Barony

# Barony — Intel Core i7-12700K + AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT

The measured frame rates for this combination reveal a system that is dramatically overpowered for Barony, a roguelike that clearly does not stress modern desktop hardware in the way contemporary 3D titles do. With average FPS ranging from 57.1 at 4K Ultra to 361.1 at 1080p Low, the data suggests that the game's rendering load is modest, and the bottleneck shifts between the CPU and GPU depending on resolution and settings. This pairing sits at rank 831 out of 1702 tested combinations, placing it near the middle of the database, which is an interesting outcome given the hardware's raw benchmark scores — the CPU ranks in the 89th percentile and the GPU in the 79th percentile against their respective peers.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but not uniform across settings, which tells a story about where the limiting component resides. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 361.1 at 1080p to 226.8 at 1440p, then to 120.6 at 4K — that is a 66.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the numbers go from 230.3 at 1080p to 144.1 at 1440p and 79.1 at 4K, a 65.7% drop. The scaling is consistent, suggesting that the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions, since pixel count increases quadratically and the FPS follows that trend.

However, the Ultra preset shows a different pattern: 165.0 at 1080p, 105.1 at 1440p, and 57.1 at 4K — a 65.4% reduction overall, but the absolute numbers are much lower at every resolution compared to High. This indicates that Ultra settings add a significant computational load that the GPU cannot offset, even at 1080p where the CPU could otherwise push higher frame rates. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 196.1 FPS, while at 4K it narrows to 63.5 FPS, which implies that at lower resolutions the CPU has headroom to feed the GPU, but at 4K the GPU becomes the wall.

The medium preset sits predictably between Low and High at all resolutions, with 267.5 FPS at 1080p, 169.4 at 1440p, and 87.0 at 4K. The consistent scaling across all four presets suggests that Barony's engine scales resolution in a conventional way, with no unusual bottlenecks emerging at any specific resolution. The data indicates that even at 4K Ultra, the system never drops below 57.1 FPS, which is playable, but the frame rates at 1080p Low — exceeding 360 FPS — reveal that the CPU is capable of far more than the GPU can render when the resolution is low.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show that the High preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, delivering 144.1 average FPS. This is above the 100 FPS threshold that most players consider smooth, and it is substantially higher than the 105.1 FPS at Ultra 1440p, while the visual difference between High and Ultra in a roguelike like Barony is likely minimal given the game's genre and age. At 4K, High produces 79.1 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action, whereas Medium at 87.0 FPS is only marginally better — the data suggests that High is the sweet spot at 4K too.

For players with 1080p displays, every preset exceeds 165 FPS, so the recommendation is less about performance and more about visual fidelity. The Ultra preset at 165.0 FPS is still well above the refresh rate of most monitors, making it the sensible choice for 1080p users. At 1440p, the choice between High and Ultra depends on whether the extra 39.0 FPS matters more than the additional visual effects — the data shows High is 37.1% faster than Ultra at this resolution. The Low preset, while delivering 361.1 FPS at 1080p, offers no practical benefit unless the user is chasing maximum frame rates for competitive play, which is unusual for a roguelike.

The most efficient configuration appears to be High settings at 1440p, as it provides 144.1 FPS with a likely significant visual improvement over Medium's 169.4 FPS. The frame rate difference between Medium and High at 1440p is 25.3 FPS, which is noticeable but not drastic, whereas the jump from High to Ultra costs 39.0 FPS for what is typically a marginal quality gain in this genre. At 4K, the recommendation is Medium or High, with Ultra dipping to 57.1 FPS, which may cause noticeable stutter in a game that requires precise timing.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 432.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's clock speeds are relatively high for the RDNA 2.0 architecture, with a base clock of 2150 MHz, a game clock of 2495 MHz, and a boost clock of 2600 MHz. These specifications, combined with 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs, produce a pixel rate of 166.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 416.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 13.31 TFLOPS.

In Barony, the GPU's role becomes evident when examining the resolution scaling. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 57.1, which is the only measured configuration below 60 FPS. This suggests that the 12 GB VRAM is not the limiting factor — the game's textures are unlikely to exceed even a fraction of that capacity — but rather the raw shading and pixel throughput are being taxed by the combination of high resolution and Ultra settings. The 64 ROPs must fill 3840x2160 pixels, and at 166.4 GPixel/s, the theoretical fill rate aligns with the measured 57.1 FPS, indicating that the GPU is operating near its pixel fill limit.

The GPU's benchmark scores support this interpretation. The PassMark G3D score of 20700 places it in the 79th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 5600M (0.2% faster) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (1.3% faster), which is surprising given the RTX 3080's higher tier. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 109310 and OpenCL score of 107621 show strong compute performance, but in a game like Barony, the fixed-function rasterization pipeline matters more than compute. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2548 is modest, but Barony does not appear to be a DX12-heavy title based on the frame rates.

FAQ

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra in Barony?

A: No. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 57.1, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. However, at 4K High, the average rises to 79.1 FPS.

Q: What is the fastest measured configuration for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS is 361.1, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is significantly higher than the next fastest, which is 267.5 FPS at 1080p Medium.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RX 6750 XT has an average benchmark score of 35327, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 5600M (35264) and 0.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (35435). It is 1.3% slower than the RTX 3080 (35787).

Q: Is there a large difference between High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: Yes, the difference is significant. High settings produce 144.1 FPS, while Ultra produces 105.1 FPS — a gap of 39.0 FPS, meaning High is approximately 37% faster.

Q: What CPU benchmark scores does the i7-12700K achieve?

A: The CPU scores 29241 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4128 in single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 13892 multi-core and 2561 single-core, with a PassMark multithread score of 34404.

Q: How does the frame rate scale from 1080p to 1440p at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 230.3 at 1080p to 144.1 at 1440p, a reduction of 86.2 FPS or approximately 37.4%.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 831 out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it just below the median of the database. This is a notable result because both components have strong benchmark standings — the CPU is in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 79th percentile of all GPUs. The fact that this pairing lands in the 49th percentile of game performance suggests that Barony is not a demanding title, and many lower-tier combos can achieve similar frame rates due to the game's light rendering load.

The discrepancy between hardware benchmarks and in-game rank indicates that Barony is likely CPU-bound at lower resolutions and GPU-bound at higher resolutions, but the overall performance is so high that the ranking does not reflect the hardware's capabilities. A combo ranked 831 out of 1702 would be considered mid-pack, yet this system produces 165 FPS at 1080p Ultra and 57.1 FPS at 4K Ultra, which are both playable. The data implies that for this specific game, the hardware is overkill, and the rank is more a reflection of the game's low requirements than the components' weakness.

The CPU's nearest rivals show it is a solid mid-range performer — the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 is 0.3% faster, and the Intel Core i5-14500HX is 0.7% faster, while the i7-13700T is 0.6% slower. The GPU's rivals similarly cluster within 1.3% of its score. This indicates that both components are well-matched in their respective tiers, but in Barony, the game's engine does not leverage their full potential, resulting in a rank that is lower than the hardware's percentile standings would suggest.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K provides 12 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The Alder Lake architecture uses a 10 nm process, and the CPU has 25 MB of shared L3 cache. Its benchmark scores are strong: Cinebench R23 multi-core reaches 29241, single-core reaches 4128, and Geekbench multi-core is 13892. The PassMark multithread score of 34404 and single-thread score of 4013 place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs.

In Barony, the CPU's role is most apparent at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 361.1 FPS, which is far beyond what the GPU can render at higher resolutions. This indicates that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with draw calls and game logic at a rate exceeding 360 frames per second, and the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases. The 20 threads and high boost clock of 5.00 GHz are more than sufficient for a roguelike, which typically relies on single-threaded performance for game logic and physics.

The jump from 1080p Low (361.1 FPS) to 1080p Medium (267.5 FPS) is 93.6 FPS, which is a larger drop than the GPU's raw performance would suggest if the CPU were not involved. This implies that even at 1080p, the CPU is contributing to the frame rate ceiling, and the GPU is not the sole limiter. At 4K, however, the CPU's influence diminishes — the difference between Low (120.6 FPS) and Medium (87.0 FPS) is 33.6 FPS, showing that the GPU's pixel throughput is the dominant factor at higher resolutions.

The CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads are likely underutilized in Barony, as the game is not a multi-threaded benchmark. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 9276 versus the max-thread score of 9979 suggests that scaling beyond 16 threads provides only marginal gains, which is typical for games. The single-thread score of 1043 in 3DMark and 2561 in Geekbench single-core indicate strong per-core performance, which is what matters most for a roguelike where game logic is often serialized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured average FPS values are: Low 120.6, Medium 87.0, High 79.1, and Ultra 57.1. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent decline, with the largest drop occurring between Medium and High (7.9 FPS) and between High and Ultra (22.0 FPS). The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration below 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: Low 226.8, Medium 169.4, High 144.1, and Ultra 105.1. The difference between Low and Medium is 57.4 FPS, between Medium and High is 25.3 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 39.0 FPS. All configurations exceed 100 FPS, making 1440p a comfortable resolution for this combo.

At 1920x1080, the average FPS values are: Low 361.1, Medium 267.5, High 230.3, and Ultra 165.0. The gap between Low and Medium is 93.6 FPS, which is the largest single-setting jump at any resolution. The Ultra preset at 1080p is still 165.0 FPS, which is higher than the High preset at 1440p (144.1 FPS), highlighting how resolution affects performance more than settings in this game.

The data shows that resolution has a greater impact on frame rate than settings presets. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings reduces FPS by 86.2 (from 230.3 to 144.1), while moving from High to Ultra at 1080p reduces FPS by 65.3 (from 230.3 to 165.0). This suggests that players prioritizing frame rate should lower resolution before lowering settings, while those wanting visual quality can keep High settings at 1440p with strong results.