Barony

Barony is an older roguelike that has been out since 2015, yet the benchmark data for this AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination reveals surprisingly demanding performance scaling at higher resolutions. This pairing sits in the 129th position out of 1702 tested combos for this game, placing it firmly in the top percentile of systems capable of running the title. The measured frames per second show a system that is severely overqualified for 1080p gaming but still demonstrates clear architectural limits as resolution climbs toward 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where this system's bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 598 at 1920x1080 to 379.4 at 2560x1440, then to 199.9 at 3840x2160. That represents a 33% reduction moving from 1080p to 1440p, and another 47% reduction moving from 1440p to 4K. The total scaling from 1080p Low to 4K Low is a 67% performance loss, which is substantial but not catastrophic for a game of this age.

The Ultra settings curve tells a similar but less steep story. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 272.3 FPS average. Dropping to 1440p Ultra reduces that to 173.3 FPS, a 36% decrease. At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 89.4 FPS, which is another 48% reduction from the 1440p figure. The pattern across all settings presets shows that the most significant frame rate penalty occurs between 1440p and 4K, suggesting that the RTX 4080 SUPER's memory bandwidth and pixel throughput become increasingly relevant at higher pixel counts.

What is notable is that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 325.7 FPS. At 1440p, that gap shrinks to 206.1 FPS. At 4K, the gap is only 110.5 FPS. This compression indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU is doing more of the heavy lifting to maintain those extreme frame rates, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor and the settings preset has relatively less impact on overall performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, featuring 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. The card operates with a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2550 MHz, paired with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus. That memory configuration delivers 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for Barony's 4K Ultra demands where the system still maintains an average above 89 FPS.

The GPU's compute capabilities are substantial, with 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines. The pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s provide the raw fill rates needed to handle the game's procedurally generated environments. The card also includes 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores, though Barony's roguelike presentation likely does not leverage ray tracing features meaningfully. The FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS places this GPU well above the needs of a 2015 title.

Benchmark results show the RTX 4080 SUPER achieving an average score of 53,610 across all tests, placing it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival in the data is the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, which scores 53,489, a mere 0.2% difference. The gap to the next competitor, the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M at 53,414, is also minimal at 0.4%. These tight margins suggest that in synthetic workloads, the RTX 4080 SUPER is closely matched with its direct competition, but the measured Barony frame rates show this specific game favors the NVIDIA architecture's strengths.

The GPU's 320 W TDP and triple-slot cooler design indicate a high-power component, but the performance it delivers in Barony's 4K High preset at 127.5 FPS average demonstrates that it has ample headroom for this title. The card's 16 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for a game from 2015, even at 4K Ultra settings, where texture memory demands rarely approach modern AAA title requirements.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X brings substantial processing power to this combination, featuring 12 cores and 24 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture. Built on TSMC's 4 nm process with 16,630 million transistors across a dual-chiplet design, this CPU operates with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The 64 MB shared L3 cache provides ample fast storage for game data, while the dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth keeps the GPU fed with data.

Synthetic benchmarks reveal the CPU's strengths. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 46,438 and single-core score of 6,555 indicate strong all-around performance. The Geekbench results show 19,827 for multicore and 3,341 for single-core. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 12,552 and max-thread score of 13,929 demonstrate that the processor scales well with increased thread utilization, which matters for a roguelike that may spawn numerous entities and process complex game states.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 54,450 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival in the data is the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which scores 54,681, a difference of -0.4%. The Intel Core i7-14700F scores 54,097, putting it 0.7% behind. These close margins suggest that the 9900X is competitively positioned, though the 3D V-Cache variant holds a slight edge that could matter in cache-sensitive workloads.

The 1080p Low preset result of 598 FPS average is telling. This frame rate approaches the practical limits of display technology and indicates that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls to saturate even the RTX 4080 SUPER at lower resolutions. The 1080p Ultra result of 272.3 FPS still shows excellent CPU headroom, proving that Barony's engine is not particularly demanding on processor resources even with higher visual settings enabled.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination ranks 129th out of 1,702 tested combos for Barony, placing it in the top 7.6% of all systems tested. This ranking reflects the strengths of both components, with the CPU's 94th percentile standing and the GPU's 88th percentile standing combining to produce a system that excels in this game.

The ranking position is notable given that the system is not using the absolute top-tier hardware available in the database. The CPU's nearest rival, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, shows that the 3D V-Cache variant offers a marginal 0.4% performance advantage in synthetic benchmarks, but the measured Barony frame rates demonstrate that the 9900X is more than adequate for this title. The GPU's position relative to the RX 6900 XT, with only a 0.2% difference in average score, suggests that the NVIDIA card's specific feature set and driver optimization may contribute to its strong showing in this particular game.

The 89.4 FPS average at 4K Ultra is a critical result for this ranking. This frame rate is well above the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay, and it shows that this combination can handle the most demanding settings at the highest resolution without compromise. The system's ability to maintain 173.3 FPS at 1440p Ultra further cements its position in the upper echelon of tested configurations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080 resolution, the system produces exceptional frame rates across all settings. The Low preset achieves 598 FPS average, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset for this game. Medium settings produce 443.9 FPS, High settings deliver 379.1 FPS, and Ultra settings still manage 272.3 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, as the frame rates scale dramatically with settings changes but remain far above any display's refresh rate capabilities.

Moving to 2560x1440 resolution, the frame rates remain high but show more GPU influence. The Low preset averages 379.4 FPS, Medium produces 279.1 FPS, High delivers 240.7 FPS, and Ultra drops to 173.3 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a 54% reduction in performance, which is more pronounced than the 54% reduction seen at 1080p between the same settings extremes.

At 3840x2160 resolution, the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor. The Low preset averages 199.9 FPS, Medium produces 145 FPS, High delivers 127.5 FPS, and Ultra drops to 89.4 FPS. The 4K results show a clear hierarchy where each settings tier provides a meaningful performance step, with the difference between Low and Ultra representing a 55% reduction in average frame rate.

The most striking result in the dataset is the 598 FPS figure at 1080p Low. This exceeds the refresh rate capabilities of virtually all consumer displays and demonstrates the raw processing power of both the CPU and GPU working together. The 4K Ultra result of 89.4 FPS, while lower, still provides a smooth experience for a roguelike where fast reaction times are not typically critical.

Settings Recommendations

For players with a 4K display, the Ultra preset at 89.4 FPS average offers the best visual experience while maintaining frame rates well above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 127.5 FPS provides a substantial performance boost with presumably minimal visual differences, making it the recommended choice for competitive play or for users who prefer higher refresh rates. The Medium preset at 145 FPS is a viable alternative for those who prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity, while the Low preset at 199.9 FPS is best reserved for extreme performance scenarios or very high refresh rate displays.

At 1440p resolution, the Ultra preset at 173.3 FPS provides an excellent balance of visual quality and performance, easily driving 144 Hz displays to their limits. The High preset at 240.7 FPS is ideal for 240 Hz monitors, while the Medium preset at 279.1 FPS and Low preset at 379.4 FPS cater to competitive players with the highest refresh rate displays available.

For 1080p users, any settings preset provides more than adequate performance, with even the Ultra preset at 272.3 FPS exceeding the refresh rate of most gaming monitors. The High preset at 379.1 FPS is recommended for most users as it provides a strong balance, while the Low preset at 598 FPS is only necessary for those with 360 Hz or higher refresh rate displays who want to maximize every possible frame. The data shows that this combination has no weak points at 1080p, and the choice of settings should be based on personal preference for visual quality versus raw performance.