Barony

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 presents a balanced 1080p and 1440p setup for Barony, with performance scaling that clearly illustrates where each component's workload begins and ends. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets provide a clear picture of the system's capabilities, revealing a GPU that holds up well at lower resolutions but begins to show its limits as pixel count and graphical fidelity increase.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K tells a classic story of GPU-bound scaling. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 262.9 FPS, which drops to 166.9 FPS at 1440p and further to 89.5 FPS at 4K. This represents a 66% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that even at the lowest graphical load, the resolution increase heavily taxes the rendering pipeline. The pattern holds across all presets, but the scaling factor becomes more pronounced at higher quality settings. At Ultra, the system produces 120.3 FPS at 1080p, 78.8 FPS at 1440p, and 39 FPS at 4K—a 68% drop from 1080p to 4K. The fact that the percentage drop is similar across presets suggests that the RX 6600's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient to feed the renderer, but the raw compute throughput of 8.928 TFLOPS becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep. At High settings, the drop is from 105.2 FPS to 55 FPS, a 48% reduction. At Medium, it falls from 122.1 FPS to 62.7 FPS, also a 49% reduction. This consistent halving of frame rate when moving to 4K indicates that the GPU is the dominant constraint at that resolution, with the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads providing ample headroom. The 1080p to 1440p scaling is less severe, with High settings dropping from 168.9 FPS to 105.2 FPS (38% reduction), suggesting that at 1080p, the system is partially CPU-limited in lighter scenes, allowing the GPU to stretch its legs more at 1440p before hitting its compute ceiling.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data shows that this combo can handle 4K only at Low settings, where it achieves 89.5 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 62.7 FPS, which is still playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. The 4K High preset at 55 FPS and Ultra at 39 FPS are below the 60 FPS threshold, making them less suitable for smooth gameplay. The sweet spot for this system is clearly 1440p, where even the Ultra preset delivers 78.8 FPS, and High settings reach 105.2 FPS. At 1080p, all presets exceed 120 FPS, with Ultra at 120.3 FPS and Low at 262.9 FPS, making it an excellent choice for high-refresh-rate monitors.

Given the measured rows, the best experience per the data is the 1440p High preset. It delivers 105.2 FPS, which is 34% higher than the 78.8 FPS of 1440p Ultra, while the visual difference between High and Ultra in a roguelike title like Barony is often minimal. The 4K Medium preset at 62.7 FPS is a viable alternative for those prioritizing resolution over frame rate, but the 1440p High setting offers the best balance of smoothness and fidelity. At 1080p, the Medium preset at 193.1 FPS provides a substantial margin above the High preset's 168.9 FPS, making it the recommended choice for competitive play or very high refresh rate displays.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads to the table, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its benchmark scores indicate strong single-threaded performance, with a 3dmark_single_thread score of 909 and a passmark_single_thread score of 3481. In Barony, which is a roguelike title that often relies on game logic and procedural generation, single-threaded performance is frequently more important than raw multi-core throughput. The CPU's 3dmark_2_threads score of 1699 and 3dmark_4_threads score of 3067 suggest that it can handle lightly threaded workloads with ease, which is typical for this genre.

The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 77 places it above the majority of processors, and its avgBenchmarkScore of 19221 puts it in the same performance class as the Intel Core i7-8700K, which scores 19210 with a deltaPct of 0.1. This means the 12400F effectively matches a previous-generation high-end processor in overall CPU benchmarks. The 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide sufficient data locality for the game's logic threads. At 1080p, where the GPU has more headroom, the CPU's role becomes more apparent—the fact that Low settings at 1080p reach 262.9 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU at very high frame rates, and the 12 threads ensure that background processes or streaming don't cause stutters.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the i5-12400F and RX 6600 ranks 1369 out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the lower tier of the benchmark database. This rank of 1369 out of 1702 (roughly the 20th percentile) might seem low, but it's important to consider that the database includes many high-end combinations with more expensive CPUs and GPUs. The ranking reflects the overall performance ceiling of this pairing, not its efficiency or suitability for the game's typical requirements.

The GPU's performance relative to its rivals is instructive here. The RX 6600's avgBenchmarkScore of 25235 puts it nearly identical to the AMD Radeon 890M (25246, deltaPct 0), AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (25287, deltaPct -0.2), AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180, deltaPct 0.2), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (25120, deltaPct 0.5). This means the GPU is competitive with a range of options, but none of these rivals would dramatically change the combo's ranking. The CPU's position, matching the i7-8700K, suggests that the bottleneck in this combo is primarily the GPU, especially at higher resolutions. The rank of 1369 indicates that while this is not a top-tier setup for Barony, it delivers playable performance at most settings, with the data showing 60+ FPS at 1080p and 1440p across all presets.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, featuring 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs. Its boost clock of 2491 MHz and game clock of 2044 MHz contribute to its 8.928 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but becomes a limiting factor at 4K with higher quality settings. The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 69 indicates it performs better than most GPUs in the database, but its end-of-life production status and 132 W TDP suggest it's a mid-range part from the RX 6000 series.

In Barony, the GPU's role is clearly dominant at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra preset at 39 FPS is below the playable threshold, and even 4K High at 55 FPS is marginal. The memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s and 64 ROPs are likely the constraints at 4K, as the pixel fill rate of 159.4 GPixel/s must work harder with 8.3 million pixels per frame. At 1440p and 1080p, the GPU has sufficient resources to deliver high frame rates, as evidenced by the 105.2 FPS at 1440p High and 168.9 FPS at 1080p High. The 28 ray tracing cores are present but unlikely to be heavily utilized in a roguelike title like Barony, where the art style typically doesn't rely on ray-traced effects. The GPU's passmark_g3d score of 15096 and passmark_directx_12 score of 51 indicate solid DirectX 12 performance, which is relevant given the game's support for modern APIs.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Barony at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, where it achieves 89.5 FPS. At Medium, the average drops to 62.7 FPS, which is still playable, but High and Ultra presets fall to 55 FPS and 39 FPS respectively, making them less suitable for maintaining a smooth experience.

Q: What is the best resolution for this system?

A: The data shows 1440p as the sweet spot. At 1440p High, the system delivers 105.2 FPS, and even the Ultra preset reaches 78.8 FPS. This provides a good balance between visual quality and frame rate, unlike 4K where only Low settings exceed 60 FPS.

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

A: The Intel Core i5-12400F has an avgBenchmarkScore of 19221, which is effectively tied with the Intel Core i7-8700K at 19210 (deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Core i5-1335U at 19167 (deltaPct 0.3). It is slightly ahead of the AMD EPYC 7773X at 18979 (deltaPct 1.3).

Q: Is the GPU the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the system achieves 262.9 FPS at Low settings, which is very high. This suggests the CPU can feed the GPU effectively at lower resolutions. The GPU becomes the limiting factor primarily at 4K, where the frame rates drop significantly across all presets.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured data shows 120.3 FPS at 1080p Ultra. This is well above the 60 FPS threshold and indicates the system can handle maximum settings at 1080p with plenty of headroom for demanding scenes.

Q: How does the GPU rank against comparable alternatives?

A: The RX 6600's avgBenchmarkScore of 25235 is virtually identical to the AMD Radeon 890M (25246, deltaPct 0) and AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180, deltaPct 0.2). It edges out the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti by a small margin (25120, deltaPct 0.5), indicating these cards perform similarly in synthetic benchmarks.