Barony

The Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 produces a wide spread of frame rates in Barony, ranging from 71 FPS at 4K Ultra to 469 FPS at 1080p Low. The measured data indicates this combination is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions, while the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. The following analysis breaks down the measured rows to determine the optimal settings and the role each component plays.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the "High" preset offers the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 3840x2160, High delivers an average of 99 FPS, which is only 16 FPS below the Medium preset’s 115 FPS average, but it is 28 FPS above the Ultra preset’s 71 FPS average. The trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate is most favorable here, as the jump from High to Ultra costs 28 FPS, while the jump from Medium to High only costs 16 FPS.

For users prioritizing smoothness over visual detail, the Low preset is the only option that pushes 4K past the 144 Hz threshold, hitting 155 FPS on average. However, the step from Low to Medium at 4K costs 40 FPS (from 155 down to 115), which is a significant drop for a modest visual improvement. The Medium preset does provide a minimum FPS of 98 at 4K, making it the lowest settings tier with a recorded minimum frame rate, which suggests it maintains more consistent pacing than the Low preset, which has no min/max data.

At 2560x1440, the High preset’s 189 FPS average is more than sufficient for high-refresh displays, and it remains far from the 135 FPS Ultra average. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 187 FPS and a maximum of 253 FPS, indicating that the variance is tight enough for competitive play. The Low preset at 1440p reaches 296 FPS, but this is likely beyond the refresh rate of most monitors, making the extra frames imperceptible.

At 1920x1080, all presets exceed 215 FPS, with High averaging 299 FPS and Medium averaging 349 FPS. The Ultra preset’s 215 FPS is still well above the 144 Hz threshold, meaning any preset is playable at this resolution. The data shows that High is the recommended preset for this combo, as it provides the best compromise between quality and performance at every resolution, avoiding the steep FPS penalties of Ultra while delivering a much tighter experience than Low.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate recorded for this combo in Barony?*

A: The highest average FPS is 469, measured at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is followed by 349 FPS at 1080p Medium and 296 FPS at 1440p Low.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra preset compare to the 4K High preset?

A: At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 71 FPS, while the High preset averages 99 FPS. This represents a 28 FPS advantage for High, which is a 39% improvement over Ultra’s average frame rate.

Q: At which resolution and settings does the combo produce the most stable performance?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has a recorded minimum of 187 FPS and a maximum of 253 FPS, giving a spread of 66 FPS. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset shows a minimum of 98 FPS and a maximum of 132 FPS, a 34 FPS spread, which is tighter in absolute terms. The 1080p Medium preset shows a spread of 105 FPS (296 to 401), so the 4K Medium data indicates the most consistent frame pacing relative to its average.

Q: Is the GPU a bottleneck at 1920x1080?

A: No, the data indicates the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p. The average FPS ranges from 215 (Ultra) to 469 (Low), which are extremely high values that suggest the GPU is not being fully utilized, as the frame rate scales dramatically with settings changes rather than resolution alone.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 296 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 135 FPS. This is a difference of 161 FPS, with Low delivering more than double the average frame rate of Ultra.

Q: Does the combo exceed 60 FPS at 4K on all settings?

A: Yes, all four measured presets at 3840x2160 exceed 60 FPS. The lowest average is 71 FPS at Ultra, while the highest is 155 FPS at Low. The Medium and High presets average 115 FPS and 99 FPS respectively.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. Its architecture is Alder Lake, utilizing a 10 nm process node. In Barony, the CPU’s influence is most apparent at lower resolutions where the GPU is not stressed. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high, with the Low preset reaching 469 FPS and the Medium preset hitting 349 FPS. These numbers indicate that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to produce frame rates far beyond typical display refresh rates.

The CPU’s benchmark scores corroborate its strong multi-threaded performance. In Cinebench R23, it scores 23391 points in the multicore test and 3302 points in the single-core test. Its PassMark multithread score is 27575, and its 3DMark max threads score is 7952. The single-thread performance is also robust, with a PassMark single thread score of 3925 and a 3DMark single thread score of 1016. These figures suggest that the i5-12600KF has sufficient single-core strength to manage game logic and draw calls, which is critical for a roguelike where procedural generation and entity updates occur frequently.

The fact that the 1080p Ultra preset still delivers 215 FPS, while the 4K Ultra drops to 71 FPS, shows that the CPU is not the primary constraint at higher resolutions. The shift in frame rates across resolutions indicates that the CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads are more than adequate for the game’s computational demands, as the performance penalty from raising resolution is more attributable to the GPU’s rendering load. The CPU’s 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache also contribute to its ability to handle the game’s data access patterns without becoming a bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is ranked 883 out of 3717 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the top 23.8% of all tested systems, indicating that it performs above the median but is not among the elite configurations. The rank of 883 suggests that there are 882 other combos that achieve higher frame rates in this game, which is expected given that the RTX 4070 is a high-end but not flagship GPU.

The CPU itself has a percentile rank of 79 when compared to all CPUs, meaning it outperforms 79% of processors in the database. Its average benchmark score is 27799, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-10900K with a delta of -0.3%, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D with a delta of -0.3%, and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U with a delta of -0.3%. These rivals are all within 0.3% of the i5-12600KF’s average score, indicating that the CPU’s performance is closely matched with several other high-end processors.

The GPU has a percentile rank of 81, with an average benchmark score of 37648. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 with a delta of 0.4% and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile with a delta of -1.3%. While the GPU’s percentile is slightly higher than the CPU’s, the combo rank of 883 in this specific game suggests that Barony is not particularly demanding on the GPU, as many other combos with weaker GPUs but stronger CPUs might achieve similar or better results due to the game’s CPU-bound nature at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data shows a clear pattern of frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 469, which drops to 296 at 1440p Low (a decrease of 173 FPS) and further to 155 at 4K Low (a decrease of 141 FPS from 1440p). This represents a 67% drop from 1080p to 4K at the Low preset. For the High preset, the average FPS goes from 299 at 1080p to 189 at 1440p and 99 at 4K, a total drop of 200 FPS or 67% from 1080p to 4K.

The scaling pattern reveals that the GPU becomes increasingly important as resolution rises. At 1080p, the frame rate is likely limited by the CPU’s ability to process frames, as the GPU has ample headroom to render at high speeds. As resolution increases to 1440p and 4K, the GPU’s workload grows, and the frame rate drops correspondingly. The fact that the 4K Ultra preset only manages 71 FPS, while the 1080p Ultra preset hits 215 FPS, shows that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions. The RTX 4070’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game, but the sheer pixel count at 4K overwhelms the GPU’s shader throughput.

The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is roughly consistent across presets, with Low dropping 67%, High dropping 67%, Medium dropping 67% (from 349 to 115), and Ultra dropping 67% (from 215 to 71). This uniform scaling indicates that the game’s rendering load scales linearly with pixel count, and the system does not exhibit any memory bandwidth or cache-related bottlenecks that would cause non-linear drops.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 469 FPS, the highest recorded value in the dataset. The Medium preset averages 349 FPS with a minimum of 296 and a maximum of 401. High averages 299 FPS, and Ultra averages 215 FPS. All 1080p presets exceed 200 FPS, with the gap between Low and Ultra being 254 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 296 FPS, while Medium averages 220 FPS with a minimum of 187 and a maximum of 253. High averages 189 FPS, and Ultra averages 135 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is most pronounced at Low (from 469 to 296, a 173 FPS decrease), while Ultra only drops by 80 FPS (from 215 to 135).

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 155 FPS, Medium averages 115 FPS with a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 132, High averages 99 FPS, and Ultra averages 71 FPS. The 4K Medium preset is the only one at this resolution with recorded min/max data, showing a 34 FPS spread. The 4K Ultra preset is the only configuration in the entire dataset that falls below 100 FPS, with an average of 71 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, with 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores. Its base clock is 1920 MHz with a boost clock of 2475 MHz. The GPU has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Barony, the GPU’s role is primarily to handle the rendering workload as resolution increases. At 1080p, the GPU’s high fill rate (158.4 GPixel/s) and texture rate (455.4 GTexel/s) allow it to render frames quickly, but the CPU limits the overall throughput. As the resolution climbs to 4K, the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes the bottleneck, evidenced by the 71 FPS average at Ultra settings. The GPU’s 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is more than sufficient for the game’s graphical demands, but the 4K Ultra setting requires more than double the pixel work of 1080p, which explains the significant frame rate drop.

The GPU’s benchmark scores align with its mid-to-high-end positioning. It scores 26927 in PassMark G3D and 14720 in PassMark GPU Compute, with a percentile rank of 81 among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (delta 0.4%) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (delta -1.3%), indicating that the RTX 4070 sits in a competitive performance tier. The GPU’s 12 GB of VRAM is ample for Barony, as the game does not appear to exceed this capacity based on the measured frame rates, which do not show any signs of stuttering or memory-related drops. The 200 W TDP and dual-slot design are consistent with its performance class, and the data confirms that the GPU is well-matched to the i5-12600KF for this title, with neither component drastically outclassing the other across the tested resolutions.