Barony

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 paired with the Intel Core i5-14600KF delivers a decisive performance spread across Barony’s four presets, with the data showing a clear hierarchy from the 441.3 FPS average at 1080p Low down to 66.6 FPS at 4K Ultra. This combination ranks 567th out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the upper third of all configurations while demonstrating that the GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient for this roguelike’s demands.

FAQ

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

A: The peak average is 441.3 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The same resolution at Medium still produces 331.5 FPS, indicating substantial headroom even at lower settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, average frame rates range from 147.7 FPS on Low to 66.6 FPS on Ultra. The High preset delivers 93.8 FPS, which remains comfortably above standard 60 FPS thresholds.

Q: What is the largest performance gap between consecutive settings?

A: The data shows the biggest drop occurs when moving from Medium to Ultra at 2560x1440, falling from 206.4 FPS to 131 FPS—a difference of 75.4 FPS. At 4K, the Medium-to-Ultra transition is similarly steep, dropping from 107.1 to 66.6 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: Benchmark results suggest minimal CPU limitation. The i5-14600KF’s 14 cores and 20 threads, combined with a 5.30 GHz boost clock, keep pace with the GPU’s output—evidenced by the 441.3 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low, which is near the practical limit for many displays.

Q: Which preset offers the best balance of quality and speed at 1440p?

A: High at 2560x1440 yields 175.9 FPS, while Medium reaches 206.4 FPS. Both are far above refresh-rate needs, but High provides superior visual fidelity with only a 30.5 FPS penalty versus Medium.

Q: How does this combo rank relative to all tested configurations?

A: It sits at rank 567 out of 1702 combos, placing it in the 67th percentile overall. This indicates strong performance, though not at the extreme top tier of tested hardware.

How This Combo Ranks

The 567th rank out of 1702 tested combos places this pairing in the upper third of all configurations, a position that reflects balanced component capability rather than outlier performance. The i5-14600KF itself scores in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49367, while the RX 9070 sits in the 79th percentile for GPUs with an average score of 34780. The combo’s overall rank is slightly lower than either component’s individual percentile, suggesting that Barony’s workload does not fully stress both parts simultaneously—a common pattern in roguelike titles.

Against its nearest CPU rivals, the i5-14600KF shows tight competition: it trails the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.5% in average score, but leads the Intel Core i5-14600K by 0.4%, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X by 0.6%, and the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H by 1.4%. These margins are negligible in real-world gaming, reinforcing that the GPU is the primary driver of frame rate differences here. For the GPU, the RX 9070’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA A2 (-0.2%), NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (+0.3%), AMD Radeon HD 7970 (+0.7%), and AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (+0.8%)—again, all within 1% of each other, underscoring that the measured FPS data reflects game-specific optimization rather than raw compute dominance.

GPU Role

The RX 9070’s 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for Barony’s texture-heavy environments at 4K. The GPU’s boost clock of 2520 MHz and game clock of 2070 MHz, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with 3584 shading units, drive the frame rates seen in the measured data. At 1080p, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor only at Ultra settings (203.6 FPS), while at Low (441.3 FPS) the ceiling appears more CPU-bound—though the i5-14600KF’s single-thread performance (passmark singlethread score of 4273) prevents severe bottlenecks.

The 4K results illustrate the GPU’s scaling under load. From Low (147.7 FPS) to Ultra (66.6 FPS), the RX 9070 shows a 55% performance reduction, which aligns with the increased pixel workload. The 4 nm process node and 53,900 million transistors contribute to efficiency, but the 220 W TDP is the thermal envelope for sustained clocks. Notably, the GPU’s Vulkan score of 165532 in Geekbench suggests strong API overhead handling, which benefits Barony’s rendering calls.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo produces exceptional numbers across all presets. Low settings yield 441.3 FPS, Medium drops to 331.5 FPS, High runs at 279.6 FPS, and Ultra maintains 203.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 109.8 FPS—the largest single-step difference at this resolution—indicating that Medium introduces significant shading or shadow effects that impact the GPU. The gap from High to Ultra is smaller at 76 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns on higher settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern holds but with reduced headroom. Low produces 281.3 FPS, Medium 206.4 FPS, High 175.9 FPS, and Ultra 131 FPS. The Medium-to-Ultra drop of 75.4 FPS is proportionally similar to 1080p, but the absolute values remain well above 120 FPS for High settings. At 3840x2160, the frame rates compress further: Low hits 147.7 FPS, Medium 107.1 FPS, High 93.8 FPS, and Ultra 66.6 FPS. The High-to-Ultra gap here is 27.2 FPS, which is the smallest absolute difference between any two consecutive presets in the dataset, indicating that Ultra’s extra effects are less costly at 4K relative to the resolution’s baseline demands.

Across all resolutions, the Low-to-Ultra ratio is consistent: 1080p shows a 2.17x difference, 1440p shows 2.15x, and 4K shows 2.22x. This uniformity suggests that Barony scales settings linearly with resolution, with no unexpected spikes in GPU load at any particular preset.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K displays, the data strongly favors the High preset. At 93.8 FPS, it delivers a smooth experience with only a 13.3 FPS penalty versus Medium (107.1 FPS), while Ultra drops to 66.6 FPS—a 29% reduction for marginal visual gains. Players with 120 Hz 4K panels would need to use Low (147.7 FPS) to hit that refresh rate, but the visual trade-off is steep.

At 2560x1440, High at 175.9 FPS is the optimal choice for 144 Hz displays, as it stays well above the refresh ceiling with better fidelity than Medium’s 206.4 FPS. For 165 Hz panels, Medium provides the necessary headroom without excessive GPU load. Ultra at 131 FPS is viable for 120 Hz monitors, but the 44.9 FPS gap from High makes it a poor trade for most users.

At 1920x1080, even Ultra (203.6 FPS) exceeds the refresh rate of all but the most extreme 240 Hz displays. For 144 Hz panels, High (279.6 FPS) or Medium (331.5 FPS) are both overkill, so the choice should default to High for better image quality. Low’s 441.3 FPS is only relevant for competitive play at 360 Hz, which is an edge case.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF contributes 14 cores and 20 threads across its Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost of 5.30 GHz. This configuration produces a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32889 and a single-core score of 4643, indicating strong per-thread performance that Barony relies on for game logic and entity updates. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which is critical for the procedural generation typical of roguelikes.

The CPU’s passmark multithread score of 38697 and single-thread score of 4273 place it in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. In the measured FPS data, the CPU’s influence is most apparent at 1080p Low, where the 441.3 FPS average suggests the frame rate is approaching the CPU’s serial processing limit. At higher resolutions and settings, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, as evidenced by the consistent scaling from 1080p to 4K. The i5-14600KF’s 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier allow for sustained boost clocks, though the data does not show CPU throttling at any tested configuration. Its nearest rival, the i5-14600K, scores only 0.4% lower on average, so users with either chip would see near-identical results in Barony.