Barony

How This Combo Ranks

This CPU and GPU pairing lands at rank 1352 out of 1702 tested combinations in Barony, placing it in the lower half of the database. The percentile position reflects a significant bottleneck: the Ryzen 9 7900X is a top-tier processor, sitting at the 93rd percentile against all CPUs, while the RTX 2060 rests at just the 58th percentile against all GPUs. That gap means the graphics card is holding back what is otherwise an extremely capable processor.

The 7900X's average benchmark score of 50556 places it within a hair of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235, which scores 50598 (a delta of -0.1%). It also edges out the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT by 0.4% and the Intel Core i7-13850HX by 0.5%. The RTX 2060's average score of 16074 is 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (15996) and 1.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15786), but it trails the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and Pro 5700 by 1.7%. In practical terms, this combo is built around a CPU that can run circles around its GPU companion.

In Barony, a roguelike that does not push modern hardware to its limits, the combination still manages respectable frame rates across most settings. The data shows that the 7900X's 12 cores and 24 threads are largely idle headroom here; the game's demands are modest, and the RTX 2060 becomes the primary determinant of performance. With 1702 tested combos, this pairing's rank of 1352 indicates that many other GPU choices would yield better results, but it also confirms that the setup remains functional for the game's requirements.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show a clear hierarchy across presets at each resolution. At 1080p, Low settings deliver 262.7 FPS, Medium drops to 196.7 FPS, High settles at 169.5 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 121.8 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs roughly 66 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs about 48 FPS. For a roguelike where reaction time matters, the data suggests that High provides the best balance: it retains 169.5 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors, while offering substantially better visual fidelity than Low or Medium.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts slightly. Low runs at 167.9 FPS, Medium at 124.1 FPS, High at 106.3 FPS, and Ultra at 76.9 FPS. Here, Medium becomes the sensible choice. The difference between Medium and High is only about 18 FPS, but the visual improvement from Medium to High is less pronounced than the gain from Low to Medium. Ultra at 76.9 FPS is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes.

At 4K, the picture changes dramatically. Low produces 83.7 FPS, Medium 66.4 FPS, High 54.2 FPS, and Ultra 40.4 FPS. For 4K, Medium is the recommended preset. It keeps the frame rate above 60 FPS, which is the practical threshold for smooth gameplay, while High and Ultra fall below that mark. The data indicates that the RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM and 192-bit memory bus begin to strain at 4K, making Medium the highest preset that maintains playable performance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the combo delivers 169.5 FPS at 1080p, 106.3 FPS at 1440p, and 54.2 FPS at 4K. That represents a 37% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 68% drop from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the numbers are 262.7 FPS, 167.9 FPS, and 83.7 FPS respectively—a 36% drop to 1440p and a 68% drop to 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across presets points squarely at the GPU as the limiting component.

The RTX 2060's pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s and texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s are modest by modern standards. As resolution increases, the GPU must process more pixels and textures, and the 6 GB VRAM capacity becomes a constraint at 4K. The CPU, by contrast, shows no signs of struggling. The 7900X's single-thread score of 4238 in Passmark and its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6168 indicate that it can feed frames far faster than the RTX 2060 can render them. The data strongly suggests that upgrading the GPU would yield significant frame rate gains at every resolution, while swapping the CPU would produce negligible improvement in this game.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of running Barony at 4K?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K Low settings, the combo averages 83.7 FPS, and at Medium it drops to 66.4 FPS. High falls to 54.2 FPS, and Ultra to 40.4 FPS. Medium is the highest preset that stays above 60 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals in this game's context?

A: The RTX 2060's average benchmark score of 16074 is 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (15996) and 1.8% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15786). It trails the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M and Pro 5700, both at 16351, by 1.7%.

Q: What is the best preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: Medium at 1440p delivers 124.1 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and performance. High runs at 106.3 FPS, and Ultra at 76.9 FPS, but the visual gains from Medium to High are marginal relative to the frame rate cost.

Q: Does the Ryzen 9 7900X bottleneck the RTX 2060 in Barony?

A: No. The CPU is far more powerful than the GPU, with the 7900X ranking at the 93rd percentile against all CPUs versus the RTX 2060's 58th percentile. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K confirms the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: How does the 7900X perform against its closest competitors?

A: The 7900X's average score of 50556 is 0.1% below the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 (50598), 0.4% below the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT (50738), and 0.5% below the Intel Core i7-13850HX (50827). It is also 0.8% behind the Intel Core i9-13980HX (50944).

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1080p with this combo?

A: At 1080p, Low runs at 262.7 FPS, Medium at 196.7 FPS, High at 169.5 FPS, and Ultra at 121.8 FPS. All presets exceed 120 FPS, making this resolution comfortable for high-refresh-rate displays.

GPU Role

The RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It carries 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster operation units, alongside 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores. The base clock runs at 1365 MHz, boosting to 1680 MHz, while memory operates at 1750 MHz with an effective data rate of 14 Gbps. The 6 GB of GDDR6 memory sits on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s.

In Barony, these specifications translate into a GPU that handles 1080p and 1440p with ease but struggles at 4K. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is the most likely constraint at higher resolutions, as roguelike environments can accumulate many objects and effects that fill memory. The FP32 performance of 6.451 TFLOPS is sufficient for the game's lighting and particle effects, but the pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s limits how many pixels can be filled at 4K resolution. The data shows that dropping from Ultra to Low at 4K yields a 43.3 FPS improvement (from 40.4 to 83.7 FPS), which suggests that the GPU's shading and texture units are being relieved of work as settings are reduced. The RTX 2060's percentile rank of 58 against all GPUs places it in the mid-range, and its performance in Barony aligns with that positioning—capable, but not exceptional at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from AMD's 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture with the Raphael codename. It uses a 5 nm process at TSMC and operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform. The base clock is 4.70 GHz, boosting up to 5.60 GHz, with a TDP of 170 W. It features 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache. The memory controller supports DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and a bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s.

For Barony, this CPU is massively overprovisioned. The game is a roguelike, which typically relies more on single-thread performance for game logic and AI calculations. The 7900X's single-thread score of 4238 in Passmark and 6168 in Cinebench R23 indicate excellent per-core performance. Its multi-thread scores—51406 in Passmark and 43695 in Cinebench R23—show that even if the game were heavily threaded, the CPU would handle it without breaking a sweat. The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in any of the measured resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 262.7 FPS, which is likely near the game's engine limit or the GPU's rendering ceiling. The 7900X's percentile rank of 93 against all CPUs places it in the top tier, and its performance in Barony is consistent with that—it simply keeps up with whatever the GPU can deliver, never holding it back.