Barony

# Barony with Intel Core i7-14700F + AMD Radeon RX 6600

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 produces a playable but not overwhelming experience in Barony, with the measured frame rates showing a clear pattern of GPU-limited scaling as resolution increases. The data set covers four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160), and the results indicate that the RX 6600, which sits at the 63rd percentile among all GPUs, is the primary constraint in most scenarios. The CPU, ranking in the 91st percentile among all processors, provides ample headroom, particularly in lower-resolution tests where frame rates climb past 250 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a steep drop-off that is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 262 FPS average, which falls to 166 FPS at 1440p and then to 87 FPS at 4K. That represents a 66.8% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, a substantial decline that points squarely at the graphics card as the limiting factor. The RX 6600's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes increasingly stressed as pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K.

At Medium settings, the resolution scaling follows a similar trajectory: 195 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 64 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 36.9%, while the further decline to 4K is another 48.0%. High settings show 168 FPS at 1080p, 106 FPS at 1440p, and 55 FPS at 4K, with the 1080p-to-4K reduction reaching 67.3%. Ultra settings produce 120 FPS at 1080p, 76 FPS at 1440p, and 40 FPS at 4K — a 66.7% overall decline.

The consistency of the percentage drop across all four settings presets — roughly two-thirds from 1080p to 4K — is telling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the scaling would be far less severe at higher resolutions because the GPU would have more time to render each frame relative to CPU draw-call overhead. Instead, the data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the frame rate collapses to 40 FPS, which indicates the RX 6600's compute resources — 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs — are saturated. The pixel rate of 159.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s, while respectable for a mid-range card, simply cannot sustain 4K Ultra in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that Medium settings at 1440p provide the most balanced experience, delivering 123 FPS average with a minimum of 105 FPS and a maximum of 142 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and leaves enough headroom for frame-time spikes without dropping into stutter territory. The 105 FPS minimum is particularly reassuring, as it indicates that even the worst-case scenarios remain fluid. At 1080p, Medium settings push to 195 FPS average with a minimum of 166 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate displays, but the gains over 1440p Medium are marginal in terms of perceived smoothness for most players.

For 4K displays, the options are more limited. High settings yield 55 FPS average, which is borderline playable but below the 60 FPS standard. Low settings at 4K produce 87 FPS, which is smoother but requires sacrificing visual fidelity. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 40 FPS, which is likely too low for comfortable gameplay in a roguelike where quick reactions matter. The data suggests that 4K players should either accept Low settings for a playable 87 FPS or drop to 1440p to enjoy higher presets.

At 1080p, Ultra settings deliver 120 FPS average, which is a strong result and suggests that players with 120 Hz or 144 Hz monitors can push the game to its maximum visual quality without sacrificing frame rate. The gap between High (168 FPS) and Ultra (120 FPS) at 1080p indicates that the Ultra preset carries a significant rendering cost, but the absolute numbers remain high enough to justify the visual upgrade for most users. The sweet spot across the entire resolution range is Medium at 1440p, as it offers the best combination of frame rate stability and visual quality.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock of 2.10 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide substantial single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4958 and Geekbench single-core score of 2429. In Barony, a roguelike that typically relies more on game logic and procedural generation than on massive multi-threaded rendering workloads, the CPU's strong single-thread performance is likely the more relevant attribute.

The processor's multi-threaded capabilities, however, are not wasted. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and Geekbench multi-core score of 19620 place it in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53620. The nearest rivals in this regard — the Intel Xeon 6505P (53701, -0.2% delta), Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (53469, +0.3%), AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (53288, +0.6%), and AMD EPYC 7313P (53206, +0.8%) — all sit within a narrow margin, indicating that the i7-14700F is competitive with high-end workstation and server parts.

In the context of Barony's measured FPS, the CPU appears to provide more than enough headroom. The fact that frame rates scale so dramatically with resolution — from 262 FPS at 1080p Low to 40 FPS at 4K Ultra — suggests that the GPU is the limiting component even at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 262 FPS average indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU with enough draw calls and game state updates to sustain very high frame rates. The 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for the kind of rapid, unpredictable state changes common in roguelike games.

The CPU's 65 W TDP is notably low for a 20-core part, which suggests efficient power management, but this is not directly reflected in measured FPS. The PassMark multi-thread score of 41317 and single-thread score of 4257 further confirm that the processor is capable of handling both the game's simulation logic and the background tasks that might compete for resources. The data compression score of 505885 and encryption score of 30144 indicate strong general-purpose throughput, though these are not directly relevant to Barony's rendering pipeline.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Barony at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only at lower settings. The measured data shows 87 FPS at 4K Low, 64 FPS at 4K Medium, 55 FPS at 4K High, and 40 FPS at 4K Ultra. For a stable 60 FPS experience, Low settings are required, while Medium dips below 60 FPS on average.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo if I want to use Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p Ultra, the combo achieves 120 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 76 FPS, which is still playable but with less headroom. At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 40 FPS, which is likely too low for comfortable play.

Q: How does the RX 6600 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 6600 has an average benchmark score of 19036, sitting at the 63rd percentile. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 (19030, 0% delta), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile (19049, -0.1%), NVIDIA Tesla K20m (19089, -0.3%), and NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation (18954, +0.4%). These deltas are all within a fraction of a percent, indicating near-identical synthetic performance.

Q: Does the CPU's 20-core configuration provide any benefit in Barony?

A: While Barony may not fully utilize all 20 cores, the i7-14700F's strong single-thread performance — evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4958 and PassMark single-thread score of 4257 — ensures that the game's logic runs without CPU bottlenecks. The high multi-core scores (Cinebench R23 multi-core of 35122) also help with background tasks and system responsiveness.

Q: What minimum FPS can I expect at Medium settings?

A: The measured minimums for Medium settings are 166 FPS at 1080p, 105 FPS at 1440p, and 55 FPS at 4K. The maximums are 224 FPS at 1080p, 142 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K.

Q: How does the i7-14700F rank against other CPUs in its class?

A: The i7-14700F is in the 91st percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 53620. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Xeon 6505P (-0.2% delta), Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (+0.3%), AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (+0.6%), and AMD EPYC 7313P (+0.8%), all of which are within 1% of its average score.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process with 11,060 million transistors. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1626 MHz, a game clock of 2044 MHz, and a boost clock of 2491 MHz. Its memory configuration consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card's FP32 performance is rated at 8.928 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 17.86 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio).

The GPU's benchmark profile shows it at the 63rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19036. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 1492, while Geekbench results include 88398 in Metal, 28850 in OpenCL, and 67623 in Vulkan. PassMark scores include 15096 in G3D, 6554 in GPU Compute, and specific DirectX tests: 95 in DX10, 152 in DX11, 51 in DX12, and 197 in DX9. The 2D score of 889 is relatively modest.

In Barony, the GPU's role is clearly dominant. The measured FPS scaling with resolution and settings shows that the RX 6600 is the bottleneck across all tested configurations. At 1080p, the card can produce very high frame rates — 262 FPS at Low and 195 FPS at Medium — but these numbers drop sharply as resolution increases. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is likely sufficient for Barony's assets, but the memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s may constrain performance at 4K, where larger textures and higher pixel counts demand more data throughput.

The GPU's 28 ray accelerators (RT cores) are present but likely underused in Barony, which is not a ray-tracing-heavy title. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures compatibility with modern rendering features, but the measured FPS suggests that the game relies more on traditional rasterization. The pixel rate of 159.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s are the key metrics for understanding the 4K performance drop: at 3840x2160, the card must fill over 8.3 million pixels per frame, and at 40 FPS Ultra, it is rendering 331 million pixels per second, which approaches the card's fill-rate limits.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data set is as follows. At 1920x1080, Low settings produce 262 FPS average, Medium produces 195 FPS average with a minimum of 166 FPS and maximum of 224 FPS, High produces 168 FPS average, and Ultra produces 120 FPS average. At 2560x1440, Low settings yield 166 FPS average, Medium yields 123 FPS average with a minimum of 105 FPS and maximum of 142 FPS, High yields 106 FPS average, and Ultra yields 76 FPS average. At 3840x2160, Low settings deliver 87 FPS average, Medium delivers 64 FPS average with a minimum of 55 FPS and maximum of 74 FPS, High delivers 55 FPS average, and Ultra delivers 40 FPS average.

The relationship between settings presets is consistent across resolutions. At 1080p, the transition from Low to Medium costs 67 FPS (a 25.6% reduction), from Medium to High costs 27 FPS (a 13.8% reduction), and from High to Ultra costs 48 FPS (a 28.6% reduction). At 1440p, the same transitions cost 43 FPS (25.9%), 17 FPS (13.8%), and 30 FPS (28.3%). At 4K, the transitions cost 23 FPS (26.4%), 9 FPS (14.1%), and 15 FPS (27.3%). This consistency suggests that each settings tier imposes a similar relative cost regardless of resolution, which points to the GPU being the sole performance limiter.

The minimum FPS data, available only for Medium settings, shows that the worst-case frame rates scale linearly with resolution: 166 FPS at 1080p, 105 FPS at 1440p, and 55 FPS at 4K. The maximum FPS values follow the same pattern: 224 FPS at 1080p, 142 FPS at 1440p, and 74 FPS at 4K. The gap between minimum and maximum at Medium settings is 58 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p, and 19 FPS at 4K, indicating that frame-time variance decreases as the GPU becomes more heavily loaded.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i7-14700F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 ranks 2885 out of 3717 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the lower portion of the database at approximately the 22nd percentile of all combinations. This ranking reflects the GPU's mid-range positioning — the RX 6600 is at the 63rd percentile among GPUs, but when paired with a high-end CPU like the i7-14700F, the overall combo ranking is dragged down by the graphics card's limitations in this game.

The rank of 2885 out of 3717 means that 832 combos performed worse, while 2884 combos performed better. This is a notable discrepancy considering the CPU's strong benchmark position — the i7-14700F is in the 91st percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 53620. The gap between the CPU's high percentile and the combo's low rank underscores the GPU-bound nature of Barony's rendering workload. A weaker CPU paired with a stronger GPU would likely achieve a higher combo rank, as the frame rates are almost entirely determined by the graphics card's fill rate and memory bandwidth.

The data suggests that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming in Barony, where the RX 6600 can leverage the i7-14700F's strong single-threaded performance to deliver high frame rates. At 4K, the combo falls below the 60 FPS threshold at Medium settings and above, making it a less attractive option for high-resolution displays. The measured FPS values and the combo's rank of 2885 out of 3717 provide a clear picture: the i7-14700F has ample headroom for this game, but the RX 6600 is the limiting factor, and users seeking higher 4K performance would need to consider a more powerful GPU.