Barony

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Barony shows a clear and predictable pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop reveals important information about where the bottleneck lies. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers 301.6 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops that to 190.7 FPS, a reduction of approximately 37%. Going further to 3840x2160 at Ultra yields 99.4 FPS, which is roughly 67% below the 1080p figure. These are substantial scaling penalties that indicate the GPU is being increasingly taxed as pixel count rises, but the absolute numbers remain very high throughout.

The Low settings tell a similar story with even more dramatic scaling. At 1080p Low, the system produces 666.2 FPS, which drops to 420.7 FPS at 1440p and 223.2 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is about 66.5%, nearly identical to the Ultra settings scaling. This consistency across quality presets suggests that the resolution scaling behavior is dominated by the rendering resolution itself rather than by specific graphical features that might scale differently. The fact that even at 4K Low the system maintains 223.2 FPS indicates that the RTX 4090 has ample headroom for this roguelike title.

At Medium settings, the pattern continues: 492.9 FPS at 1080p, 310.8 FPS at 1440p, and 163.2 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 37%, and from 1440p to 4K it's about 47.5%. High settings show 424.8 FPS at 1080p, 267.2 FPS at 1440p, and 139.6 FPS at 4K. The consistent spacing between settings tiers at each resolution suggests that Barony's graphics options have relatively linear performance costs in this configuration. The limiting component shifts from CPU-bound at lower resolutions to GPU-bound at higher resolutions, but even at 4K Ultra, the system never dips below 99.4 FPS, which is well above typical display refresh rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K brings substantial processing capability to this combination, and its characteristics directly influence Barony's performance at lower resolutions. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the CPU provides a strong foundation for game logic and physics calculations. The base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz give it excellent single-threaded performance, which is critical for roguelike games that often rely heavily on game-state updates and procedural generation. The architecture is Raptor Lake-R, built on a 10 nm process from Intel, and it supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel interface.

Benchmark data shows the i5-14600K achieving a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32881 and a single-core score of 4642. Its Geekbench scores are 15846 multicore and 2803 single-core. These numbers place the CPU in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs tracked in the database. The Passmark multithread score of 38682 and single-thread score of 4270 further confirm its strength. When compared to its nearest rivals, the i5-14600K's average benchmark score of 49166 is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, which scores 49062. It sits 0.4% below the Intel Core i5-14600KF at 49367, and 0.9% below the AMD EPYC 4345P at 49595. The Intel Xeon Gold 5318H trails by 1% at 48698.

In the context of Barony's frame rates, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the scaling from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 666.2 FPS, which is an extremely high frame rate that likely approaches the CPU's maximum throughput for this game's simulation loop. The fact that 1080p High produces 424.8 FPS and 1080p Ultra produces 301.6 FPS suggests that even with a powerful GPU, the CPU can feed frames at these rates without becoming the primary constraint. However, the gap between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings (666.2 to 420.7 FPS) indicates that the GPU begins to take over as the limiting factor even at this modest resolution increase.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 44th out of 1702 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the top 2.6% of all configurations in the database, which is an exceptionally strong showing. The rank reflects the combined capability of both components working together in this specific game title. Given that the RTX 4090 sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs and the i5-14600K sits at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, the combo ranking of 44th is consistent with what these individual performance levels would suggest for a well-matched pairing.

The data indicates that this combo is not limited by either component in a way that would drag its ranking down. In many games, a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range CPU can suffer from CPU bottlenecks at lower resolutions, but the i5-14600K's strong single-thread performance appears sufficient to keep pace with the RTX 4090 in Barony. The rank of 44 out of 1702 means there are only 43 other combinations that achieve higher frame rates in this game, which is a remarkably small number given the vast number of possible CPU-GPU pairings. The measured FPS data confirms this ranking is justified, with even the most demanding 4K Ultra configuration maintaining nearly 100 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance envelope spans from 301.6 FPS at Ultra to 666.2 FPS at Low. The Medium preset delivers 492.9 FPS, while High achieves 424.8 FPS. These numbers show a clear hierarchy where each step down in quality yields a meaningful frame rate increase. The delta between Ultra and High is 123.2 FPS, between High and Medium is 68.1 FPS, and between Medium and Low is 173.3 FPS. This non-linear progression suggests that certain settings within the Ultra preset are particularly demanding, possibly related to shadow quality or post-processing effects that disproportionately affect performance.

At 2560x1440, the results are 190.7 FPS at Ultra, 267.2 FPS at High, 310.8 FPS at Medium, and 420.7 FPS at Low. The scaling from 1080p shows that Ultra loses 36.8% of its performance when moving to 1440p, while Low loses 36.9%. This consistency reinforces the idea that the performance cost of resolution scaling is proportional across quality settings. The 1440p numbers remain high enough for any high-refresh-rate display, with even the most demanding preset staying above 190 FPS.

At 3840x2160, Ultra produces 99.4 FPS, High produces 139.6 FPS, Medium produces 163.2 FPS, and Low produces 223.2 FPS. The 4K Ultra figure is the only measured result that drops below 100 FPS, but it still remains perfectly playable for most users. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a total reduction of 123.8 FPS, which is the largest absolute spread across any resolution. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is working hard enough that graphical settings have a substantial impact on final frame rates, whereas at 1080p, the CPU may be limiting the maximum achievable FPS regardless of settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is a formidable GPU based on the AD102 chip and Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC with 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. It features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU clocks at 2235 MHz base and 2520 MHz boost, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). Its 16384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 82.58 TFLOPS places it firmly at the top of the consumer GPU hierarchy.

In benchmark tests, the RTX 4090 achieves a Passmark G3D score of 38194 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 317684. Its Vulkan score is 270615, and its average benchmark score is 66473, placing it in the 91st percentile among all GPUs. When compared to nearest rivals, the RTX 4090's score is 0.4% below the NVIDIA Tesla T4 at 66733, 0.5% above the NVIDIA Tesla P40 at 66127, 0.9% below the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 at 67097, and 1.3% below the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 at 67320. These comparisons show that in aggregate benchmarks, the RTX 4090 is closely matched with some workstation-class GPUs, though its gaming performance in Barony is exceptional.

The GPU's role in Barony becomes increasingly dominant as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p Low, the CPU likely limits performance to 666.2 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU's rendering workload becomes the primary constraint at 99.4 FPS. The 24 GB of VRAM is far more than Barony requires, meaning memory capacity is never a limiting factor. The GDDR6X memory's 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution rendering are not bottlenecked by memory throughput. The boost clock of 2520 MHz allows the GPU to maintain high utilization across all tested configurations, contributing to the consistent frame rates observed.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Barony?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 666.2, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

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

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system produces an average of 99.4 FPS, which remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival in benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 49166, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X at 49062 and 0.4% lower than the Intel Core i5-14600KF at 49367.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks in the 91st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 66473.

Q: How does the frame rate scale from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the frame rate drops from 424.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 267.2 FPS at 2560x1440, and further to 139.6 FPS at 3840x2160.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested configurations in Barony?

A: This CPU-GPU combination ranks 44th out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the top 2.6% of all configurations.