Barony

Barony is not a typical GPU stress test, and the measured frame rates for this AMD Ryzen 9 7900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination reflect that. The data shows a system that is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions, with the GPU only beginning to assert its dominance as resolution climbs. This pairing produces extraordinary frame rates across the board, but the scaling patterns reveal that the 12-core processor is the primary driver of performance in this roguelike, while the flagship graphics card is largely held in reserve until 4K Ultra settings are applied.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic, but the shape of that curve tells the real story about which component is limiting performance. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 688.4 at 1920x1080 to 433.6 at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 37%, before settling at 228.6 at 3840x2160. That final step from 1440p to 4K represents another 47% decrease. This is a classic sign of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions; the RTX 5090 is capable of far more work, but the Ryzen 9 7900X cannot feed it frames fast enough to saturate its rendering pipeline.

The scaling pattern shifts when settings are raised. At High settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is from 439.8 to 276, a 37% decline, but the move from 1440p to 4K is only 276 to 146.9, a 47% drop. At Ultra settings, the numbers compress further: 317.9 at 1080p, 199.1 at 1440p, and 101.7 at 4K. The percentage gap between 1080p and 1440p narrows as settings increase, indicating that the GPU is becoming a more significant factor. However, even at 4K Ultra, the system only dips to 101.7 average FPS, which is still well above the 60 FPS target for most displays.

The most telling comparison is between Low and Ultra at each resolution. At 1080p, Low produces 688.4 FPS versus 317.9 for Ultra, a 2.2x difference. At 4K, Low produces 228.6 versus 101.7 for Ultra, a 2.2x difference as well. This consistency suggests that the CPU is the limiting factor across all settings at 1080p, but the GPU begins to matter more at 4K, where the absolute frame rate is still high but the relative cost of higher settings is similar. The data indicates that this game is far from a GPU-bound workload; the Ryzen 9 7900X is doing the heavy lifting.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark database places this specific CPU-GPU combination at rank 9 out of 1702 tested combos for Barony. That puts it in the top 0.5% of all systems tested, which is expected given the hardware involved. The Ryzen 9 7900X alone sits in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 50556, while the RTX 5090 ranks in the 94th percentile against all GPUs with an average score of 84306. Neither component is a weak link, but the ranking reflects how well they work together in this specific title.

Looking at the CPU's nearest rivals shows how close the top of the processor stack is. The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 scores 50598, just 0.1% higher than the Ryzen 9 7900X. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT scores 50738, a 0.4% advantage, and the Intel Core i7-13850HX scores 50827, a 0.5% edge. The Intel Core i9-13980HX leads the group with 50944, 0.8% higher. These are negligible differences in synthetic benchmarks, and in a game like Barony, they would translate to imperceptible frame rate variations. The GPU's nearest rival, the RTX 5090 D, scores 84241, just 0.1% behind, while the RTX 5050 Mobile is 0.2% behind at 84171.

The rank of 9th place is not surprising for a top-tier desktop CPU paired with the flagship desktop GPU. However, the fact that it is not rank 1 suggests that other combinations, likely with even higher-clocked CPUs or more cache, may edge it out in this specific title. The data shows that Barony is sensitive to raw CPU throughput, and the Ryzen 9 7900X, while excellent, is not the absolute fastest in every scenario.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience based on the measured rows, High settings at 1920x1080 offer a strong balance. The data shows 439.8 average FPS at High versus 508.9 at Medium and 688.4 at Low. The jump from High to Medium is a 16% increase, but the visual quality difference in a roguelike is often minimal. High settings provide a substantial improvement over Medium in terms of visual fidelity, and the 439.8 FPS is far beyond any display's refresh rate, making it a comfortable choice.

At 2560x1440, High settings remain the sweet spot, delivering 276 average FPS. This is a 15% drop from Medium's 325.4, but again, the visual gains are worth it. Ultra at 1440p drops to 199.1 FPS, which is still excellent but represents a 28% reduction from High, a more significant cost for marginal visual improvements. For 4K, High settings at 146.9 FPS are the best option, as Ultra drops to 101.7, a 31% reduction that may not be justified for the visual difference in a game with simple geometry and textures.

Low settings are only worth considering if chasing maximum frame rates for a high-refresh-rate display, but even at 4K Low, the system produces 228.6 FPS. Given that the game is a roguelike with fast-paced action, the recommendation is to use High settings at any resolution for the best balance of visual clarity and performance. The data shows that Medium offers a modest FPS boost over High, but the visual trade-off is not worth it for most users.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are 688.4 for Low, 508.9 for Medium, 439.8 for High, and 317.9 for Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is a 2.2x difference, indicating that the CPU is the primary bottleneck even at the lowest settings. The step from Low to Medium is a 26% reduction, from Medium to High is a 14% reduction, and from High to Ultra is a 28% reduction. This pattern suggests that Ultra settings introduce a significant workload increase that impacts the CPU more than the GPU.

At 2560x1440, the values are 433.6 for Low, 325.4 for Medium, 276 for High, and 199.1 for Ultra. The scaling from Low to Ultra is a 2.2x difference, identical to 1080p. The absolute numbers are lower, but the relative gaps are the same, reinforcing that the CPU is still the limiting factor. The move from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 37% of the frame rate at each settings level, which is a consistent penalty.

At 3840x2160, the values are 228.6 for Low, 169.1 for Medium, 146.9 for High, and 101.7 for Ultra. The drop from 1440p to 4K is more severe, ranging from 47% at Low to 49% at Ultra. This is where the GPU begins to matter, as the RTX 5090 is now more heavily utilized. The 4K Ultra result of 101.7 FPS is still impressive, but it shows that even a flagship GPU cannot completely overcome the CPU's limitations at this resolution. The data shows a clear progression: the CPU holds frame rates high at lower resolutions, and the GPU takes over as resolution increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a massive piece of silicon, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It has 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, which is a staggering amount of hardware. The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. Its base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz or 28 Gbps effective.

In Barony, the GPU's role is secondary to the CPU. The measured frame rates at 1080p and 1440p are so high that the GPU is likely not the bottleneck. The RTX 5090's raw compute power, with 21760 shading units and 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, is overkill for this game's visual demands. The 32 GB VRAM is also far more than needed, as Barony is a roguelike with dated graphics that do not require large texture pools.

The GPU's performance is better demonstrated at 4K Ultra, where it drops to 101.7 FPS. This is still a high frame rate, but it shows that the GPU is now working harder. The 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are not heavily utilized in this title, but they are available for other games. The RTX 5090's 176 ROPs and 680 TMUs ensure that texture fill rate and pixel throughput are not limiting factors. The data shows that the GPU is capable of far more than this game demands, and its performance is only constrained by the CPU's ability to feed it frames.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is the star of the show in Barony. This 12-core, 24-thread processor is built on the Zen 4 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, which are excellent for gaming. The CPU has 64 MB of shared L3 cache, which is beneficial for games that rely on data locality. Its 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth over DDR5 is also a strong asset.

The CPU's benchmark scores are telling. In Cinebench R23, it scores 43695 in multi-core and 6168 in single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 17830 multi-core and 2952 single-core. These numbers place it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rivals are all within 0.8% of its average score, meaning that the Ryzen 9 7900X is at the top of the heap, but not uniquely so.

In Barony, the CPU is the limiting factor at all settings below 4K Ultra. The measured frame rates at 1080p Low (688.4 FPS) are so high that the CPU is clearly the bottleneck. The 12 cores and 24 threads are more than enough for this game, which likely uses only a few threads. The high single-core performance, as shown by the 6168 score in Cinebench R23, is what drives the frame rates. The CPU's ability to maintain high clock speeds across all cores ensures that even if the game uses multiple threads, it can keep up. The data shows that the Ryzen 9 7900X is a superb gaming CPU for this title, and it is the primary reason this combo ranks 9th out of 1702.