Barony

This analysis examines the performance of the Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 in the roguelike game Barony, based on measured frame rate data. The combination ranks 543rd out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the upper third of all configurations. This is a strong showing, though the data reveals that the specific bottleneck shifts depending on resolution and settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 543 out of 1702 tested combinations places it comfortably above the median, but not at the very top tier. This positioning is consistent with the hardware’s individual benchmark percentiles: the CPU sits at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU sits at the 80th percentile among all GPUs. Neither component is a top-1% part, but both are well above average, and their combined performance in Barony reflects that balance.

For context, the CPU’s average benchmark score of 27827 is nearly identical to that of the Intel Core i9-10900K, which scores 27829 with a 0% delta. It also matches the Intel Core i5-12600K (27851, -0.1%) and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H (27872, -0.2%). The closest rival from below is the Intel Core i7-13700H at 27716, which is 0.4% slower. This tells us the i5-12600KF is performing exactly as expected for its class — it is not overachieving nor underperforming relative to its direct peers. The GPU similarly sits in a tight cluster: the AMD Radeon Pro Duo is 0.2% faster, the AMD Radeon 880M is 0.4% slower, and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 0.9% faster. The RTX 3080’s rank is thus well-earned, not inflated by game-specific optimizations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 brings 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus, yielding 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1188 MHz, translating to 19 Gbps effective. These specifications are critical for Barony, which appears to scale strongly with memory bandwidth at higher resolutions. The GPU’s base clock is 1440 MHz, boosting to 1710 MHz, and it achieves 25086 in the Passmark G3D test, placing it at the 80th percentile overall.

In Barony, the GPU’s role becomes dominant at 4K Ultra, where the frame rate drops to 65.3 fps. This is the lowest measured result in the entire dataset, and it highlights that at 3840x2160 with max settings, the RTX 3080 is the limiting factor. The 10 GB VRAM buffer is not necessarily exhausted — the data does not show VRAM usage — but the raw compute load of Ultra settings at 4K is heavy. The GPU’s 29.77 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 465.1 GTexel/s texture rate are being pushed hard. At 1080p Low, however, the GPU is barely breaking a sweat, delivering 448.5 fps, which suggests the CPU is the primary constraint in that scenario.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions reveals a classic CPU-to-GPU bottleneck shift. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 448.5 fps. Moving to 1440p Low, it drops to 285.7 fps, a 36% reduction. At 4K Low, it falls further to 150.1 fps, another 47% drop from 1440p. This pattern — where each resolution step cuts performance significantly even at Low settings — indicates that the GPU is increasingly burdened as pixel count rises, but the CPU is still keeping pace at 1080p.

The story changes at Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the combo hits 204.2 fps. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 127.7 fps (a 37% reduction). At 4K Ultra, it plummets to 65.3 fps (a 49% reduction from 1440p). The percentage drops are similar to Low settings, but the absolute numbers are much lower. This suggests that at Ultra, both the CPU and GPU are working harder, but the GPU’s fill-rate and shading limits become the dominant factor at 4K. The data clearly shows that 4K Ultra is the only configuration where the combo falls below 60 fps, making it the boundary of playable performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are uniformly high. Low settings yield 448.5 fps, Medium produces 333.3 fps, High delivers 288.4 fps, and Ultra still manages 204.2 fps. Every setting at 1080p is far above the threshold for smooth gameplay, and even the most demanding preset leaves substantial headroom. The gap between Low and Ultra is 244.3 fps, which shows that the CPU can feed the GPU enough data to maintain high frame rates regardless of graphical load.

At 2560x1440, the pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings produce 285.7 fps, Medium drops to 213.1 fps, High falls to 181.1 fps, and Ultra bottoms out at 127.7 fps. The spread between Low and Ultra is 158 fps, narrower than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is starting to impose its limits. Still, even the worst-case 1440p result (Ultra at 127.7 fps) is highly playable.

At 3840x2160, the GPU’s influence becomes pronounced. Low settings deliver 150.1 fps, Medium drops to 108.7 fps, High falls to 95.5 fps, and Ultra plunges to 65.3 fps. The difference between Low and Ultra is 84.8 fps, the smallest spread across all resolutions. This compression of frame rates at 4K demonstrates that the GPU is saturated; increasing settings from Low to Ultra only costs about 85 fps, whereas at 1080p the same settings change costs over 244 fps. The RTX 3080 is the clear limiting factor at 4K, particularly at Ultra where the 65.3 fps result is the only sub-60 measurement in the entire dataset.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal experience depends on the target resolution. At 1080p, Ultra settings are the obvious choice — 204.2 fps is far above any refresh rate concern, and the visual upgrade over High (288.4 fps) is worth the performance cost. There is no reason to use anything below Ultra at this resolution, as even the most demanding preset leaves over 200 fps on the table.

At 1440p, Ultra at 127.7 fps remains excellent for high-refresh displays, but High at 181.1 fps offers a better safety margin for competitive play. The data suggests that if a player prioritizes frame rate consistency, High is the sweet spot — it delivers 53.4 more fps than Ultra while still looking substantially better than Medium (213.1 fps). For most users, High at 1440p provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance.

At 4K, the choice is more constrained. Ultra at 65.3 fps is playable but close to the edge of smoothness. High at 95.5 fps is a significant improvement, offering 30.2 more fps than Ultra. Medium at 108.7 fps and Low at 150.1 fps are both viable, but the visual downgrade from High to Medium may not be worth the 13.2 fps gain. The data recommends High as the default 4K setting — it keeps the frame rate well above 60 fps and avoids the steep cost of Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with 20 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration delivers a Passmark multithread score of 27575 and a single-thread score of 3925, placing it at the 84th percentile overall. In Barony, the CPU’s role is most apparent at 1080p Low, where 448.5 fps indicates that the processor is able to feed the GPU with minimal bottleneck.

The CPU’s nearest rivals reinforce its position. The Intel Core i9-10900K matches its average score almost exactly (27829 vs 27827, 0% delta), which is notable because the i9 has more cores but older architecture. The i5-12600K is essentially identical (-0.1%), and the Core Ultra 5 125H is also within 0.2%. This tight clustering means the i5-12600KF is delivering exactly what its specifications suggest. In Barony, this translates to frame rates that scale predictably with resolution — the CPU does not become a limiting factor until the GPU is fully saturated at 4K Ultra. At 1080p, the CPU is clearly the dominant component, as evidenced by the 244 fps gap between Low and Ultra settings, which is driven by the GPU’s workload rather than CPU limitations.