Barony

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT delivers a remarkably consistent high-refresh-rate experience in Barony, with the data showing that the 1080p Medium preset is the definitive sweet spot. This combination ranks in the 63rd percentile of all tested combos, and the measured results indicate a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions while still possessing enough CPU headroom to push extreme frame rates at 1080p. The benchmark data confirms that users seeking the best balance of visual fidelity and fluidity should prioritize the Medium settings at 1080p, where the 224 FPS average with a minimum of 190 FPS provides a substantial buffer above any competitive display refresh rate.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows reveal a clear hierarchy of playable experiences, and the data strongly favors the Medium preset as the optimal configuration for this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers a 224 FPS average with a recorded minimum of 190 FPS and a maximum of 257 FPS. This is not merely a marginal improvement over the High preset’s 192 FPS average; it represents a 16.7% performance uplift while the visual difference between these two settings in a roguelike title like Barony is typically negligible given the game’s stylized aesthetic. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 301 FPS, but this comes at the cost of visual clarity that can hamper gameplay readability in a genre where environmental cues and item visibility are paramount.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again proves its superiority, producing a 141 FPS average with a minimum of 120 FPS and a maximum of 163 FPS. This keeps the experience comfortably within high-refresh territory even at a higher resolution, whereas the High preset drops to 121 FPS and the Ultra preset falls to 87 FPS. The data suggests that Medium is the ceiling for maintaining a locked 120+ FPS experience at 1440p. For 4K gaming, the situation becomes more constrained; the Medium preset at 3840x2160 yields a 74 FPS average with a 63 FPS minimum, which is playable but no longer offers the high-refresh advantage seen at lower resolutions. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 45 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay in a fast-paced roguelike where reaction time matters.

The verdict from the data is unambiguous: Medium settings provide the best experience per the measured rows across all three resolutions. It is the only preset that maintains a minimum FPS above 60 at 4K, and it offers the largest performance headroom relative to the High preset at both 1080p and 1440p. Users with 144Hz monitors should prioritize 1080p Medium, while those with 120Hz displays can safely use 1440p Medium. The Ultra preset is only recommended for players who prioritize maximum visual fidelity over frame rate consistency, but the data shows it sacrifices 38% of the average FPS compared to Medium at 1080p.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the benchmark results observed in Barony. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is substantial for a game like Barony, which is a roguelike with procedurally generated levels that can accumulate numerous assets and textures over a long session. The 16 GB capacity ensures that VRAM is never a bottleneck, even at 4K Ultra where the GPU’s compute resources, rather than memory, become the limiting factor.

The GPU’s clock speeds reveal its performance characteristics: a base clock of 1980 MHz, a game clock of 2470 MHz, and a boost clock of 2755 MHz. The boost clock is what the silicon sustains under load, and this explains why the card can push 301 FPS at 1080p Low. The Navi 33 chip on a 6 nm process from TSMC contains 13,300 million transistors on a 204 mm² die, with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs. This hardware configuration yields a pixel rate of 176.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 352.6 GTexel/s, which are the raw throughput numbers that govern how quickly the GPU can fill frames in a title like Barony that relies on 2D sprites and simple 3D geometry.

The GPU’s FP32 compute of 22.57 TFLOPS is ample for Barony’s rendering demands, and the data indicates that the card is never CPU-limited until frame rates approach 300 FPS. The benchmark scores support this analysis: the GPU achieves a Passmark G3D score of 17132 and a Passmark DirectX 11 score of 167, which places it in the 60th percentile of all GPUs. In the context of Barony, the GPU’s role is to render the game’s voxel-based environments and particle effects, and the measured FPS at 4K shows where the GPU’s limits lie. The drop from 99 FPS at 4K Low to 45 FPS at 4K Ultra, a 55% reduction, demonstrates that the GPU is the primary constraint at this resolution, not the CPU.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play Barony with this hardware for a 144Hz monitor?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 on Medium settings is the optimal choice, delivering a 224 FPS average with a minimum of 190 FPS. This ensures the frame rate never dips below 144 FPS, providing a consistent high-refresh experience.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only on specific presets. The Medium preset at 3840x2160 produces a 74 FPS average with a 63 FPS minimum. The High preset achieves a 63 FPS average, but the Low preset is the only other option that exceeds 60 FPS, hitting 99 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 45 FPS, which is not sufficient.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F has an average benchmark score of 14185, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Xeon 6756E (14163), 0.5% higher than the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115), and 0.3% lower than the Intel Core 7 160UL (14232). It sits in the 68th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: Does the GPU have enough VRAM for Barony?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is more than sufficient for Barony. The game’s procedurally generated levels can hold many unique textures and objects, but 16 GB provides a substantial buffer, and no measured FPS data suggests a memory-related bottleneck.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 190 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 87 FPS. This represents a 103 FPS difference, or a 54% reduction in average frame rate when moving from Low to Ultra.

Q: Is this combo more limited by the CPU or GPU at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, as the CPU has enough headroom to support 301 FPS on Low settings. The CPU’s single-thread performance, evidenced by a Passmark single-thread score of 2541, is sufficient for Barony’s game logic, and the GPU’s rendering throughput caps the frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT ranks 2341 out of 3717 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 63rd percentile of all systems benchmarked. This rank indicates that the pairing is above average for this specific game, which is notable given the game’s low system requirements. The high rank is driven primarily by the GPU’s strong performance at 1080p, where the data shows frame rates that exceed 300 FPS on Low settings.

The CPU’s contribution to this rank is modest but adequate. The i5-10400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10283 and a single-core score of 1451. These scores place it in the 68th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals in the database are the Intel Xeon 6756E (0.2% faster), AMD EPYC 7552 (0.5% slower), and Intel Core 7 160UL (0.3% slower). For Barony, which is not a heavily threaded title, the CPU’s single-thread performance is crucial, and the Passmark single-thread score of 2541 indicates it can handle the game’s simulation logic without becoming a bottleneck.

The GPU’s rank relative to its peers is also informative. The RX 7600 XT has an average benchmark score of 17083, placing it in the 60th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (0.3% slower), AMD Radeon HD 7970M (0.4% slower), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (0.7% faster). The fact that the RTX 3070 is only 0.7% faster in aggregate benchmarks, yet the combo rank is solidly in the top half, suggests that the RX 7600 XT’s 16 GB VRAM and modern architecture give it a specific advantage in games like Barony that may not stress compute but benefit from memory bandwidth.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drops tells a clear story about which component is the limiting factor. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 224 to 141, a 37% reduction. This is a substantial decrease, but it is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario where the number of pixels being rendered increases by 78%. The GPU’s raw throughput, measured at 176.3 GPixel/s, is being consumed by the higher resolution, and the CPU is not the constraint.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K (3840x2160) is even more dramatic. The Medium preset at 4K averages 74 FPS, a 48% drop from the 141 FPS at 1440p. This steeper decline indicates that the GPU is being pushed to its limits, as the pixel count doubles from 1440p to 4K. The data shows that the GPU’s boost clock of 2755 MHz is not enough to compensate for the 2.25x increase in pixels from 1080p to 4K, where the Medium preset falls from 224 FPS to 74 FPS, a 67% reduction.

The Low preset scaling provides further insight. At 1080p Low, the system hits 301 FPS, which drops to 190 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction) and 99 FPS at 4K (48% reduction from 1440p). The fact that the FPS does not scale linearly with pixel count suggests that the CPU begins to play a more significant role at very high frame rates. At 1080p Low, the CPU’s 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and Passmark single-thread score of 2541 may be limiting the ability to reach even higher frame rates, but the GPU is still the primary bottleneck. The data conclusively shows that this system is GPU-limited across all resolutions, with the CPU providing ample headroom until frame rates approach 300 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The lowest resolution tested shows the full potential of this pairing. The Low preset averages 301 FPS, which is the highest measured score in the entire dataset. The Medium preset averages 224 FPS with a minimum of 190 FPS and a maximum of 257 FPS, providing a very stable experience. The High preset averages 192 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 138 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 54% reduction in average frame rate, with the Ultra preset still delivering a playable experience for standard 60Hz displays.

2560x1440: At this resolution, the frame rates remain high but the gap between presets widens. The Low preset averages 190 FPS, which is still above most high-refresh displays. The Medium preset averages 141 FPS with a minimum of 120 FPS and a maximum of 163 FPS, making it the only preset at this resolution that guarantees a 120 FPS minimum. The High preset averages 121 FPS, which is just above the 120 FPS threshold but with no guaranteed minimum. The Ultra preset averages 87 FPS, which is a significant drop from the 138 FPS at 1080p Ultra, indicating that the GPU’s rendering load is substantially higher.

3840x2160: The 4K results show the system’s limits. The Low preset averages 99 FPS, which is playable but no longer high-refresh. The Medium preset averages 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS and a maximum of 85 FPS, providing a playable experience for standard 60Hz monitors. The High preset averages 63 FPS, which is right at the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset averages 45 FPS, which is below the smoothness threshold for most players. The data shows a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the GPU becomes the sole limiting factor, and the Medium preset is the only one that maintains a minimum FPS above 60 at 4K.