Barony

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The measured data shows this combination is capable of pushing well beyond standard refresh rate targets at every resolution tested, making the primary decision for users not about achieving playability, but about balancing visual fidelity against the diminishing returns of extremely high frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific combination, the benchmark data reveals a clear hierarchy of performance across the four tested presets. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates range from 274 FPS at Ultra settings to 474 FPS at Low settings. The Medium preset sits at 425 FPS, while High settings produce 383 FPS. Given that the Ultra preset still delivers 274 FPS, it remains a viable option, but the substantial jump to 383 FPS at High settings suggests that the visual difference between High and Ultra is not worth the significant performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts slightly. Ultra settings produce 173 FPS, which is still well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on many monitors. High settings deliver 242 FPS, while Medium reaches 281 FPS. The data indicates that High is the sweet spot at this resolution, offering a 69 FPS improvement over Ultra while maintaining a frame rate that exceeds the capabilities of most high-refresh-rate displays.

The 3840x2160 resolution presents a different scenario. Here, Ultra settings drop to 91 FPS, which is below the 120 Hz threshold but still playable. High settings at 4K produce 126 FPS, while Medium reaches 147 FPS. The measured minimum FPS for Medium at 4K is 125 FPS, indicating a consistent experience. The best experience at 4K is achieved with High settings, as it provides a 35 FPS improvement over Ultra while remaining comfortably above 120 FPS. The Low preset at 4K delivers 198 FPS, but the visual compromise is likely too severe for a game that can otherwise run at high fidelity.

Considering all three resolutions, the High preset offers the most balanced experience. It consistently provides frame rates that exceed the refresh rate ceiling of most monitors, with the single exception being 4K Ultra. For users with 1080p or 1440p displays, the High preset is the recommended choice, as it delivers 383 FPS and 242 FPS respectively, leaving substantial headroom. For 4K users, High is also the best option, as the 126 FPS average is a significant improvement over Ultra's 91 FPS, and the difference between High and Medium (147 FPS) is less critical given the already high frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 395th out of 3717 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the top 10.6% of all configurations in the database. This rank reflects the GPU's dominant role in this title, as the RTX 4080 sits in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU only reaches the 68th percentile of all CPUs. The high ranking suggests that the overall system performance is strong, but the data points to the GPU carrying the majority of the workload.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database provide context for its performance. The RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54247, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209). It outperforms the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X by 1.1% and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB by 2.6%. The AMD Radeon 8060S is 2.7% ahead of the RTX 4080 in average score. These small percentage differences indicate that the RTX 4080 is positioned in a tightly contested performance band.

The CPU's nearest rivals show a similar pattern of close scores. The Intel Core i5-10400F has an average benchmark score of 14185, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Xeon 6756E (14163) and 0.5% higher than the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115). It trails the Intel Core 7 160UL by 0.3% and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C by 0.6%. These marginal differences suggest that the CPU is not a differentiating factor in this combination's ranking, as its performance is comparable to several other processors in the database.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combination in Barony?

A: The highest average frame rate is 474 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 maintain playable frame rates at 4K Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the average frame rate at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 91 FPS, which is playable but below the 120 FPS threshold that High settings achieve.

Q: How does the CPU's benchmark score compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F has an average benchmark score of 14185, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Xeon 6756E and 0.5% higher than the AMD EPYC 7552, but 0.3% lower than the Intel Core 7 160UL.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings produce 281 FPS average, while High settings produce 242 FPS, a difference of 39 FPS in favor of Medium.

Q: Is the RTX 4080's performance closer to the RTX 4080 SUPER or the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB?

A: The RTX 4080 is closer to the RTX 4080 SUPER, with a deltaPct of 0.1%, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% ahead.

Q: What is the measured minimum FPS for Medium settings at 4K?

A: The measured minimum FPS for Medium settings at 3840x2160 is 125 FPS, with a maximum of 169 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete picture of performance across all three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 474 FPS for Low, 425 FPS for Medium, 383 FPS for High, and 274 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 361 FPS and a maximum of 488 FPS, indicating some variance but consistently high performance.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates decrease but remain substantial: 379 FPS for Low, 281 FPS for Medium, 242 FPS for High, and 173 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution has a minimum of 239 FPS and a maximum of 324 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra represents a 69 FPS drop, which is the largest relative decrease between adjacent settings at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 198 FPS for Low, 147 FPS for Medium, 126 FPS for High, and 91 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 125 FPS and a maximum of 169 FPS. This resolution shows the most significant scaling penalties, with Ultra settings falling below 100 FPS for the first time in the dataset. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a 107 FPS drop, representing a 54% reduction in average frame rate.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear pattern of frame rate reduction as resolution increases. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings reduces the average frame rate from 383 FPS to 242 FPS, a 36.8% decrease. The same resolution step at Ultra settings reduces frame rates from 274 FPS to 173 FPS, a 36.9% decrease. This consistent scaling across settings suggests that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The transition from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 shows a more pronounced drop. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 242 FPS to 126 FPS, a 47.9% decrease. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 173 FPS to 91 FPS, a 47.4% decrease. The larger percentage drop at 4K compared to the 1440p step indicates that the GPU is being pushed harder by the increased pixel count, and the RTX 4080's performance curve is steepening.

The scaling behavior points to the GPU as the primary limiting component at higher resolutions. The CPU's role becomes less significant as resolution increases, since the GPU takes on more of the rendering workload. The fact that frame rates at 4K remain above 90 FPS even at Ultra settings demonstrates that the RTX 4080 has substantial headroom, but the data also shows that the GPU is responsible for the majority of the performance scaling between resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process node. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The CPU's cache configuration includes 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 256 KB of L2 cache per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU shows a clear scaling pattern from single-threaded to multi-threaded workloads. The 3DMark scores range from 688 for single-thread to 4748 for 16-thread workloads, with 2-thread at 1350, 4-thread at 2560, and 8-thread at 3929. The Cinebench R23 scores show 1451 for single-core and 10283 for multi-core, indicating that the processor scales well with additional threads.

For Barony, the CPU's performance is sufficient to keep up with the RTX 4080 at all tested resolutions. The game's roguelike nature typically places less strain on the CPU than modern AAA titles, and the measured frame rates at 1080p exceed 270 FPS even at Ultra settings. This suggests that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this combination, as the frame rates are more limited by the GPU's rendering capabilities, especially at higher resolutions. The CPU's 68th percentile ranking among all CPUs, while lower than the GPU's 86th percentile, does not appear to hinder performance in this specific title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process node, with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. It has 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz, with 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores. It is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s.

The GPU's compute capabilities are substantial, with FP32 performance rated at 48.74 TFLOPS and a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4080 achieves a Passmark G3D score of 34457 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 214739. Its average benchmark score of 54247 places it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the RTX 4080 SUPER (54209) and the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54828).

In Barony, the RTX 4080 demonstrates its dominance through the measured frame rates. Even at 4K Ultra settings, which are the most demanding configuration tested, the GPU maintains an average of 91 FPS. The GPU's performance scaling across settings is consistent, with the gap between Low and Ultra widening as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (474 FPS) and Ultra (274 FPS) is 200 FPS, while at 4K, the difference between Low (198 FPS) and Ultra (91 FPS) is 107 FPS. This pattern indicates that the GPU's workload increases with both resolution and settings, and the RTX 4080 has enough headroom to deliver high frame rates across the entire tested range.