Barony

Barony is a roguelike where the measured frame rate data shows a clear split between GPU-bound and CPU-bound operating points. For the Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT combination, the 1080p results indicate the CPU is the limiting factor at lower settings, while the 4K results show the GPU taking over. The data set covers twelve measured configurations across three resolutions and four quality presets, with the combo ranking 2428 out of 3717 tested combinations in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but not uniform across settings, revealing where each component’s headroom ends. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 298 at 1920x1080 to 188 at 2560x1440, then to 98 at 3840x2160. That is a 37% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 48% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The Low preset at 1080p nearly saturates a 300 FPS ceiling, which suggests the CPU’s single-thread performance is the bottleneck at that point; the GPU is not being fully utilized. The drop to 188 FPS at 1440p still leaves plenty of headroom, but the 4K result of 98 FPS indicates the GPU is now the primary constraint.

At Medium settings, the same resolution scaling shows 222 FPS at 1080p, 140 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 37%, identical to Low, but the 1440p to 4K drop is 48% again. This consistency suggests the scaling pattern is resolution-driven rather than setting-driven. The Medium preset at 1080p still exceeds 200 FPS, so the CPU is managing the load comfortably, but the GPU is starting to feel the pressure as pixel count increases.

High settings produce 190 FPS at 1080p, 120 FPS at 1440p, and 63 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p reduction is 37%, matching the lower presets, while the 1440p to 4K reduction is 48%. The High preset at 4K lands at 63 FPS average, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play, but the margin is thin. At 1440p, High delivers 120 FPS, which is double the 4K result, indicating that the GPU’s pixel throughput is the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Ultra settings show the largest absolute drop: 136 FPS at 1080p, 86 FPS at 1440p, and 45 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p reduction is 37%, again consistent, but the 1440p to 4K reduction is 48%. The 4K Ultra result of 45 FPS is below the 60 FPS target, meaning this combo cannot maintain playable frame rates at maximum quality in 4K. The scaling behavior across all four presets is remarkably consistent in percentage terms, which points to a GPU that is uniformly taxed by resolution increases rather than a CPU that becomes a bottleneck at specific settings.

The data shows that the 1080p results are heavily CPU-limited, especially at Low and Medium where FPS exceeds 200. The 1440p results are more balanced, with the GPU beginning to dominate. The 4K results are entirely GPU-bound, as evidenced by the drop from 98 FPS at Low to 45 FPS at Ultra, which is a 54% reduction purely from quality settings at the same resolution. The limiting component shifts from the i5-14400F at 1080p Low to the RX 6650 XT at 4K Ultra, with the crossover occurring somewhere between 1440p and 4K depending on the preset.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data suggests that Medium settings provide the best balance of visual quality and frame rate for this combo. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 222, with a minimum of 188 and maximum of 255. This is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on gaming monitors, so the experience is smooth with no risk of frame drops. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 298 FPS, but the visual quality loss is not worth the extra 76 FPS when Medium already exceeds 200.

At 1440p, Medium delivers 140 FPS average with a minimum of 119 and maximum of 161. The minimum of 119 FPS is still above 100, so even the worst-case frames are smooth. High at 1440p drops to 120 FPS average, which is still playable, but Medium offers a 17% higher average with the same resolution. The difference between Medium and High at 1440p is 20 FPS, which is noticeable on high-refresh displays, so Medium is the safer choice.

For 4K, the situation changes. Medium at 4K produces 73 FPS average with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84. This is the only preset at 4K that stays above 60 FPS for the minimum frame rate. High at 4K averages 63 FPS, but the minimum is not reported, which suggests it may dip below 60. Low at 4K averages 98 FPS, but the visual quality reduction is severe. Ultra at 4K averages 45 FPS, which is not playable for most users. Therefore, Medium is the only viable preset for 4K gaming on this combo, and even then, the 62 FPS minimum is close to the edge.

The recommendation is clear: use Medium settings for all three resolutions. At 1080p, Medium offers 222 FPS average, which is more than enough for any display. At 1440p, Medium provides 140 FPS average with a 119 FPS minimum, which is excellent. At 4K, Medium is the only preset that maintains a playable frame rate, with a 73 FPS average and 62 FPS minimum. The High preset is a reasonable alternative at 1080p and 1440p, but the margin over Medium is small, and the 4K High result of 63 FPS average is too close to the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra should be avoided entirely, as it only delivers playable performance at 1080p where 136 FPS is acceptable, but the 1440p result of 86 FPS and 4K result of 45 FPS are below what most gamers would accept.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2428 out of 3717 tested combinations places this system in the lower third of all tested hardware pairings for Barony. This ranking is surprising given the high frame rates measured at 1080p, but it reflects the fact that Barony is an older roguelike with modest requirements, so many other combos achieve even higher FPS. The RX 6650 XT sits at the 65th percentile among all GPUs in the database, while the i5-14400F is at the 83rd percentile among all CPUs. The combination of a high-percentile CPU with a mid-range GPU results in a system that is strong at lower resolutions but falls behind at 4K.

The GPU’s nearest rivals in the database are professional workstation cards: the NVIDIA Tesla K40m, AMD FirePro D300, AMD FirePro W7000, and NVIDIA Quadro K5200. The RX 6650 XT’s average benchmark score of 19765 is within 0.8% of these cards, with the FirePro D300 and Quadro K5200 slightly lower and the K40m and W7000 slightly higher. These rival cards are not gaming-focused, which means the RX 6650 XT’s gaming performance in Barony is not directly comparable to its raw benchmark score. The CPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U, Intel Core i9-11900, AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS, and Intel Core i7-12800H, all of which have average scores within 0.5% of the i5-14400F. This indicates that the CPU is competitive with both mobile and desktop parts from recent generations.

The rank of 2428 out of 3717 means that 1289 combos perform worse and 2427 perform better in Barony. Given that Barony is a roguelike with simple graphics, the ranking is more about the CPU’s ability to maintain high FPS at low resolutions. The i5-14400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for this game, but the RX 6650 XT’s 8 GB of VRAM and 128-bit memory bus become limiting at 4K. The combo’s ranking would likely be higher if the game were more GPU-intensive, but Barony’s low requirements mean that even modest GPUs can achieve high frame rates at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings shows the system’s capability. Low settings produce an average FPS of 298, which is the highest measured value in the entire data set. Medium settings yield 222 FPS average, with a minimum of 188 and maximum of 255. High settings drop to 190 FPS average, while Ultra settings produce 136 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra is 162 FPS, which is substantial. The minimum FPS for Medium is 188, which is higher than the Ultra average of 136, indicating that even the most demanding preset at 1080p stays well above playable thresholds. The maximum FPS of 255 at Medium suggests the system can burst well above the average when the scene is simple.

At 2560x1440, the averages scale down proportionally. Low settings produce 188 FPS average, Medium yields 140 FPS with a minimum of 119 and maximum of 161, High delivers 120 FPS, and Ultra drops to 86 FPS. The Medium minimum of 119 is still above 100, which is comfortable for most displays. The High average of 120 exactly matches the Medium minimum, showing that the quality increase from Medium to High costs about 14% performance. The Ultra average of 86 FPS is the first preset to fall below 100 FPS at 1440p, but it remains playable.

At 3840x2160, the results are more constrained. Low settings produce 98 FPS average, Medium yields 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84, High delivers 63 FPS, and Ultra drops to 45 FPS. The Low preset is the only one that stays above 90 FPS at 4K. The Medium minimum of 62 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold, while the High average of 63 FPS is also near that line. The Ultra average of 45 FPS is below 50, which is not ideal for most gaming scenarios. The maximum FPS at 4K Medium is 84, which is lower than the minimum FPS at 1080p Medium (188), illustrating the massive impact of resolution on this combo.

The data shows a consistent pattern: each resolution step down from 1080p to 4K reduces FPS by roughly 37% for the first step and 48% for the second step, regardless of settings. This suggests the GPU’s fill rate is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The CPU’s performance is only visible at 1080p Low and Medium, where FPS exceeds 200, indicating that the i5-14400F can handle frame rates well above what the RX 6650 XT can deliver at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 23 chip, manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. The GPU has 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units, with 32 ray tracing cores. The base clock is 2055 MHz, with a boost clock of 2635 MHz and a game clock of 2410 MHz. Memory is 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s pixel rate is 168.6 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 337.3 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 10.79 TFLOPS.

In Barony, the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for all tested settings, as the game is a roguelike with modest texture requirements. The memory bandwidth of 280.3 GB/s is the likely bottleneck at 4K, where the pixel fill rate becomes stressed. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra is 45, which aligns with the GPU’s 168.6 GPixel/s pixel rate when accounting for the game’s complexity. The GPU’s boost clock of 2635 MHz provides the raw speed needed for 1080p performance, where the system achieves 298 FPS at Low settings.

The GPU’s average benchmark score of 19765 places it at the 65th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the Tesla K40m, FirePro D300, FirePro W7000, and Quadro K5200, all of which are workstation cards with different driver optimizations. The RX 6650 XT’s PassMark G3D score of 17166 and PassMark GPU compute score of 7532 indicate solid compute performance, but Barony does not heavily utilize compute features. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) is present, but the game’s age means it likely uses older rendering paths. The GPU’s end-of-life production status and release date of May 2022 mean it is a previous-generation part, but it handles Barony’s requirements without issue at 1080p and 1440p.

The GPU’s role in this combo is to provide the visual fidelity headroom. At 1080p, the GPU is rarely the bottleneck, as evidenced by the 298 FPS Low result. At 1440p, the GPU begins to limit performance, with the difference between Low and Ultra being 102 FPS (188 vs 86). At 4K, the GPU is fully constrained, with the difference between Low and Ultra being 53 FPS (98 vs 45). The VRAM usage is not reported, but 8 GB is adequate for a roguelike, and the memory clock of 2190 MHz (17.5 Gbps effective) provides sufficient bandwidth for the game’s textures.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, based on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process node. The base clock is 2.50 GHz, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The CPU has 20 MB of shared L3 cache, with 1.25 MB L2 per core and 80 KB L1 per core. It supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration, with ECC support available. The CPU is unlocked for overclocking and has a launch MSRP of $196.

In Barony, the CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient, as the game is a roguelike that likely uses only a few threads. The high boost clock of 4.70 GHz is the key factor for the 1080p performance, where the system achieves 298 FPS at Low settings. The CPU’s single-thread performance is reflected in its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3055 and Geekbench single-core score of 2058. These scores indicate strong per-core performance, which is what matters for a game like Barony that relies on a single main thread for game logic.

The CPU’s average benchmark score of 32279 places it at the 83rd percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U, Core i9-11900, Ryzen 7 6800HS, and Core i7-12800H, all with scores within 0.5%. The i5-14400F’s multithreaded performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21645 and PassMark multithread score of 25470, but Barony does not benefit from many threads. The CPU’s PassMark physics score of 1523 is relevant for game physics, and the data compression score of 315521 shows strong integer performance.

The CPU’s role in this combo is to prevent frame rate drops at high FPS levels. At 1080p Low and Medium, the CPU keeps pace with the GPU, allowing the system to reach 298 and 222 FPS respectively. At 1440p and 4K, the CPU is not the bottleneck, as the GPU’s rendering load dominates. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and active production status indicate it is a mainstream part, but its performance in Barony is sufficient to push frame rates beyond what most displays can show at 1080p. The CPU’s memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 gives flexibility, but the measured data does not indicate which memory type was used. The CPU’s 20 MB L3 cache is ample for the game’s data, and the 4.70 GHz boost clock ensures that even the most demanding scenes at 1080p stay above 130 FPS on Ultra settings.