Barony

Barony, a roguelike from 2015, shows surprisingly demanding scaling when paired with the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. The measured data reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, yet the CPU still manages to keep pace even at its most extreme frame rates. This combination ranks in the 374th position out of 1702 tested combos for this title, placing it in the top quarter of all system pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and clearly illustrates where the rendering bottleneck lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 506.5 FPS, but this falls to 166.2 FPS at 4K Low — a reduction of roughly two-thirds. This pattern is consistent across all settings presets, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases.

For High settings, the scaling shows 324.3 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 203.7 FPS at 1440p, and finally settling at 107 FPS at 4K. The step from 1440p to 4K represents a 47% performance loss at High settings, which is a substantial hit. The Ultra preset tells a similar story: 229.8 FPS at 1080p, 147.4 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured scenario that falls below the 100 FPS threshold, suggesting that this resolution and preset combination is the true stress test for the RTX 5070.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 276.7 FPS (506.5 vs 229.8), but at 4K that gap narrows to 92.2 FPS (166.2 vs 74). This compression of the settings range at higher resolutions is classic GPU-bound behavior — when the GPU is saturated by pixel throughput, the cost of additional graphical effects becomes relatively smaller.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the star of this pairing, featuring 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus with 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card's 6144 shading units run at a base clock of 2325 MHz and boost to 2512 MHz, delivering 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. These specifications place the GPU in the 83rd percentile of all graphics cards in the database, with an average benchmark score of 41687.

Looking at the nearest rivals in the database, the RTX 5070 sits remarkably close to the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, which scores 41610 — a delta of just 0.2% in the RTX 5070's favor. The NVIDIA Tesla M40 is actually 0.5% ahead with a score of 41897, and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X leads by 0.7% at 41991. The most interesting comparison is with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090, which trails by only 0.6% at 41441. This suggests that the RTX 5070's raw compute power is very much in the same league as the previous generation's flagship, despite its more modest memory configuration.

In Barony specifically, the 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for all tested scenarios, as no memory-related stuttering or frame drops are evident in the data. The GDDR7 memory's 672.0 GB/s bandwidth is clearly feeding the GPU's 48 ray tracing cores and 192 tensor cores adequately, though the game's roguelike nature likely doesn't heavily stress ray tracing capabilities. The card's 80 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s, which combined with the 482.3 GTexel/s texture rate, explains why the GPU can maintain such high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, running at a base clock of 3.30 GHz and boosting to 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 cache per core provide the memory hierarchy needed for gaming workloads. This CPU sits in the 72nd percentile of all processors in the database, with an average benchmark score of 13516.

The nearest rivals for this CPU show an interesting competitive landscape. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX scores 13534, just 0.1% higher, while the Intel Core i7-1250U is 0.4% behind at 13462. The Intel Core i3-10105 trails by 0.6% with 13430, and the Intel Core i7-7700K is 1.8% lower at 13280. This clustering around the same score range suggests that the i3-12100F competes well above its entry-level positioning.

In Barony, the CPU's gaming performance is tested most severely at 1080p Low settings, where the 506.5 FPS result indicates the processor is feeding frames to the GPU at an extremely high rate. The single-thread score of 893 in 3DMark and 1681 in Cinebench R23 suggest strong per-core performance, which is crucial for a roguelike that may not scale perfectly across 8 threads. The multi-threaded 3DMark score of 4051 with 16 threads versus 4026 with 8 threads shows only a negligible gain from going beyond 8 threads, indicating the game is likely well-served by the 8 threads this CPU provides.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptional performance across all settings. Low settings produce 506.5 FPS, Medium achieves 375.1 FPS, High reaches 324.3 FPS, and even Ultra maintains a highly playable 229.8 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 276.7 FPS, showing that the RTX 5070 has enormous headroom at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results remain impressive but show the expected decline. Low settings yield 322.8 FPS, Medium hits 238 FPS, High manages 203.7 FPS, and Ultra drops to 147.4 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is nearly linear, with each resolution step costing roughly 30-40% of performance depending on the preset.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 5070 finally encounters serious resistance. Low settings produce 166.2 FPS, Medium achieves 123.4 FPS, High dips to 107 FPS, and Ultra falls to 74 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration in the entire dataset that fails to reach 100 FPS, making it the clear recommendation for users who prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity at this resolution. For competitive play or high-refresh-rate displays, 1080p with any settings or 1440p with up to High settings will easily saturate a 144 Hz monitor with room to spare.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Barony at 4K Ultra smoothly?

A: The measured data shows 74 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. While this is playable, it falls below the 100 FPS threshold that many gamers prefer for smooth motion. Dropping to High settings at 4K raises the frame rate to 107 FPS, which is more comfortable.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 compare to the RTX 3090 in this pairing?

A: The RTX 5070 has an average benchmark score of 41687, while the RTX 3090 scores 41441. This represents a 0.6% advantage for the RTX 5070, placing these two GPUs in essentially the same performance tier.

Q: Is the Intel Core i3-12100F a bottleneck in Barony?

A: At 1080p Low settings, the system produces 506.5 FPS, which suggests the CPU is keeping up with the GPU's output. The fact that frame rates scale consistently across resolutions indicates the i3-12100F is not the limiting factor in this pairing.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 144 Hz monitor?

A: At 1080p, even Ultra settings deliver 229.8 FPS, well above 144 Hz. At 1440p, Medium (238 FPS) and High (203.7 FPS) both exceed 144 Hz, while Ultra (147.4 FPS) just barely clears it.

Q: How much performance is lost when upgrading from Low to Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, the drop is 276.7 FPS (from 506.5 to 229.8), representing a 55% reduction. At 1440p, the loss is 175.4 FPS (from 322.8 to 147.4), a 54% decrease. At 4K, the difference narrows to 92.2 FPS (from 166.2 to 74), a 55% reduction.

Q: Where does this combo rank among all tested systems in Barony?

A: The combination ranks 374th out of 1702 total combos, placing it in the top 22% of all tested configurations. This makes it a strong performer for this title, though not at the absolute top tier.