Barony

The GeForce RTX 5060 paired with the Intel Core i5-9400 delivers a dramatic range of performance in Barony, scaling from a playable 53.4 FPS at 4K Ultra to a blistering 359.8 FPS at 1080p Low. The data reveals a system where the GPU is the primary driver of frame rates at higher resolutions, but the CPU begins to assert its influence as the graphical load lightens. This combination ranks in the 814th position out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database, with the measured results showing a clear, predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution and settings increase.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is the defining characteristic of this configuration. At High settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 sees the average FPS plummet from 231.9 to 77.8, a reduction of approximately 66%. This steep decline is a classic indicator of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, where the RTX 5060's rendering workload—driven by its 19.18 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power—becomes the limiting factor.

The scaling pattern holds across all settings, but the slope is steeper at lower graphical presets. Moving from 1080p Low to 4K Low, the frame rate drops from 359.8 FPS to 121.6 FPS, a 66% decrease as well, but the absolute numbers remain far higher. This suggests that even at 4K Low, the GPU has enough headroom to maintain a playable experience. The most punishing scenario is 4K Ultra, where the average of 53.4 FPS is just above the threshold for smooth gameplay, showing that the combination of high resolution and maximum settings saturates the GPU's 8 GB of GDDR7 memory and its 128-bit bus.

At 1440p, the system finds a comfortable middle ground. High settings deliver 145.4 FPS, while Low settings reach 229.6 FPS, indicating that this resolution is well within the RTX 5060's capabilities. The data shows that the GPU is the clear bottleneck from 1440p upward, as the frame rate scales almost linearly with the pixel count, a classic sign of a rasterization-limited workload.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake generation, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark scores, such as 7969 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 1125 in single-core, place it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs, a middling position that suggests it is not a high-end part but is still capable for gaming. In Barony, a roguelike title, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 359.8 FPS, a figure so high that it likely begins to approach the CPU's limit for frame generation. The 6-core, 6-thread configuration with a shared 9 MB L3 cache is sufficient to feed the RTX 5060 at lower resolutions, but the lack of hyper-threading means there is no excess headroom. The processor’s 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth and dual-channel DDR4 support are adequate for this game, but the CPU's 50th percentile ranking versus all CPUs indicates it is a mid-tier part that could bottleneck a faster GPU in less GPU-intensive scenarios.

The comparison to its nearest rivals reinforces this assessment. The i5-9400’s average benchmark score of 2305 is within 0.4% of the Intel Xeon E-2134 and just 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i3-10305. This clustering suggests that in CPU-bound situations, the i5-9400 performs equivalently to these parts, and the frame rates in Barony at high FPS levels are likely influenced by this mid-range CPU capability.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 holds the 814th rank out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 48th percentile of the database. This ranking is slightly below the GPU's individual percentile of 73, which indicates that the CPU is dragging the overall performance down from what the graphics card alone could achieve. The CPU’s 50th percentile ranking is the weaker link in this pairing, and the combo rank reflects that imbalance.

The measured FPS data is consistent with this mid-tier ranking. At 1440p High, the system achieves 145.4 FPS, a strong result that would place it ahead of many lower-tier combos, but the 4K Ultra result of 53.4 FPS is a more modest figure that limits its standing. The combo sits in the upper half of the database, but it is far from the top, as the 1702 tested combos include more balanced pairings of high-end CPUs with comparable GPUs. The data shows that this configuration is a capable mid-range performer, but its ranking is held back by the CPU's inability to fully exploit the RTX 5060's potential at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare capacity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo provides a complete picture of its performance across all resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the system is exceptionally fast: Low settings produce an average of 359.8 FPS, Medium delivers 268.1 FPS, High achieves 231.9 FPS, and Ultra drops to 166.3 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the RTX 5060 is never the limiting factor, and the frame rates are high enough for any high-refresh-rate monitor.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but begins to moderate. Low settings average 229.6 FPS, Medium hits 168.6 FPS, High reaches 145.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 107.1 FPS. The 1440p results show a more significant drop from Low to Ultra, a 53% reduction, suggesting that the GPU is starting to work harder as the pixel count rises. The 4K results at 3840x2160 show the most pronounced scaling: Low averages 121.6 FPS, Medium 87.7 FPS, High 77.8 FPS, and Ultra 53.4 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 68%, highlighting the GPU's struggle with the most demanding settings.

The data reveals a clear trend: the system is overkill for 1080p, excellent for 1440p, and only marginal for 4K Ultra. The lack of min or max FPS data means the averages represent the typical experience, but the consistency of the scaling suggests stable performance without major frame-time spikes.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 is the dominant component in this pairing, with its 8 GB of GDDR7 memory, 3840 shading units, and a boost clock of 2497 MHz. Its benchmark scores are impressive, including a Passmark G3D score of 20891 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 120785, placing it at the 73rd percentile of all GPUs. The GPU's average benchmark score of 30109 is nearly identical to the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, with a delta of 0%, and it is 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile, showing that it sits in a competitive performance bracket.

In Barony, the GPU's role is clear from the frame rate scaling. At 4K Ultra, the 53.4 FPS average is a direct result of the GPU being fully saturated, as the 128-bit memory bus and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth struggle to feed the rendering pipeline. The GPU's 19.18 TFLOPS of compute power is substantial, but the 8 GB of VRAM is a limiting factor at the highest settings, likely causing texture thrashing. The RTX 5060's architecture, Blackwell 2.0, with 30 ray tracing cores and 120 tensor cores, provides advanced features, but in a roguelike title like Barony, these are secondary to raw rasterization performance.

The GPU's 73rd percentile ranking versus all GPUs is significantly higher than the CPU's 50th percentile, and the measured FPS data confirms that the RTX 5060 is the star of this show. The data shows that the GPU is capable of delivering 359.8 FPS at 1080p Low, proving that it has ample headroom for less demanding titles, but the 4K Ultra result of 53.4 FPS indicates its limits at the highest graphical fidelity. This is a GPU that excels at 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, it requires settings compromises to maintain smooth frame rates.