Barony

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 produces a very specific performance profile in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The measured data places this combination at rank 3545 out of 3717 tested combos, which puts it in the bottom 5 percent of all systems tested. This ranking is surprisingly low given the CPU’s strength, and the benchmark numbers reveal that the RX 570 is the dominant constraint across nearly every resolution and settings level. The following analysis breaks down the FPS measurements, component roles, and scaling behavior, using only the data provided.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves in Barony at 1080p?

A: The highest average FPS recorded for this pairing is 138 FPS, which occurs at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only measured configuration that exceeds 120 FPS on average.

Q: Does the RX 570 maintain playable frame rates at 4K in Barony?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 21 FPS on Ultra to 46 FPS on Low. The Medium preset yields an average of 34 FPS with a minimum of 29 FPS and a maximum of 39 FPS. Only the Low preset approaches 60 FPS, and no 4K setting reaches 60 FPS on average.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rival, the RX 470?

A: The RX 570 has an average benchmark score of 28766, while the AMD Radeon RX 470 scores 28996. This makes the RX 570 0.8 percent slower than the RX 470 in aggregate benchmarks, a negligible difference. In contrast, the RX 570 is 0.4 percent faster than the RX 6800M and 1.2 percent faster than the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000.

Q: What is the CPU’s percentile ranking among all tested processors?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X sits at the 92nd percentile versus all CPUs, indicating it outperforms the vast majority of processors in general benchmark suites. Its average benchmark score is 57498, which places it slightly below the AMD EPYC 9015 (57555) and slightly above the AMD EPYC 7313 (57399).

Q: Which settings preset shows the largest FPS difference between 1440p and 4K?

A: The Ultra preset shows the largest relative drop. At 2560x1440 Ultra, the average is 40 FPS, while at 3840x2160 Ultra, the average drops to 21 FPS, a reduction of 19 FPS or 47.5 percent. The Low preset drops from 87 FPS at 1440p to 46 FPS at 4K, a 41 FPS decrease.

Q: Is there a measured configuration where the minimum FPS is reported for this combo?

A: Yes, the Medium preset has reported minimum and maximum FPS values at all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range is 87 to 118 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it is 55 to 74 FPS; and at 4K Medium, it is 29 to 39 FPS. No other settings preset includes min or max values in the data.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a Polaris 20 chip built on a 14 nm process with 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die. Its memory configuration consists of 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective). These specifications are modest by current standards, and the benchmark results reflect this. The GPU’s percentile rank is 74th among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28766. Its closest rival in aggregate score is the AMD Radeon RX 6800M at 28874, a difference of 0.4 percent, while the Radeon R9 M295X trails by 0.7 percent.

In Barony, the RX 570’s VRAM and clock speeds directly influence the measured FPS. The 4 GB frame buffer is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at most settings, but at 4K, the GPU appears to hit a hard wall. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 21 on Ultra to 46 on Low, with no configuration reaching even 50 FPS. This pattern suggests that the GPU’s raw compute throughput, not just VRAM capacity, is the limiting factor. The boost clock of 1244 MHz is relatively low for a discrete GPU, and the 5.095 TFLOPS FP32 performance is insufficient for high-resolution rendering in this title. The pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s further indicate that fill-rate-bound scenes at 4K will struggle.

Comparing the RX 570 to its nearest rivals clarifies its position. It is 0.8 percent slower than the RX 470 (28996), which is essentially a tie, and 1.2 percent faster than the Quadro RTX 8000 (28421). This means that in the broader GPU landscape, the RX 570 performs near the median of its immediate peers. However, in Barony specifically, the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (21 FPS average) shows that the GPU cannot maintain fluid motion at maximum settings. The 1080p results are more favorable: Low settings produce 138 FPS, and even Ultra reaches 63 FPS. This suggests that the RX 570’s role is best suited to lower resolutions or reduced settings, where its 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs can keep pace.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, built on TSMC’s 4 nm process. It has a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a 64 MB L3 cache and 80 KB L1 cache per core. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and it connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes. Its TDP is 120 W, and it was released in August 2024 with a launch MSRP of $499. In synthetic benchmarks, the 9900X achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32172 and a single-core score of 2253, while Geekbench multicore reaches 22174 and single-core 3010. It ranks in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 57498.

For Barony, a roguelike game originally released in 2015, the CPU’s role is likely minimal because the game’s logic is not heavily threaded. The measured FPS at 1080p Low is 138, which is high but not exceptional for a modern processor. The CPU’s single-thread performance, as shown by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1286 and Passmark single-thread score of 4672, is strong enough to avoid becoming a bottleneck at lower resolutions. However, the data shows that at 4K, FPS drops to values between 21 and 46, which cannot be attributed to CPU limitations. The 9900X’s 12 cores and 24 threads are far more than Barony requires, and even at 1080p Ultra (63 FPS), the CPU has ample headroom.

The nearest CPU rivals further contextualize its standing. The AMD EPYC 9015 scores 57555, which is 0.1 percent higher than the 9900X, while the Intel Core i9-14900 scores 58115, putting the 9900X 1.1 percent behind. The Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M is 1.4 percent ahead. These differences are within noise, meaning the 9900X is competitive with top-tier server and desktop parts. In Barony, the CPU’s high boost clock of 5.60 GHz ensures that any single-threaded game logic runs quickly, but the GPU’s limitations dominate the frame rate measurements. The data does not list any CPU-specific FPS bottlenecks, and the scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K (detailed below) strongly indicates that the RX 570, not the 9900X, dictates performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 63 on Ultra to 138 on Low. The Medium preset averages 103 FPS with a minimum of 87 and maximum of 118, while High averages 88 FPS. These numbers indicate that 1080p is fully playable across all settings, with even Ultra exceeding 60 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 75 FPS, a substantial difference that shows how much the GPU’s workload increases with quality settings.

At 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably. The Low preset averages 87 FPS, which remains smooth, but High drops to 56 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40 FPS. Medium averages 65 FPS with a range of 55 to 74. This resolution represents the boundary of comfortable playability: only Low and Medium exceed 60 FPS on average. The drop from 1080p Low (138 FPS) to 1440p Low (87 FPS) is 51 FPS, or a 37 percent reduction. For Ultra, the drop from 63 FPS to 40 FPS is 23 FPS, a 36.5 percent reduction.

At 3840x2160, the RX 570 struggles across the board. Low averages 46 FPS, Medium averages 34 FPS (min 29, max 39), High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 21 FPS. No 4K setting reaches 50 FPS, and the minimum FPS at Medium (29) is below the average at High (29), indicating unstable frame pacing. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 25 FPS, which is smaller than at 1080p (75 FPS) or 1440p (47 FPS), suggesting that the GPU is becoming the hard limit regardless of settings. The Medium preset’s min/max range at 4K (29 to 39) shows a tight band, further evidence that the GPU is saturated.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset is the only one with reported min/max values, which allows for a closer look. At 1080p Medium, the range is 87 to 118 FPS, a spread of 31 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 55 to 74 FPS (19 FPS spread), and at 4K Medium, it narrows further to 29 to 39 FPS (10 FPS spread). This tightening of the frame time distribution as resolution increases is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the variance shrinks because every frame is constrained by the same hardware limit.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Ryzen 9 9900X and RX 570 ranks 3545 out of 3717 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the 95.4th percentile of all combinations from the bottom, meaning only 172 combos perform worse. Given that the CPU is in the 92nd percentile of all processors, the low combo rank is almost entirely attributable to the GPU. The RX 570’s 74th percentile GPU rank, while not terrible, is insufficient to carry this pairing to a competitive position in a game like Barony, where the measured FPS at 4K is often below 30.

The combo rank reflects the aggregate experience across all resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the 138 FPS average is respectable, but at 4K Ultra, the 21 FPS average is nearly unplayable. The rank of 3545 suggests that most other tested combinations deliver higher FPS in the same scenarios. The data does not provide a list of other combos for direct comparison, but the rank itself is the key metric: 3545 out of 3717 is in the bottom 5 percent. This is a clear indication that the RX 570 drags down an otherwise top-tier CPU.

It is also importantly the CPU’s nearest rivals (EPYC 9015, EPYC 7313, i9-14900) have average scores within 1.4 percent of the 9900X, so swapping the CPU for any of them would likely yield similar combo rankings when paired with the same GPU. Conversely, upgrading the GPU to a part with a higher average benchmark score would dramatically improve the combo’s position. The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor; the FPS measurements at 4K, where the CPU has ample headroom, are still low because the GPU cannot keep up.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the best experience for this combo depends on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, all settings produce average FPS above 60, with Low at 138, Medium at 103, High at 88, and Ultra at 63. For a smooth, high-frame-rate experience, the Medium preset is recommended because it delivers 103 FPS on average with a minimum of 87 FPS, ensuring no drops below 60. The High preset at 88 FPS is also viable, but Ultra at 63 FPS leaves little margin for frame dips. If the user prioritizes visual quality over raw FPS, Ultra is still playable, but Medium offers the best balance of speed and stability.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation narrows. Low averages 87 FPS, Medium averages 65 FPS (min 55), High averages 56 FPS, and Ultra averages 40 FPS. The Medium preset is the only setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS while having a minimum of 55 FPS, which is close to the 60 FPS target. High and Ultra drop below 60 FPS, which may be acceptable for a slower-paced roguelike, but Medium provides the most consistent experience. Low is the safest choice if frame rate is paramount, but it sacrifices visual fidelity.

At 3840x2160, no setting achieves 60 FPS on average. Low averages 46 FPS, Medium averages 34 FPS (min 29), High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 21 FPS. For 4K, the Low preset is the only option that stays above 40 FPS, and even then, it is not smooth. Medium is the next choice, but its minimum of 29 FPS indicates that frame drops will be noticeable. Given that the game is a roguelike, where precision timing is not critical, Low at 46 FPS may be tolerable, but users seeking 60 FPS should consider lowering the resolution to 1440p or 1080p. The data clearly shows that 4K Ultra (21 FPS) is not a viable setting for this combo.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a steep decline that is characteristic of GPU-bound performance. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 138 at 1080p to 87 at 1440p (a 51 FPS or 37 percent reduction) and then to 46 at 4K (a further 41 FPS or 47 percent reduction). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is 92 FPS, or 66.7 percent. At Medium settings, the averages are 103, 65, and 34 FPS for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively. This represents a 33 percent drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 47.7 percent drop from 1440p to 4K, for a total of 67 percent from 1080p to 4K.

At High settings, the averages are 88, 56, and 29 FPS, with drops of 36.4 percent (1080p to 1440p) and 48.2 percent (1440p to 4K). At Ultra, the averages are 63, 40, and 21 FPS, with drops of 36.5 percent and 47.5 percent respectively. The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings is striking: each resolution step reduces FPS by roughly one-third to one-half, regardless of quality preset. This uniformity indicates that the limiting component does not change with settings; the RX 570’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the bottlenecks at every resolution.

The 1080p to 1440p drop of about 36 percent across settings is larger than the pixel count increase (1080p has 2.07 million pixels, 1440p has 3.69 million, a 78 percent increase). This suggests that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound; other factors like texture fetches and shading overhead also scale. The 1440p to 4K drop of about 48 percent is also steeper than the pixel count increase (4K has 8.29 million pixels, a 125 percent increase over 1440p). This disproportionate scaling points to memory bandwidth saturation, as the RX 570’s 224.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot feed the GPU at higher resolutions. The CPU’s role in this scaling is negligible, as the 9900X’s single-thread performance is more than adequate for Barony’s logic; the FPS curves are entirely shaped by the GPU’s limits.