Barony

# Barony — Intel Core i5-13400F + AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT delivers a striking performance envelope in Barony, a roguelike that scales from 46.7 FPS at 4K Ultra to 299.7 FPS at 1080p Low. The data reveals a system that is rarely the bottleneck at lower resolutions, but the GPU's influence becomes unmistakable as pixel count climbs. With a combo rank of 1106 out of 1702 tested configurations, this pairing sits in the upper third of the database, yet the measured frame rates suggest the game's lightweight rendering engine leaves substantial headroom on the table — particularly at 1080p, where the CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads appear to be the limiting factor rather than the graphics card.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p Low, the system produces 299.7 FPS, but moving to 4K Low reduces that to 100.6 FPS — a 66.4% decrease. This is a massive scaling penalty that points directly at the GPU as the primary constraint at higher resolutions. The Radeon RX 6650 XT, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, simply cannot maintain the same throughput when pixel count quadruples.

At High settings, the scaling is equally revealing: 194.1 FPS at 1080p falls to 122.3 FPS at 1440p, then further to 60.6 FPS at 4K. The 1440p-to-4K transition alone costs 50.4% of the frame rate, a steep drop that suggests the GPU's 280.3 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes saturated. The pattern holds across all settings — Medium goes from 221.9 FPS at 1080p to 140.5 FPS at 1440p to 71.1 FPS at 4K, while Ultra drops from 135.2 FPS at 1080p to 84.1 FPS at 1440p to 46.7 FPS at 4K.

What is particularly interesting is the 1080p-to-1440p scaling at Low settings: 299.7 to 187.8 FPS, a 37.3% reduction. This is smaller than the 1440p-to-4K drop at the same settings (187.8 to 100.6 FPS, a 46.4% reduction). The non-linear scaling implies that at 1080p Low, the CPU is keeping pace but the GPU is already working near its limits; as resolution rises, the GPU's workload grows faster than the CPU's, making the graphics card the definitive limiting component at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1106 out of 1702 places this pairing in the 65th percentile of all tested combinations for Barony. This is a solid mid-to-upper tier result, but it is not exceptional — the data suggests that many other CPU-GPU pairings achieve higher frame rates in this specific title. The CPU itself ranks at the 82nd percentile against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25236, while the GPU sits at the 72nd percentile with an average score of 29024. Both components are above average, yet their combined ranking in Barony is slightly lower than their individual percentiles might suggest.

The CPU's nearest rivals show how tightly clustered the competition is. The Intel Core i7-13620H scores 25201, a delta of just 0.1% from the i5-13400F's 25236. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is 0.5% ahead at 25365, while the AMD EPYC 9474F and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 are 0.5% behind at 25103 and 25099 respectively. This clustering indicates that the i5-13400F's performance is not a differentiator — any of these CPUs would likely produce nearly identical results in Barony.

For the GPU, the situation is even tighter. The AMD Radeon RX 6800M scores 29011 (0% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 470 scores 28996 (0.1% ahead), the Intel Arc A370M scores 29175 (0.5% behind), and the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH scores 29197 (0.6% behind). The RX 6650 XT's 29024 average is virtually indistinguishable from its nearest rivals, meaning the measured FPS in Barony could shift by a few frames with any of these GPUs installed. This homogeneity suggests that Barony's engine is not particularly sensitive to GPU architecture differences within this performance class.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Barony?

A: The data shows 1080p produces the highest frame rates across all settings, from 135.2 FPS at Ultra to 299.7 FPS at Low. At 1440p, the system still delivers playable results, with 84.1 FPS at Ultra and 187.8 FPS at Low, but 4K drops to 46.7 FPS at Ultra, which may be below acceptable thresholds for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the RX 6650 XT compare to its nearest GPU rivals in this game?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 29024 is within 0.6% of its nearest rivals — the RX 6800M (29011), RX 470 (28996), Arc A370M (29175), and RX Vega M GH (29197). In Barony, this means frame rate differences between these GPUs would be negligible, likely under 2-3 FPS at any given resolution and settings combination.

Q: Is the i5-13400F a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The evidence suggests yes at Low settings, where 299.7 FPS is achieved. The CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz are likely the limiting factor, as the GPU would need to render faster than this to push higher frame rates. At higher settings, the GPU becomes the constraint.

Q: What is the FPS cost of moving from Medium to Ultra at 4K?

A: At 4K, Medium produces 71.1 FPS while Ultra produces 46.7 FPS — a reduction of 24.4 FPS or 34.3%. This is the largest settings penalty in the entire dataset, indicating that Ultra settings at 4K place extreme demands on the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory interface.

Q: How does this combo's rank in Barony compare to its component percentiles?

A: The combo ranks 1106 out of 1702 (65th percentile), while the CPU ranks at the 82nd percentile and the GPU at the 72nd percentile individually. This gap suggests Barony's performance is influenced by factors beyond raw component scores, likely the game's single-threaded nature or memory bandwidth requirements.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings or lower. At 4K Medium, the system achieves 71.1 FPS, and at 4K Low it reaches 100.6 FPS. However, at 4K High it drops to 60.6 FPS, and at Ultra it falls to 46.7 FPS, so 60 FPS at 4K requires sacrificing visual fidelity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings yield 299.7 FPS, Medium produces 221.9 FPS, High delivers 194.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 135.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 164.5 FPS, a 54.9% reduction. This indicates that Barony's settings have a profound impact on frame rate even at the lowest resolution, with Ultra nearly halving the performance of Low.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show clear degradation. Low produces 187.8 FPS, Medium delivers 140.5 FPS, High achieves 122.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 84.1 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra gap here is 103.7 FPS, a 55.2% reduction — nearly identical to the 1080p scaling. This consistency suggests the settings scaling is resolution-independent, with each preset tier costing roughly the same percentage of performance regardless of pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain high frame rates. Low produces 100.6 FPS, Medium delivers 71.1 FPS, High achieves 60.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 46.7 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra gap is 53.9 FPS, a 53.6% reduction. While the percentage drop is similar to lower resolutions, the absolute frame rates are much lower, meaning Ultra at 4K is the only configuration that dips below 50 FPS. The 4K numbers also show that even at Low settings, the GPU cannot reach the 187.8 FPS seen at 1440p Low, confirming the resolution scaling is primarily GPU-bound.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT's specifications provide context for its Barony performance. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2055 MHz, a game clock of 2410 MHz, and a boost clock of 2635 MHz, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 2190 MHz (17.5 Gbps effective). The memory bus is 128-bit, delivering 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This configuration is modest by modern standards, and the data shows its impact clearly.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not likely a limiting factor in Barony, as the game's roguelike genre typically features simple textures and low memory footprints. However, the 128-bit memory bus becomes a constraint at 4K, where the 280.3 GB/s bandwidth must feed 8.3 million pixels per frame. The 4K High result of 60.6 FPS and 4K Ultra of 46.7 FPS suggest the GPU is bandwidth-limited rather than compute-limited at this resolution.

The GPU's 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs provide decent rasterization throughput, as evidenced by the 299.7 FPS at 1080p Low. But the 10.79 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is insufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra. The pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 337.3 GTexel/s are adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the fill rate requirements exceed what the GPU can deliver at higher settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F brings 10 cores and 16 threads to the pairing, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide substantial on-chip storage. The CPU's benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance — a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21279 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 10971 — but Barony's frame rates at 1080p Low suggest the game may not fully utilize all 16 threads.

The single-threaded performance is more telling: Cinebench R23 single-core of 3004 and Geekbench single-core of 2301 indicate the CPU can handle light-threaded workloads effectively. Barony, being a roguelike, likely relies on a single primary game thread, which means the i5-13400F's boost clock of 4.60 GHz is the critical specification. The 1080p Low result of 299.7 FPS indicates this thread is capable of driving frame rates nearly at 300 FPS, but the GPU cannot keep pace at higher resolutions.

The CPU's 3DMark scores show strong scaling from 2 threads (1880) to 16 threads (7314), but the 4-thread score of 3459 and 8-thread score of 5591 suggest diminishing returns beyond 8 threads. For Barony, this means the CPU's performance is likely sufficient at all settings, and the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases. The CPU's percentile rank of 82 and average benchmark score of 25236 place it well above the median, but its nearest rivals — all within 0.5% of its score — indicate that swapping in a comparable CPU would not meaningfully change Barony's frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

The data points to 1080p Medium as the sweet spot for this combo. At this configuration, the system produces 221.9 FPS, which is more than enough for any display refresh rate currently on the market. The jump from Medium to High costs 27.8 FPS (from 221.9 to 194.1), a 12.5% reduction, while the jump from High to Ultra costs an additional 58.9 FPS (from 194.1 to 135.2), a 30.3% reduction. The Medium-to-High transition is relatively cheap, but High-to-Ultra is expensive, suggesting Ultra settings are not worth the performance cost.

At 1440p, the recommendation shifts to High, which produces 122.3 FPS. This is comfortably above 60 FPS and provides a good balance. Medium at 1440p delivers 140.5 FPS, while Ultra drops to 84.1 FPS — still playable, but the 43.4% reduction from High to Ultra is steep. For players with 144Hz 1440p monitors, High settings are the safe choice, as they maintain a high enough frame rate to take advantage of the display's refresh rate.

At 4K, the options narrow considerably. High produces 60.6 FPS, which is borderline for smooth gameplay, while Ultra drops to 46.7 FPS, which may be too choppy for fast-paced roguelike action. Medium at 71.1 FPS is the best 4K option, providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. Low at 100.6 FPS is also viable, but the visual quality loss may not be worth the frame rate gain. For the best overall experience, 1080p Medium offers the highest frame rate per settings tier, while 1440p High and 4K Medium provide the best balance at their respective resolutions.