Barony

Barony, the 2015 roguelike, proves surprisingly demanding on this Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 6600 pairing. The measured frame rates across resolutions and presets reveal a configuration that scales predictably, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions while the CPU flexes its considerable multi-threaded muscle at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but consistent with a mid-range graphics card. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 167.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 106.7 FPS at 2560x1440, a 36% reduction, and then to 57.9 FPS at 3840x2160, which is another 46% drop. This pattern clearly shows the Radeon RX 6600 hitting its pixel-pushing limits as resolution increases. The transition from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing, halving the performance headroom.

The scaling at Low settings is more dramatic, revealing the CPU's capability. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 264.5 FPS, which is a massive 58% higher than the High preset at the same resolution. This gap narrows to 36% at 1440p and 32% at 4K, indicating that the graphics card becomes the limiting factor as the workload shifts from CPU-bound logic to GPU-bound rendering. The data suggests that at 1080p Low, the Core i7-12700K is doing heavy lifting, but by 4K, the RX 6600's 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer are the constraining elements.

Medium settings offer a middle ground, with 195.5 FPS at 1080p and 120.7 FPS at 1440p, before dropping to 63.4 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most punishing, yielding 117.3 FPS at 1080p but only 43.2 FPS at 4K, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. This scaling behavior shows that Barony's visual effects tax the GPU heavily at higher resolutions, while the CPU maintains high minimum frame rates even when the average dips.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience relative to the measured rows, Medium settings at 2560x1440 provide an excellent balance. The 120.7 FPS average at 1440p Medium is 14% higher than High at the same resolution, and it stays well above the 74.4 FPS of Ultra. This preset avoids the steep performance cliff of Ultra while delivering a visually richer experience than Low.

At 1920x1080, High settings are the clear winner. The 167.9 FPS average is nearly three times the 57.9 FPS seen at 4K High, and it comfortably exceeds the 117.3 FPS of Ultra. Pushing to Low at 1080p yields 264.5 FPS, but the visual compromise is unnecessary when High already maintains a high frame rate. For 4K users, Medium at 63.4 FPS is the only playable option above the 43.2 FPS of Ultra, though High at 57.9 FPS is close enough that either could work depending on the player's tolerance for frame rate dips.

The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p High or 1440p Medium. Ultra settings should be avoided at all resolutions, as the performance penalty is severe — 30% lower than High at 1080p and 26% lower at 1440p. Low settings are only advisable for competitive play at 1080p where the 264.5 FPS headroom might benefit a high-refresh-rate display.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the defining component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the scaling patterns. With a boost clock of 2491 MHz and a game clock of 2044 MHz, the GPU's 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs deliver 8.928 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The 128-bit memory bus provides 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which becomes a critical factor at 4K where the 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is pushed to its limits.

The GPU's benchmark scores contextualize its position. It holds the 69th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25235. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700M at 0.2% higher performance and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti at 0.5% higher, showing that this card sits in a tightly contested mid-range bracket. In Barony specifically, the GPU's DirectX 12 score of 51 in PassMark suggests it handles the game's API efficiently, though the 4K Ultra result of 43.2 FPS indicates the architecture's limitations under extreme load.

The 7 nm process node from TSMC, with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, gives the RX 6600 a solid efficiency profile, but the 132 W TDP means it's not a power-sipping option. The PCIe 4.0 x8 interface is adequate for this game, as the data shows no unusual bottlenecks that would suggest bandwidth starvation. The GPU's role in Barony is clearly dominant at higher resolutions, where its 159.4 GPixel/s pixel rate is the primary driver of the frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core i7-12700K and Radeon RX 6600 ranks 1371st out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the lower 20% of configurations. This ranking might seem low given the strong 1080p performance, but it reflects the game's higher-resolution demands where the GPU struggles. The rank is a holistic measure across all tested scenarios, and the data shows that this pairing's performance is heavily skewed toward lower resolutions.

The CPU's percentile ranking is far more impressive. The Core i7-12700K sits in the 89th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35684. Its nearest rivals are tightly clustered: the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 is 0.3% slower, the Intel Core i5-14500HX is 0.7% faster, and the Intel Core i7-13700T is 0.6% slower. This indicates that the CPU is not the weak link in this combo — the GPU's 69th percentile ranking is what drags the overall position down.

The discrepancy between the CPU's high percentile and the combo's low rank suggests that Barony is not heavily CPU-threaded at higher resolutions, or that the GPU's limitations mask the CPU's capabilities. At 1080p Low, where the CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads can shine, the 264.5 FPS result is competitive with far more expensive GPU pairings, but the 4K results pull the overall rank down significantly.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K brings substantial processing power to this setup, and its impact is visible in the 1080p results. With 12 cores and 20 threads from the Alder Lake architecture, running at a 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost, this CPU posts a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29241 and a single-core score of 4128. Its 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 per core provide ample room for game logic and asset streaming.

The CPU's benchmark profile shows strong multi-threaded performance. In 3DMark, it scores 9979 with max threads and 9276 with 16 threads, indicating that Barony can leverage multiple cores effectively. The PassMark multithread score of 34404 and integer math score of 114264 suggest that the game's procedural generation and AI logic, typical of roguelikes, benefit from the CPU's throughput. The 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that this is a top-tier processor for gaming workloads.

In practical terms, the CPU's role is most evident when the GPU is not the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the 264.5 FPS average is likely CPU-limited, as the GPU has minimal work to do. The difference between 1080p Low and 1440p Low (167.3 FPS) is a 37% drop, which is smaller than the 46% drop from 1440p to 4K Low (85 FPS), indicating that the CPU maintains high throughput until the GPU's pixel fill rate becomes the constraint. The Core i7-12700K's 20 threads and 5.00 GHz boost clock ensure that Barony's logic never becomes the limiting factor, even at high frame rates.