarily CPU-bound at lower resolutions, and the ranking reflects the synergy between a high-core-count Zen 5 processor with 3D V-Cache and a mid-to-upper tier Ada Lovelace GPU. The combo outperforms roughly 83% of all tested pairings, which is notable given that Barony is a roguelike title that does not typically demand the absolute top-end graphics hardware found in AAA shooters or simulators.

The CPU itself sits in the 92nd percentile against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 58,386. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (58,323, 0.1% higher), the Intel Xeon w5-2545 (58,504, 0.2% lower), the Intel Core i9-14900 (58,115, 0.5% ahead), and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 (58,826, 0.7% behind). These margins are razor-thin, meaning the 9850X3D is effectively trading blows with some of the fastest server and desktop chips available, but its real advantage in Barony comes from the 96 MB of shared L3 cache, which helps with the procedural generation and physics calculations typical of roguelike titles.

The GPU, meanwhile, is in the 83rd percentile against all graphics cards, with an average score of 43,223. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB (43,262, 0.1% ahead), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (43,268, 0.1% ahead), the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 (43,301, 0.2% ahead), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile (43,667, 1% ahead). The RTX 4070 SUPER is essentially at parity with these cards in raw compute terms, but for Barony specifically, its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient, as the game's visual demands are modest compared to modern AAA titles.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo across three resolutions and four quality presets points to a clear sweet spot: High settings at 1440p or Medium settings at 4K. At 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo delivers 210 FPS average, which is more than enough for any display refresh rate currently on the market, and it leaves headroom for streaming or background tasks. At 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the average drops to 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 FPS and a maximum of 147 FPS, which remains smooth on high-refresh 4K panels. The Medium preset at 4K also shows the tightest frame pacing in the entire dataset, with a 38 FPS spread between minimum and maximum, suggesting stable performance without sudden hitches.

If you prioritize maximum visual fidelity, Ultra at 1440p yields 151 FPS average, which is still very playable, but the jump from High to Ultra costs 59 FPS (from 210 to 151), a 28% reduction for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in a roguelike with simple geometry and textures. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 239 FPS, while High delivers 333 FPS, so even at the highest quality preset the combo never dips below 239 FPS, which is ideal for competitive or speedrunning scenarios. For most users, the recommendation is to run High settings at 1440p for the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, or Medium at 4K if you are on a 4K display and want to stay above 120 FPS. Low settings are unnecessary on this hardware, as they push frame rates to 522 FPS at 1080p, which exceeds the refresh rate of virtually any monitor and offers no practical benefit.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the AD104 chip with Ada Lovelace architecture, featuring 7,168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation pipelines. Its base clock is 1980 MHz with a boost clock of 2475 MHz, and it carries 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. For Barony, these specifications are more than adequate; the game's roguelike nature means environments are often small, procedurally generated rooms with limited draw distances, so the GPU's 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is rarely stressed to its limits.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU becomes the limiting factor primarily at 4K Ultra, where the average drops to 79 FPS. This is the only configuration where the combo falls below the 100 FPS threshold, and it aligns with the GPU's 83rd percentile ranking. At 4K Low, the combo hits 172 FPS, and at 4K High it hits 110 FPS, indicating that the GPU has enough headroom for most settings at this resolution. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for Barony's textures, which are not particularly demanding, and the 21 Gbps effective memory speed ensures that texture streaming is never a bottleneck. The GPU's pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s are both high enough to handle the game's simple geometry without issue, even at 4K.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4070 SUPER is effectively tied with the Quadro M6000 variants and the RTX 5050 Mobile, but it trails the RTX 4090 Mobile by 1%. This means that in Barony, the GPU is not the star of the show; it is a capable performer that keeps pace with far more expensive options, but it does not dominate the way it might in a graphically intensive title. The 220 W TDP and dual-slot design are modest for a card of this performance class, and the 16-pin power connector means modern PSUs are required, but the 550 W suggested PSU rating is easily met by most mid-range systems.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers exceptional performance across all settings. Low settings produce 522 FPS average, Medium produces 388 FPS with a minimum of 330 FPS and a maximum of 446 FPS, High produces 333 FPS, and Ultra produces 239 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 134 FPS (26%), Medium to High costs 55 FPS (14%), and High to Ultra costs 94 FPS (28%). The Medium preset's minimum of 330 FPS is still above the maximum refresh rate of any mainstream monitor, so even with frame drops, the experience remains silky smooth. The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is doing most of the heavy lifting, as the frame rates are high enough that the GPU is unlikely to be the bottleneck.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down but remains impressive. Low settings yield 329 FPS, Medium yields 245 FPS with a minimum of 208 FPS and a maximum of 282 FPS, High yields 210 FPS, and Ultra yields 151 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 37% at Low (522 to 329), 37% at Medium (388 to 245), 37% at High (333 to 210), and 37% at Ultra (239 to 151). This consistent scaling suggests that the GPU is still not the primary limiter at 1440p, as the percentage drop is uniform across settings. The Medium preset's minimum of 208 FPS is still well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on 1440p gaming monitors, and even the Ultra preset's 151 FPS average is sufficient for a high-refresh experience.

At 3840x2160, the performance finally shows signs of GPU limitation. Low settings produce 172 FPS, Medium produces 128 FPS with a minimum of 109 FPS and a maximum of 147 FPS, High produces 110 FPS, and Ultra produces 79 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 48% at Low (329 to 172), 48% at Medium (245 to 128), 48% at High (210 to 110), and 48% at Ultra (151 to 79). This uniform 48% reduction across all settings is a strong indicator that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor at 4K, as the additional pixels are stressing the rasterization pipeline more than the CPU. The Medium preset's 109 FPS minimum is still above the 60 FPS target for console-quality gameplay, and even the Ultra preset's 79 FPS average is playable, though not ideal for competitive play.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 96 MB of shared L3 cache. The 120 W TDP is modest for a processor with this much cache, and the 89.6 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth ensures that the CPU never starves the GPU of data. Its benchmark scores are strong: Cinebench R23 multi-core of 22,807, single-core of 2,228, and a PassMark multithread score of 41,318.

In Barony, the CPU's role is critical because the game is a roguelike with procedural generation, AI pathfinding, and physics calculations that can hammer the processor. The 96 MB of L3 cache is particularly beneficial here, as it allows the CPU to keep frequently accessed data on-chip, reducing memory latency and improving frame pacing. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (522 FPS) is a clear indication that the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions, as the frame rate is far above what the GPU can render in most scenarios. The 4.70 GHz base clock and 5.60 GHz boost clock are high enough to ensure that single-threaded performance is excellent, which matters for Barony's game logic that may not be perfectly parallelized.

Compared to its nearest CPU rivals, the 9850X3D is essentially tied in average benchmark score, but its cache configuration gives it an edge in latency-sensitive workloads. The Intel Core i9-14900 scores 58,115, which is 0.5% lower, but the 9850X3D's 3D V-Cache likely provides a more consistent experience in games that thrash the cache. The data shows that at 1080p, the combo's frame rates are high enough that the CPU is the primary driver, and at 1440p, the uniform scaling across settings suggests the CPU continues to hold up well. The CPU's 92nd percentile ranking against all processors is reflected in the combo's ability to push 522 FPS at 1080p Low, which confirms its raw processing power.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is remarkably consistent across all settings, with a 48% reduction from 1440p to 4K and a 37% reduction from 1080p to 1440p. This uniform scaling pattern indicates that the system is well-balanced, with neither the CPU nor the GPU dominating the other at any resolution. However, the nature of the bottleneck shifts as resolution increases. At 1080p, the CPU is clearly the limiting factor, as evidenced by the 522 FPS at Low settings, which is far beyond what the GPU could render if it were the bottleneck. At 1440p, the 37% drop from 1080p is consistent across settings, suggesting that both components are sharing the load equally, with the CPU handling game logic and the GPU handling rendering.

At 4K, the 48% drop from 1440p is a clear sign that the GPU is now the primary limiter. The pixel count increases by 2.25x from 1440p to 4K, but the FPS only drops by 48%, which is less than the theoretical 55% reduction if the GPU were purely pixel-bound. This suggests that the CPU is still contributing to the frame rate, but the GPU's 12 GB of VRAM and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed harder. The fact that the drop from Low to Ultra at 4K is 93 FPS (172 to 79) versus 283 FPS at 1080p (522 to 239) confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the frame rate penalty for increasing settings grows larger.

For builders, this means the combo is best suited for 1440p gaming, where it delivers over 200 FPS on High settings and maintains excellent frame pacing. At 4K, it is still capable, but users will need to compromise on settings, with Medium offering the best balance of visual quality and performance. The data does not indicate any resolution where the combo struggles to maintain playable frame rates, which reflects the balance between the 9850X3D's 8 cores and the RTX 4070 SUPER's 7,168 shading units. The 479th rank out of 2,935 combos is a strong result, and the measured FPS data suggests that this pairing will handle Barony with ease at any reasonable configuration.