Barony

The Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination lands at rank 978 out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This ranking is somewhat surprising given the hardware’s individual benchmark percentiles — the CPU sits in the 89th percentile overall and the GPU in the 66th — but Barony is a roguelike with modest demands, so the bottleneck shifts quickly to the graphics card at higher settings. The data shows that this combo is far from the top of the heap, yet it delivers playable frame rates across all tested configurations, which suggests the rank is more a reflection of the competitive field than a condemnation of the hardware. What stands out is how the combo’s position varies wildly with settings: at 1080p Low it achieves 338.1 FPS, which would likely rank much higher, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 50.8 FPS, pulling the average down. This indicates that the rank is heavily influenced by the most demanding scenario, and users targeting high refresh rates at lower resolutions will experience a far stronger result than the single rank implies.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations in Barony?

A: The combo ranks 978th out of 1702 tested combos, which places it in the 42.5th percentile of all tested systems. This is a mid-pack result, meaning roughly 57.5% of tested combos perform better on average across all settings and resolutions.

Q: What is the best-case and worst-case frame rate scenario for this hardware?

A: The best-case scenario is at 1920x1080 with Low settings, where the average FPS reaches 338.1. The worst-case scenario is at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, where the average FPS drops to 50.8. This represents a 6.7x difference between the extremes.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060 has an average benchmark score of 23181, placing it 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6600M and 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti. It sits 0.7% ahead of the Intel Arc B580 and 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon 760M. These are essentially statistical ties.

Q: How does the i7-12700K compare to its nearest CPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i7-12700K averages 35684 in benchmark scores, which is 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 and 0.7% behind the Intel Core i5-14500HX. It leads the Intel Core i7-13700T by 0.6% and the Intel Core i7-13800H by 0.8%. The differences are negligible.

Q: Is this combo better suited for 1080p or 4K gaming in Barony?

A: The data strongly favors 1080p. At 1080p Medium the combo achieves 256.1 FPS, while at 4K Medium it drops to 80.8 FPS. Even at 1080p Ultra (155.2 FPS) it outperforms 4K High (70 FPS) by a factor of 2.2, indicating the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Q: What does the 4K Ultra result tell us about the system’s headroom?

A: The 4K Ultra result of 50.8 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, suggesting the system is at its limit. The gap between 4K Medium (80.8 FPS) and 4K Ultra (50.8 FPS) shows a 37.1% performance drop, indicating the Ultra preset imposes a heavy cost that this GPU cannot fully absorb at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data reveals a clear pattern: this combo is heavily resolution-bound. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings drops the average FPS from 216.2 to 137.8, a 36.3% reduction. The jump from 1440p to 4K at High settings is even steeper, falling from 137.8 to 70 FPS, a 49.2% reduction. This progressive degradation indicates that the RTX 4060’s 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus become the primary constraint as pixel count increases.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 338.1 FPS at 1080p drops to 217.1 at 1440p (35.8% reduction) and then to 114 at 4K (47.5% reduction). The fact that even at Low settings the 4K result falls below 120 FPS suggests the GPU’s raw compute throughput, rated at 15.11 TFLOPS, is the limiting factor rather than memory bandwidth alone. The Ultra preset tells a similar story: 155.2 FPS at 1080p, 99.3 at 1440p, and 50.8 at 4K, with the 4K result being the only configuration below 60 FPS.

The implication is that the i7-12700K is not the bottleneck in this game at any resolution. The CPU’s 12 cores and 20 threads, with a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, provide ample headroom, as evidenced by the 338.1 FPS result at 1080p Low. The data suggests that users who want to maintain high frame rates should stick to 1080p or 1440p, where the combo can push well above 144 Hz at most settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce an average of 338.1 FPS, Medium drops to 256.1 FPS, High to 216.2 FPS, and Ultra to 155.2 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 24.3% reduction, while High to Ultra is a 28.2% reduction, showing that the Ultra preset is particularly demanding relative to High.

At 2560x1440, the numbers scale down proportionally but remain robust. Low settings average 217.1 FPS, Medium 162.5 FPS, High 137.8 FPS, and Ultra 99.3 FPS. The gap between Medium and High at 1440p is 15.2%, which is smaller than the 18.5% gap at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is becoming more saturated at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are the most constrained. Low settings still manage 114 FPS, Medium drops to 80.8 FPS, High to 70 FPS, and Ultra to 50.8 FPS. The transition from High to Ultra at 4K is a 27.4% reduction, the largest single-step drop in the entire dataset, indicating that the Ultra preset at 4K pushes the GPU past its comfortable operating range. Across all resolutions, the data shows a consistent pattern: Low to Medium is a moderate step, Medium to High is a smaller step, and High to Ultra is the most punishing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K brings 12 cores and 20 threads to this combo, built on the Alder Lake architecture with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its synthetic benchmark results are impressive: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29241 and a single-core score of 4128, with a Passmark multithread score of 34404. The CPU’s 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it has substantial compute headroom for Barony’s roguelike mechanics.

In this game, the CPU’s role appears to be largely secondary. The 338.1 FPS result at 1080p Low is far above what any display can show, indicating the CPU is not a limiting factor at that setting. Even at 4K Low, the 114 FPS result suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately. The single-thread performance, measured at 1043 in 3DMark single-thread and 4013 in Passmark single-thread, is strong enough to handle the game’s procedural generation and entity updates without becoming a bottleneck.

The data implies that the i7-12700K could support a more powerful GPU in this game, as the frame rate drops are almost entirely attributable to resolution and settings changes rather than CPU limitations. The 12th Gen Intel architecture, with its hybrid core design, appears well-suited to Barony’s workload, though the game’s modest requirements mean the CPU’s full potential is never truly stressed.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to 1080p High as the sweet spot for this combo. At 216.2 FPS, it delivers excellent smoothness while maintaining visual quality, and it sits well above the 144 Hz threshold common on modern monitors. For users with 1440p displays, Medium settings at 162.5 FPS provide the best balance, as High at 137.8 FPS is still excellent but Medium offers a 17.9% frame rate advantage with minimal visual compromise.

For 4K users, the decision is more nuanced. Medium at 80.8 FPS is playable and smooth, while High at 70 FPS offers better visuals with a 13.4% performance penalty. Ultra at 50.8 FPS should be avoided, as it falls below the 60 FPS threshold and introduces noticeable stutter in fast-paced roguelike gameplay. The Low preset at 4K (114 FPS) is viable for competitive play, but the visual downgrade is substantial.

The data suggests that the Ultra preset is rarely worth the cost. Across all resolutions, Ultra imposes a 28-37% performance penalty over High while offering diminishing visual returns in a game with pixel-art aesthetics. For most users, High or Medium at 1080p or 1440p will provide the best experience, with 4K Medium being the only 4K setting that maintains consistently smooth gameplay. The 8 GB VRAM capacity of the RTX 4060 is sufficient for this game, even at 4K Ultra, but the GPU’s raw compute power limits the viability of that preset.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process, featuring 3072 shading units and a boost clock of 2460 MHz. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, with a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s. The GPU’s synthetic scores show a Passmark G3D score of 19545 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 101030, placing it in the 66th percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU is clearly the dominant factor in this combo’s Barony performance. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent with a GPU that is bandwidth-limited, particularly at higher resolutions. The 128-bit memory bus and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are modest by modern standards, which explains why 4K Ultra (50.8 FPS) struggles while 1080p Low (338.1 FPS) excels. The FP32 performance of 15.11 TFLOPS is adequate for this game’s lighting and effects, but the memory subsystem becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases.

The RTX 4060’s position among its nearest rivals is telling. It sits 0.6% behind the RX 6600M, a mobile GPU, and 0.7% behind the GTX 780 Ti, a much older card. This suggests the RTX 4060 is not a standout performer in raw compute, but its modern architecture and features like DirectX 12 Ultimate support make it competitive. In Barony, the GPU’s performance is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming at high settings, but the data clearly shows that 4K Ultra is beyond its comfortable reach, making the measured 50.8 FPS result the only configuration that fails to meet the 60 FPS standard.