Barony

# Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Barony with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 shows a clear pattern of performance scaling across the three tested resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 469.8 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 294.7 FPS, a reduction of roughly 37%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 156.6 FPS, which is about 47% lower than the 1440p figure. This steep decline as resolution increases indicates that the rendering workload is scaling heavily with pixel count.

The pattern persists across other settings presets. At High settings, the averages are 300.8 FPS at 1080p, 192 FPS at 1440p, and 99.1 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is about 36%, and from 1440p to 4K is about 48%. Medium settings follow a similar trajectory: 351.8 FPS at 1080p, 222.1 FPS at 1440p, and 112.3 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings show 211.8 FPS at 1080p, 132.6 FPS at 1440p, and 71.7 FPS at 4K — a 37% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 46% reduction from 1440p to 4K.

The consistent proportional drops across all settings strongly suggest that the limiting component at lower resolutions is not the GPU. At 1080p, the frame rates are extremely high — even Ultra exceeds 200 FPS — which points to the CPU being the primary constraint at that resolution. The Ryzen 9 7900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, has substantial processing power, but Barony is a roguelike title that may not fully utilize all available threads. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes more heavily loaded, and the frame rate drops proportionally to the pixel count increase. This is classic behavior for a system where the CPU can feed frames quickly at low resolutions, but the GPU workload grows faster than the CPU can compensate at higher resolutions.

The data shows that 4K Ultra is the most demanding configuration, producing 71.7 FPS, which is still playable but represents a significant step down from the 211.8 FPS seen at 1080p Ultra. The scaling between settings at each resolution is also informative: at 4K, Low to Medium is a 28% drop, Medium to High is a 12% drop, and High to Ultra is a 28% drop. This non-linear scaling suggests that certain settings have a disproportionate impact on GPU load.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo in Barony?

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 469.8, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 71.7, which is the lowest measured figure in the dataset.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 294.7 FPS while Ultra produces 132.6 FPS, a difference of 162.1 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 4070's 12 GB VRAM sufficient for Barony at high resolutions?

A: The data shows playable frame rates at all tested resolutions and settings, with the lowest average being 71.7 FPS at 4K Ultra. The 12 GB GDDR6X memory appears adequate for this title.

Q: Which resolution offers the largest gap between Low and Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080, the gap between Low (469.8 FPS) and Ultra (211.8 FPS) is 258 FPS, the largest absolute difference in the dataset.

Q: Does the combo maintain above 60 FPS at all settings and resolutions?

A: Yes, the lowest measured average is 71.7 FPS at 4K Ultra, which exceeds the 60 FPS threshold.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It features 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units, along with 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The GPU has a base clock of 1920 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz. Memory is 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Barony, the GPU's role becomes increasingly important as resolution rises. At 1080p, the frame rates are so high — 469.8 FPS at Low and 211.8 FPS at Ultra — that the GPU is unlikely to be the bottleneck. The RTX 4070's raw compute capabilities, rated at 29.15 TFLOPS for FP32, are more than sufficient for this roguelike title at lower resolutions. However, at 4K, the GPU workload increases substantially. The 4K Ultra result of 71.7 FPS suggests that the GPU is being pushed harder, though it still delivers smooth performance.

The memory configuration is worth noting. The 12 GB VRAM capacity and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are substantial, and the data shows no signs of memory-related performance cliffs at any tested setting. The pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s provide the fill rate needed for high-resolution rendering. The GPU's percentile ranking of 81 among all GPUs indicates it is a strong performer in general benchmarks, which aligns with its behavior in Barony where it never drops below 71.7 FPS.

The RTX 4070's end-of-life production status and its launch MSRP of 599 USD are notable, but the performance data stands on its own. The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 with a deltaPct of -0.6 and the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A at -1.9, while the AMD Radeon RX 5300M is 2.5% ahead in that particular comparison. These deltas are small, suggesting the RTX 4070 sits in a competitive performance band.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 431 out of 1702 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the top 25.3% of all combinations tested, which is a strong showing for a system with this hardware. The rank reflects the measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings, and the consistency of performance — never dropping below 71.7 FPS — contributes to this favorable position.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 93 among all CPUs indicates it outperforms 93% of processors in general benchmark tests. Its average benchmark score of 50556 is nearly identical to the Intel Core Ultra 5 235, which scores 50598 with a deltaPct of -0.1. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT is 0.4% behind at 50738, and the Intel Core i7-13850HX is 0.5% behind. The Intel Core i9-13980HX trails by 0.8%. These tight deltas mean the Ryzen 9 7900X is effectively in a dead heat with its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, but the combo rank in Barony reflects the real-world interaction between CPU and GPU.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 81 places it above 81% of GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 37283 is close to the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 at 37507 (deltaPct -0.6) and the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A at 38008 (deltaPct -1.9). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile is 2.2% ahead, while the AMD Radeon RX 5300M is 2.5% behind. This positioning suggests the RTX 4070 is a mid-to-upper tier GPU, but the combo rank of 431 out of 1702 shows that pairing it with the Ryzen 9 7900X yields a system that performs well above average in this specific game.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture with the Raphael codename. It uses a 5 nm process from TSMC and has a base clock of 4.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration and has a memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s.

In Barony, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p, where the frame rates are extremely high. The 1080p Low result of 469.8 FPS is likely near the upper limit of what the CPU can feed to the GPU. The single-thread performance, as measured by benchmarks like Cinebench R23 single-core at 6168 and Geekbench single-core at 2952, is strong, but Barony may not be fully optimized for multi-threaded workloads. The 12 cores and 24 threads provide ample parallel processing capability, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 multicore score of 43695 and PassMark multithread score of 51406.

The CPU's boost clock of 5.60 GHz is critical for maintaining high frame rates in scenarios where single-thread performance matters. The PassMark single-thread score of 4238 and 3DMark single-thread score of 1093 confirm strong single-core capability. However, the data shows that at 1080p, the frame rates do not scale linearly with settings — the jump from Low (469.8 FPS) to Medium (351.8 FPS) is a 25% drop, while Medium to High (300.8 FPS) is a 14% drop. This suggests that the CPU is not the sole bottleneck at lower resolutions, and the GPU's workload increases with settings even at 1080p.

The CPU's TDP of 170 W and its 13,140 million transistors on a 2x 71 mm² die size indicate a high-power, high-performance part. Its 93rd percentile ranking among CPUs means it outperforms the vast majority of processors, which is consistent with the high frame rates observed in Barony at all resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, providing a comprehensive view of performance. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 469.8 at Low to 211.8 at Ultra. The Medium setting produces 351.8 FPS, and High produces 300.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 258 FPS, indicating that settings have a significant impact even at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 294.7 FPS at Low, 222.1 FPS at Medium, 192 FPS at High, and 132.6 FPS at Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is 162.1 FPS, which is a 55% reduction. This is a larger proportional drop than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 156.6 FPS at Low, 112.3 FPS at Medium, 99.1 FPS at High, and 71.7 FPS at Ultra. The Low to Ultra drop is 84.9 FPS, a 54% reduction. Interestingly, the proportional drop from Low to Ultra is similar between 1440p (55%) and 4K (54%), while at 1080p it is 55% as well. This consistency suggests that the settings presets have a uniform impact on GPU load regardless of resolution.

Comparing across resolutions, the 1080p to 1440p drop averages around 37% across all settings, while the 1440p to 4K drop averages around 47%. This indicates that the transition from 1440p to 4K is more demanding than from 1080p to 1440p, which is expected given the pixel count increase. The 4K Ultra result of 71.7 FPS is the only figure below 100 FPS, and it remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. All other configurations exceed 99 FPS, with most well above 130 FPS. This data shows that the Ryzen 9 7900X and RTX 4070 combo is capable of delivering high frame rates in Barony across a wide range of settings, with the most demanding configuration still maintaining playable performance.