Barony

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Barony, with the data showing that the primary performance ceiling shifts decisively from the CPU to the GPU as resolution increases. At 1080p, the combination is overwhelmingly CPU-bound at lower settings, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor, creating a predictable and scalable performance curve across all four tested presets.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a textbook example of how workload shifts between components as pixel count rises. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 338.6 FPS, but this drops to 214.8 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 111.3 FPS at 3840x2160. This scaling pattern—a 36.6% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 48.2% reduction from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the RTX 4060 is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions; the i5-11400F's single-thread performance caps the frame rate well before the GPU reaches its limit.

The situation inverts at Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 156.3 FPS, which falls to 101.2 FPS at 1440p and 50.4 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result represents a 67.8% drop from the 1080p Ultra figure, a much steeper decline than the Low preset's 67.1% drop across the same range. This steeper falloff at higher settings confirms that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth become the dominant constraint once the pixel workload increases substantially. The RTX 4060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth, is sufficient for 4K High (74.5 FPS) but begins to struggle with the additional fill-rate demands of Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread Rocket Lake processor with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its benchmark results show strong single-thread performance—a 3dmark_single_thread score of 868 and a passmark_single_thread score of 2981—which is critical for Barony, a roguelike where game logic and entity updates often run on fewer threads. The CPU's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 80 KB L1 cache per core help maintain responsiveness during procedural generation and dungeon crawling.

The data shows that the CPU's influence is most pronounced at 1080p Low, where the 338.6 FPS result is nearly three times the 4K Ultra figure. At that resolution and preset, the GPU is underutilized, and the CPU's 3dmark_2_threads score of 1691 and cinebench_r23_singlecore score of 2029 become the determining factors. However, the CPU's multicore headroom—cinebench_r23_multicore of 14372 and passmark_multithread of 16908—ensures that even at 1440p Medium (161.5 FPS), the processor does not bottleneck the experience. The 65 W TDP and 14 nm process node mean thermal throttling is unlikely to affect sustained performance in a game with Barony's moderate CPU demands.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows indicate that the High preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance. At 2560x1440 High, the combo achieves 137.9 FPS, which is comfortably above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on modern monitors while still delivering the enhanced lighting and shadow effects that High settings typically provide over Medium. The jump from Medium to High at 1440p costs only 23.6 FPS (from 161.5 to 137.9), a 14.6% reduction that is unlikely to be perceptible in fast-paced roguelike combat.

For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, the 1080p Medium preset at 253.1 FPS is the recommended choice, as it provides a 60% improvement over 4K High while retaining most visual quality. The 4K Ultra preset, at 50.4 FPS, is the only measured configuration that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it unsuitable for competitive play. The Low preset at 1080p (338.6 FPS) is excessive for any display, and the data suggests that the GPU is idle for significant portions of the frame time at this setting, making it a poor choice for visual quality.

How This Combo Ranks

The Core i5-11400F + RTX 4060 combination ranks 981st out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 42nd percentile of all configurations. This mid-pack ranking is somewhat surprising given the strong absolute frame rates, but it reflects the fact that Barony is a lightweight roguelike where many older or lower-tier components can achieve high FPS. The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 75 indicates it outperforms three-quarters of all processors in general benchmarks, while the GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 66 shows slightly more modest standing among graphics cards.

The ranking is likely dragged down by the CPU's position relative to its nearest rivals. The i5-11400F's avgBenchmarkScore of 17181 is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (17189, 0% delta) and the Intel Core i7-1260P (17212, -0.2% delta), meaning the processor does not provide a significant advantage over these alternatives in CPU-bound scenarios. Meanwhile, the RTX 4060's avgBenchmarkScore of 23181 sits within 0.7% of the Intel Arc B580 (23021) and 0.8% of the AMD Radeon 760M (22999), indicating the GPU is competitively positioned but not dominant within its performance tier.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo in Barony?

A: The maximum measured average FPS is 338.6, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Can this combo run Barony at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, at 4K High the combo produces 74.5 FPS, and at 4K Medium it produces 81 FPS, both of which are above the 60 FPS threshold. However, 4K Ultra drops to 50.4 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 4060's avgBenchmarkScore is 23181, which is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23321) and 0.7% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (23338), but 0.7% higher than the Intel Arc B580 (23021).

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock and how does it affect performance?

A: The Intel Core i5-11400F has a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, which contributes to its strong single-thread performance and helps maintain high frame rates at 1080p, where the CPU is the limiting factor.

Q: Is there a significant performance difference between Low and High settings at 1440p?

A: Yes, the drop from Low (214.8 FPS) to High (137.9 FPS) at 2560x1440 represents a 35.8% reduction in average frame rate.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 981st out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the overall distribution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 338.6 FPS on Low, 253.1 FPS on Medium, 214.5 FPS on High, and 156.3 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 182.3 FPS, indicating that graphics settings have a substantial impact at this resolution, but even the lowest result remains far above typical display refresh rates.

At 2560x1440, the scores are 214.8 FPS on Low, 161.5 FPS on Medium, 137.9 FPS on High, and 101.2 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p Ultra result is the first measured configuration to drop below 100 FPS, signaling that the GPU is beginning to experience meaningful workload. The difference between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 113.6 FPS, a 52.9% reduction.

At 3840x2160, the results are 111.3 FPS on Low, 81 FPS on Medium, 74.5 FPS on High, and 50.4 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low figure is still playable, but the 4K Ultra result is the only configuration across all resolutions and settings that fails to reach 60 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is severe, with a 60.9 FPS drop representing a 54.7% reduction.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD107 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. Its 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs provide substantial raw compute, evidenced by the fp32 performance of 15.11 TFLOPS. The GPU's boost clock of 2460 MHz and base clock of 1830 MHz are relatively high, allowing it to maintain strong throughput even when the CPU is not fully saturating the pipeline.

The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for 4K High settings (74.5 FPS) but becomes a limiting factor at 4K Ultra (50.4 FPS). The GPU's pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s are the metrics most relevant to Barony's rendering demands, and the data shows that these resources are strained at higher resolutions. The RTX 4060's percentileVsAllGpus of 66 and avgBenchmarkScore of 23181 place it in the upper third of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals—the RX 6600M at 23321 and GTX 780 Ti at 23338—show that it is not class-leading within its segment. The GPU's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are unlikely to be utilized in a roguelike title, but they contribute to the card's overall benchmark standing.