Barony

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti delivers a compelling performance profile in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The measured data reveals a system capable of high frame rates across all tested resolutions, though the scaling between settings and resolutions tells a nuanced story about where the bottleneck lies. This combination ranks 875th out of 1702 tested combos in this game, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. The RTX 3060 Ti, which sits at the 69th percentile among all GPUs, demonstrates strong raw capability, while the i5-14600K, at the 93rd percentile among CPUs, provides substantial headroom that becomes increasingly relevant at lower resolutions.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 355.4, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How much slower is the Ultra preset compared to High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 51.3 FPS, which is 26.4 FPS lower than the High preset's 77.7 FPS, representing a significant 34% drop in performance.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K with maximum settings?

A: Yes, the Ultra preset at 3840x2160 yields an average of 51.3 FPS, which is above the 30 FPS threshold typically considered playable, though it is the only 4K setting that dips below the 60 FPS mark.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 223.5 FPS while Ultra averages 101.1 FPS, showing that Ultra is less than half the frame rate of Low, a difference of 122.4 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The i5-14600K scores 49166 on average benchmarks, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X's score of 49062, making them effectively tied in overall performance.

Q: Is the GPU's performance closer to its top rival or its bottom rival?

A: The RTX 3060 Ti's average benchmark score of 25120 is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6700M's 25180, but 0.7% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP's 25287, indicating it sits at the lower end of its immediate competitor group.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is built on the Ampere architecture with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its memory clock runs at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed, and the GPU core operates at a base clock of 1410 MHz with a boost clock of 1665 MHz. These specifications translate into measured frame rates in Barony that range from 51.3 FPS at 4K Ultra to 355.4 FPS at 1080p Low, showcasing the GPU's ability to handle both high-resolution and high-refresh-rate scenarios.

The data indicates that the GPU's 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for this game, as even at 4K Ultra the frame rate remains above 50 FPS. The 4864 shading units and 152 texture mapping units contribute to the texture-heavy rendering typical of roguelike environments, while the 80 ROPs handle pixel output efficiently. The GPU's 16.20 TFLOPS of FP32 performance suggests ample compute headroom, yet the measured results show that settings adjustments have a more pronounced effect on frame rates than resolution scaling alone, implying that the GPU's rasterization pipeline is the primary driver of performance in this title.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience at 1920x1080, the High preset at 225.5 FPS provides an excellent balance between visual fidelity and performance, as it delivers more than double the frame rate of most 60 Hz displays while maintaining quality. The Medium preset at 266.2 FPS offers diminishing returns in visual quality for a modest FPS increase, making High the recommended choice for 1080p gaming. At 2560x1440, the High preset at 144.9 FPS remains the optimal selection, comfortably exceeding 144 Hz refresh rates while providing superior image quality over Medium's 168.2 FPS, which is only 23.3 FPS faster but noticeably less detailed.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 84.9 FPS presents the best compromise for 4K displays, as High at 77.7 FPS sacrifices visual quality without a proportional frame rate gain, and Ultra at 51.3 FPS drops below the 60 FPS threshold that many users consider essential for smooth gameplay. The Low preset, while offering 119.5 FPS at 4K, eliminates too many visual details for a roguelike where environmental readability matters. The data suggests that High is the "sweet spot" preset across all resolutions, with Medium serving as a viable alternative for 4K users who prioritize frame rate stability.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates scale from 355.4 FPS on Low, to 266.2 on Medium, 225.5 on High, and 161.6 on Ultra. This represents a 193.8 FPS spread between the lowest and highest presets, with Low being 2.2 times faster than Ultra. The 1440p results show a similar pattern: Low averages 223.5 FPS, Medium 168.2, High 144.9, and Ultra 101.1, a spread of 122.4 FPS. At 4K, the numbers compress significantly with Low at 119.5 FPS, Medium at 84.9, High at 77.7, and Ultra at 51.3, a spread of 68.2 FPS.

The transition from 1080p to 1440p at High settings results in a drop from 225.5 to 144.9 FPS, a reduction of 80.6 FPS or 35.7%. Moving from 1440p to 4K at High settings further reduces the frame rate from 144.9 to 77.7 FPS, a 67.2 FPS decrease. At Ultra settings, the drop from 1080p to 4K is even more pronounced, going from 161.6 to 51.3 FPS, representing a 68.3% reduction in performance. These measurements show that the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, particularly with higher quality presets, while the lower resolutions are more likely constrained by other system components.

How This Combo Ranks

With a rank of 875 out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, this system sits just above the median performance tier. The ranking places it in the 51st percentile of all combinations, meaning approximately 49% of tested systems perform better in this game. The GPU's 69th percentile ranking among all GPUs is notably lower than the CPU's 93rd percentile among all CPUs, suggesting that the graphics card is the more limiting component in this pairing. Despite this, the measured frame rates at 1080p and 1440p are exceptionally high, indicating that the game is not particularly demanding on modern hardware.

The combo's position in the rankings is influenced by the RTX 3060 Ti's average benchmark score of 25120, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6700M but 0.5% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6600, making it competitive with mid-range GPUs from the previous generation. The CPU's performance, meanwhile, is virtually identical to the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, with a delta of only 0.2%, and slightly behind the Intel Core i5-14600KF by 0.4%. This combination of a high-percentile CPU with a mid-percentile GPU creates a system that excels in CPU-bound scenarios but is held back in GPU-intensive workloads.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K features 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It belongs to the Core 14th Gen series based on Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on a 10 nm process. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. In Barony, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions where frame rates exceed 200 FPS, as the processing overhead for game logic, AI, and world simulation becomes more significant relative to GPU rendering time.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are demonstrated by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881 and Geekbench multi-core score of 15846, which support its 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs. The PassMark multi-thread score of 38682 and single-thread score of 4270 further illustrate its balanced performance. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 355.4 FPS, which likely approaches the CPU's maximum frame rate output in this game, as the GPU is less burdened at these settings. The 20 threads enable smooth handling of roguelike procedural generation and entity management, while the high single-thread performance from the 5.30 GHz boost clock ensures responsive frame pacing.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck characteristics. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 225.5 at 1080p to 144.9 at 1440p, then to 77.7 at 4K. This represents a 35.7% decrease from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 46.4% decrease from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not linear, indicating that the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as the resolution increases. At Low settings, the drop is more dramatic in percentage terms: 355.4 FPS at 1080p falls to 223.5 at 1440p (37.1% decrease) and then to 119.5 at 4K (46.5% decrease).

The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is the primary limiting factor, as the frame rate of 355.4 FPS on Low is unlikely to be constrained by the GPU's rendering capacity. However, as resolution increases to 4K, the GPU's workload grows exponentially, and the frame rate at Ultra settings drops to 51.3 FPS, indicating that the RTX 3060 Ti's 8 GB of VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient but not excessive for this game at maximum quality. The diminishing returns between Medium and High presets at each resolution further suggest that the game's graphics engine scales predictably with GPU load, with the CPU maintaining adequate performance even at 4K.