Barony

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers a compelling performance profile in Barony, a roguelike that clearly rewards high refresh rates. The measured data reveals a system that is heavily GPU-limited at higher resolutions but demonstrates remarkable headroom at 1080p, where frame rates soar past what most displays can even show. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, contextualizes the CPU and GPU roles using benchmark scores, and ranks this specific combination against other tested hardware pairings.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 exposes a clear and dramatic GPU bottleneck. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 346.5 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 219.1 FPS, a reduction of approximately 36.8%. The jump to 4K Low yields 115.5 FPS, which is another 47.3% cut from the 1440p figure. This steep, consistent decline as pixel count increases is the signature of a system where the Radeon RX 6700 XT's rendering throughput, rather than the CPU's processing power, is the limiting factor.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. With High settings, the frame rate falls from 218.5 FPS at 1080p to 140 FPS at 1440p and then to 70.8 FPS at 4K. The 4K High result represents a 67.6% drop from the 1080p High baseline, while the 4K Ultra result of 50.2 FPS is a 68.1% reduction from 157.3 FPS at 1080p Ultra. The scaling is not perfectly linear, but the trend is unmistakable: the GPU is being saturated well before the resolution reaches 4K, particularly with heavier graphical settings.

Interestingly, the delta between settings at 1080p is much smaller than the delta between resolutions. For instance, the spread from Low (346.5 FPS) to Ultra (157.3 FPS) at 1080p is a 54.6% performance penalty. At 4K, the same Low-to-Ultra spread (115.5 FPS to 50.2 FPS) represents a 56.5% penalty. This suggests that while the GPU is the primary constraint at all resolutions, the relative cost of enabling higher settings remains consistent, indicating that the CPU can keep up with the game's logic even when the GPU is heavily loaded. The data implies that for maximum frame rates, players must prioritize resolution reduction over setting reduction, as the former yields larger absolute gains.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F provides a substantial foundation for this gaming workload. With 10 cores and 16 threads, it is a modern multi-threaded processor built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process node. Its boost clock of 4.60 GHz is significant for single-threaded performance, which is often critical in roguelike games that may not scale perfectly across all cores. The benchmark data supports this: the processor scores 960 in 3dmark_single_thread and 3004 in cinebench_r23_singlecore, indicating very solid per-core capability.

The CPU's multi-threaded strength is even more pronounced. A cinebench_r23_multicore score of 21279 and a 3dmark_max_threads score of 7307 suggest that the processor is far from being the weak link in this pairing. The fact that the measured FPS at 1080p Low reaches 346.5 FPS, a figure that is extremely high, implies that the CPU can feed the GPU with frames faster than the GPU can render them at lower resolutions. The 3dmark_16_threads score of 7314 is nearly identical to the max_threads score, which shows that the processor's performance is consistent across all 16 threads.

Comparing to its nearest rivals, the i5-13400F sits in a tight pack. It is 0.1% faster than the Intel Core i7-13620H, 0.5% faster than the AMD EPYC 9474F, and 0.5% faster than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340, while being 0.5% slower than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D. These are negligible differences, placing the i5-13400F in the top 82nd percentile of all CPUs. The data shows that the CPU is not just adequate but is performing at a level where its contribution to frame rate variance is minimal, allowing the GPU's characteristics to dominate the observed scaling.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 346.5 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops to 50.2 FPS, which is the lowest measured result in the dataset.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck at 1440p High?

A: The 1440p High result of 140 FPS, which is 35.9% lower than the 1080p High result, indicates that the GPU is the limiting component, as the CPU is capable of producing higher frame rates at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings yield 346.5 FPS while Ultra settings yield 157.3 FPS, representing a 54.6% performance decrease when moving to the highest preset.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations in Barony?*

A: This specific combination ranks 947th out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the middle of the pack overall.

Q: What is the frame rate at 4K Medium settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the average frame rate is 85.7 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold but significantly lower than the 1440p Medium result of 164.4 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scope of Barony testing, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT achieves a combo rank of 947 out of 1702 tested combinations. This places it squarely in the 55.6th percentile of all combos, suggesting that while it is not an elite-tier setup, it outperforms a majority of the configurations that have been measured. The rank indicates that there is substantial room for improvement in the upper echelons of the list, likely dominated by more powerful GPUs or newer CPU architectures.

The rank relative to the GPU's own standing is notable. The RX 6700 XT sits in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, which is higher than the combo's overall rank. This discrepancy suggests that the CPU, while strong, may be holding the combo back in certain scenarios, or that the game Barony is less dependent on raw GPU power than on other factors where this specific pairing does not excel. The CPU's 82nd percentile ranking is higher than the combo's rank, but the combination of the two does not proportionally translate to a higher combo rank, indicating that the game's performance profile does not perfectly align with the strengths of these components.

Settings Recommendations

For players seeking the smoothest experience, the data clearly points to 1920x1080 resolution. At this resolution, even the Ultra preset maintains an average of 157.3 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most standard monitors. However, the most balanced experience is arguably at 1440p with High settings, which produces 140 FPS. This offers a significant resolution upgrade over 1080p while only sacrificing a modest 78.5 FPS compared to 1080p High. The 1440p High result is 44.3% faster than the 4K High result, making it the sweet spot for visual fidelity and performance.

If a player prioritizes maximum frame rates above all else, the 1080p Low setting at 346.5 FPS is the clear choice, though this sacrifices visual quality. For those with high refresh rate 1440p monitors, the Medium preset at 164.4 FPS is a strong contender, as it is only 11.6% slower than the Low preset at the same resolution while offering better visuals. The Ultra preset at 4K is not recommended for competitive play, as the 50.2 FPS average falls below the 60 FPS threshold, which could introduce noticeable stutter on standard displays.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance is exceptional across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 346.5 FPS, Medium settings yield 257.4 FPS, High settings deliver 218.5 FPS, and Ultra settings still achieve a very playable 157.3 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra is consistent, with each step up in quality costing roughly 30 to 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a more pronounced impact from settings. Low settings average 219.1 FPS, Medium settings drop to 164.4 FPS, High settings reach 140 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 97 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is the only one in this resolution to dip below 100 FPS, but it remains smooth.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly taxed. Low settings average 115.5 FPS, which is still excellent for 4K. Medium settings produce 85.7 FPS, High settings yield 70.8 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 50.2 FPS. The 4K results show that the RX 6700 XT can handle 4K gaming, but only at lower presets or with a willingness to accept sub-60 FPS performance at the highest quality levels.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, based on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a 7 nm process, is the decisive factor in this combo's high-resolution performance. With 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus providing 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, it has ample capacity and throughput for Barony's demands, even at 4K. The GPU's boost clock of 2581 MHz and its 2560 shading units are substantial, but the measured data shows that these resources are fully utilized as resolution increases.

The GPU's compute capabilities are significant, with an fp32 performance of 13.21 TFLOPS and a texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s. Despite this power, the GPU's percentile ranking of 77 places it alongside the AMD Radeon RX 6800, which it trails by 0.7%, and the NVIDIA RTX A5000, which it leads by 1.3%. The GPU's average benchmark score of 33721 is notably lower than the CPU's average of 25236, but this is expected given the different types of workloads each component handles.

The GPU's role is most evident in the 4K data. The drop from 115.5 FPS at Low to 50.2 FPS at Ultra at 4K highlights how the rendering pipeline, specifically the ROPs and memory bandwidth, becomes the determining factor. The 64 ROPs and the 384.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely the constraints at 4K Ultra, as the shading units struggle to maintain output. In contrast, at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom that the CPU's frame generation becomes the more relevant factor, as evidenced by the extremely high frame rates that exceed the GPU's theoretical output limits in less demanding scenes.