Barony

Barony is a 2015 roguelike that, on this particular hardware pairing, behaves less like a CPU-bound indie title and more like a GPU-scaled showcase, with the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivering frame rates that range from exceptionally high to absurdly high depending on the resolution and settings applied. The data shows a system capable of maintaining triple-digit average FPS at 4K Ultra, while at 1080p Low, it pushes past 590 FPS, indicating that the performance ceiling is dictated almost entirely by the graphics card's workload rather than the processor's four cores. The benchmark results confirm that this combination is wildly overqualified for the game's demands, yet the scaling patterns reveal distinct bottlenecks at each extreme of the resolution and settings spectrum.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable inverse relationship between resolution and performance, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly based on the quality settings selected. Moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 at High settings, the average frame rate falls from 381 FPS to 126 FPS, a reduction of approximately 67%. This steep decline indicates that at 1080p, the system is not being fully utilized by the GPU, and the rendering pipeline is hitting a ceiling elsewhere; as resolution increases, the GPU's shading and memory bandwidth demands grow, which brings the frame rate down to a level where the graphics card becomes the primary limiting factor.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling is even more dramatic, with average FPS dropping from 597 at 1080p to 197 at 4K, a 67% decrease that mirrors the High setting pattern. However, the absolute numbers tell a different story: 597 FPS at 1080p Low is far beyond the refresh rate of any conventional monitor, suggesting that the CPU is struggling to feed the GPU with enough draw calls to saturate its capabilities. The fact that 4K Low still yields 197 FPS proves that the RTX 4080 SUPER has ample headroom, and the bottleneck at lower resolutions is likely the i3-12100F's limited thread count and clock speed, not the GPU's raw throughput.

The Medium settings provide the only complete dataset with min and max FPS values, offering a clearer picture of frame time consistency. At 1920x1080 Medium, the average is 444 FPS with a minimum of 377 and a maximum of 510, showing a tight distribution that suggests stable performance. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average drops to 280 FPS (min 238, max 322), and at 3840x2160 Medium, it falls to 146 FPS (min 124, max 168). These numbers indicate that the frame pacing remains consistent across resolutions, and the performance hit from 1440p to 4K is roughly 48%, which is less severe than the 67% drop seen when moving from 1080p to 4K, hinting that the GPU's memory bandwidth (736.3 GB/s) starts to become a factor at higher pixel counts.

Ultra settings exhibit the smallest absolute FPS values but follow the same trend: 273 FPS at 1080p, 172 FPS at 1440p, and 90 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K at Ultra is 48%, consistent with Medium, but the 1080p to 1440p reduction is 37%, suggesting that the additional shading work from Ultra settings (beyond just resolution) is already loading the GPU more heavily at 1080p, reducing the relative impact of the resolution increase. Overall, the scaling data indicates that this game is heavily GPU-bound at 4K and 1440p, while at 1080p, especially with Low or Medium settings, the CPU becomes the limiting component, preventing the GPU from reaching its theoretical maximum output.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain why Barony runs at such high frame rates across all tested configurations. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s, which is more than sufficient for a roguelike's texture and geometry data at any resolution. The 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units provide ample raw compute power, with the FP32 performance rated at 52.22 TFLOPS, ensuring that even the most complex shader effects in Barony are processed without breaking a sweat.

The clock speeds of the RTX 4080 SUPER are set at a base of 2295 MHz and a boost of 2550 MHz, with memory running at 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective). These clocks, combined with the Ada Lovelace architecture's efficiency on a 5 nm process (TSMC), allow the card to sustain high performance without thermal throttling, as evidenced by the consistent FPS numbers across repeated tests. The GPU's 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for Barony, which does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS, but they contribute to the card's overall benchmark scores, including a Passmark G3D score of 34,245 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,600.

In the context of this game, the GPU's role is to handle the pixel shading and memory bandwidth demands that scale with resolution. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the card is fully engaged, producing 90 FPS, while at 1080p Low, it is underutilized, with the CPU failing to issue enough commands to push past 597 FPS. The VRAM capacity of 16 GB is never a limiting factor here, as Barony's assets are modest by modern standards, but the bandwidth becomes relevant at 4K, where the 146 FPS at Medium (versus 126 FPS at High) suggests that memory throughput is a secondary constraint after shader complexity. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4080 SUPER sits just below the RTX 4080 (deltaPct of -0.1%) and above the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (deltaPct of -2.7%), indicating that its performance is well within the expected range for a top-tier card, and it easily exceeds the requirements for this title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake-S architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process with a die size of 163 mm². It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. These specifications place it in the budget-to-midrange segment of the desktop market, and its benchmark scores reflect that positioning: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11,860 and a single-core score of 1,674, along with a Passmark multi-thread score of 14,015 and a single-thread score of 3,444. Its percentile rank among all CPUs is 68, meaning it outperforms the majority of processors, but it is far from the top tier.

In Barony, the CPU's role is to manage game logic, physics, and draw call submission, which are typically single-threaded or lightly threaded in roguelikes. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the average FPS is 597, which is likely hitting the CPU's instruction issue limit, as the GPU could theoretically render more frames if fed faster. The 3DMark scores for the i3-12100F are telling: a single-thread score of 893 and a 2-thread score of 1,659, which are solid but not exceptional, and the multi-thread scores (4,026 for 8 threads and 4,023 for max threads) show that scaling beyond 4 threads yields no benefit, confirming that the processor's 4 physical cores are the primary constraint in highly threaded workloads.

Comparing the i3-12100F to its nearest rivals, it is essentially tied with the Intel Core 3 N355 (deltaPct of 0%) and the Intel Core i5-9500 (deltaPct of 0.3%), while slightly outperforming the Intel Core 5 120UL (deltaPct of -0.7%) and the Intel Core i7-1250U (deltaPct of 1.1%). This indicates that the CPU's performance is consistent with other processors in its class, and it is not a significant outlier. In the context of this game, the CPU's 4 cores and 8 threads are sufficient to maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is the bottleneck, as evidenced by the fact that 4K Ultra produces 90 FPS while 1080p Low produces 597 FPS—a 6.6x increase in FPS for a 4x reduction in pixel count, which is less than the theoretical 4x scaling expected from a purely GPU-bound scenario, indicating that the CPU cannot keep up with the GPU's potential at lower resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Analyzing the measured FPS data resolution by resolution, the 1920x1080 results show the highest frame rates, with Low settings averaging 597 FPS, Medium at 444 FPS (min 377, max 510), High at 381 FPS, and Ultra at 273 FPS. These numbers are all well above the refresh rates of standard gaming monitors, and the difference between Low and Ultra is 324 FPS, a 54% reduction, which highlights the impact of quality settings on the GPU workload even at this lower resolution. The Medium setting's min FPS of 377 is higher than the Ultra average, indicating that the frame pacing remains stable across settings.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS drops to 377 for Low, 280 for Medium (min 238, max 322), 240 for High, and 172 for Ultra. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is roughly 37-38% (e.g., 597 to 377 is a 37% drop, 444 to 280 is a 37% drop), which is consistent and suggests that the GPU is being loaded progressively. The Medium setting's min FPS of 238 is still above the 1440p Ultra average, showing that even at this resolution, the CPU is not a limiting factor for most settings.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS is 197 for Low, 146 for Medium (min 124, max 168), 126 for High, and 90 for Ultra. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper at around 47-48% for all settings (e.g., 377 to 197 is a 48% drop, 280 to 146 is a 48% drop), which is expected given the 2.25x increase in pixel count. The Ultra setting at 4K produces 90 FPS, which is still playable, but the gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 107 FPS, a 54% reduction, mirroring the 1080p pattern. The Medium setting's min FPS of 124 at 4K ensures that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate does not drop below 124 FPS, making this combo suitable for high-refresh-rate 4K displays.

Across all settings, the data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary driver of performance, with the CPU only becoming a factor at 1080p Low where the FPS exceeds 500. The measured FPS values are consistently high, and the minimum FPS recorded (124 at 4K Medium) is still above the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that this combination delivers a smooth experience in all tested configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 316th out of 3,717 tested combos for Barony, placing it in the top 8.5% of all configurations in the database. This ranking is remarkably high given the budget-oriented CPU, and it underscores the fact that the GPU is the dominant factor in this game's performance. The fact that this combo outperforms many systems with more powerful CPUs (e.g., those with 8-core processors) proves that Barony is not particularly CPU-intensive, and the RTX 4080 SUPER's raw power is sufficient to compensate for the i3-12100F's limitations.

The ranking also reflects the game's age and graphical simplicity, as newer, more demanding titles would likely see this combo rank lower due to the CPU bottleneck. However, for Barony specifically, the data shows that the i3-12100F's 4 cores and 8 threads are adequate, and the GPU's 16 GB of VRAM and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth are more than enough to handle the game's assets at any resolution. The combo's percentile position (top 8.5%) is consistent with the GPU's own percentile rank of 86 among all GPUs, while the CPU's percentile rank of 68 is lower, indicating that the pairing is GPU-heavy, which is ideal for this title.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combo in Barony?

A: The highest average FPS is 597, recorded at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K with the highest settings?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 90, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the tested configurations?

A: The lowest minimum FPS is 124, observed at 3840x2160 resolution with Medium settings.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its closest rival, the RTX 4080?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 54,209, which is 0.1% lower than the RTX 4080's score of 54,247.

Q: What is the CPU's multi-threaded performance score?

A: The Intel Core i3-12100F scores 11,860 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 14,015 in Passmark multi-thread.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p Low settings?

A: The data indicates the CPU is the bottleneck at 1080p Low, as the 597 FPS average is likely constrained by the processor's 4 cores, given the GPU's capacity for higher frame rates.