Barony

The data for Barony on the Intel Core i7-14700K and AMD Radeon RX 580 combination shows a clear performance hierarchy across the four settings presets tested. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 152.4 FPS, while Medium yields 113.5 FPS, High produces 99.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 72.6 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 38.9 FPS reduction, while the jump from High to Ultra is a 27 FPS reduction, indicating that the most demanding visual features are concentrated in the Ultra preset. At 2560x1440, the pattern holds with Low at 97.3 FPS, Medium at 71.4 FPS, High at 59.9 FPS, and Ultra at 43.7 FPS. The 4K results show the GPU struggling more severely: Low achieves 52.7 FPS, Medium 41 FPS, High 33 FPS, and Ultra only 24.8 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K falls below the 30 FPS playability threshold, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. The High preset at 1440p, with 59.9 FPS average, offers a balanced experience close to the 60 FPS target, while the Low preset at 1080p provides the highest headroom for competitive play. Given the data, the best experience per the measured rows is the High preset at 2560x1440, as it maintains near-60 FPS while presumably retaining higher visual fidelity than Medium or Low. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, Low at 1080p with 152.4 FPS is the clear choice, but for a balance of quality and performance, High at 1440p is the sweet spot.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combination in Barony?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 152.4 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Does the Ultra preset ever reach 60 FPS at any resolution?

A: No. The Ultra preset peaks at 72.6 FPS at 1920x1080, drops to 43.7 FPS at 2560x1440, and falls to 24.8 FPS at 3840x2160. Only the 1080p result exceeds the 60 FPS mark.

Q: How does the 4K High preset compare to the 1080p Ultra preset?

A: The 4K High preset averages 33 FPS, which is 39.6 FPS lower than the 1080p Ultra preset's 72.6 FPS. This represents a significant performance hit from both resolution and settings increases.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Medium settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 97.3 FPS while Medium averages 71.4 FPS, a difference of 25.9 FPS. This shows that the Medium preset introduces a substantial rendering load increase over Low.

Q: Is the RX 580 capable of 4K gameplay in Barony?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160, the best result is 52.7 FPS on Low settings. The High preset drops to 33 FPS, and Ultra falls to 24.8 FPS. Therefore, 4K is only viable at Low settings, with higher presets falling below acceptable smoothness levels.

Q: Which settings preset yields the smallest FPS gap between 1080p and 1440p?

A: The Low preset shows a drop from 152.4 FPS at 1080p to 97.3 FPS at 1440p, a 55.1 FPS difference. The High preset drops from 99.6 to 59.9 FPS, a 39.7 FPS difference. The Medium preset drops from 113.5 to 71.4 FPS, a 42.1 FPS difference. The Ultra preset drops from 72.6 to 43.7 FPS, a 28.9 FPS difference, which is the smallest absolute gap.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is built on the GCN 4.0 architecture using the Polaris 20 chip on a 14 nm process from GlobalFoundries. It has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz, with memory running at 2000 MHz. The card has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. Its peak pixel rate is 42.88 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 193.0 GTexel/s, with an FP32 throughput of 6.175 TFLOPS.

In Barony, the GPU's role becomes increasingly critical as resolution rises. At 1920x1080, the RX 580 delivers 152.4 FPS on Low settings, indicating that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at this resolution. However, the 4K results show a dramatic scaling of workload on the GPU. The Ultra preset at 3840x2160 produces only 24.8 FPS, which is less than one-third of the 1080p Ultra score of 72.6 FPS. This severe drop is consistent with the GPU's 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6.175 TFLOPS compute capability being overwhelmed by the pixel count at 4K. The GPU's benchmark percentile of 53 places it in the mid-range, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 with a 0% delta and the GTX 950 with a 0.1% delta. The RX 580's scores in DirectX 11 (60) and DirectX 12 (43) from Passmark suggest that the card handles older APIs well, which aligns with Barony's roguelike genre that may not utilize the latest graphics features.

The data indicates that the RX 580's 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for Barony across all tested settings, as no memory-related stutters are implied by the FPS numbers. The card's 32 ROPs are likely a limiting factor at 4K, where fill-rate demands increase significantly. The transition from 1440p High (59.9 FPS) to 4K High (33 FPS) represents a 44.9% drop in performance, which correlates with the fourfold increase in pixel count from 1440p to 4K. This behavior is typical for a GPU with this pixel rate and texture rate, where the shading units and TMUs struggle to keep up with the higher resolution geometry.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete matrix of average FPS across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 152.4 FPS, making it the fastest configuration tested. The Medium preset follows at 113.5 FPS, which is 38.9 FPS slower. High reaches 99.6 FPS, a further 13.9 FPS reduction. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 72.6 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold but shows a 79.8 FPS gap from Low. This spread of results suggests that Barony's Ultra settings introduce significant rendering costs, possibly including advanced lighting or shadow effects that tax the RX 580's 6.175 TFLOPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down uniformly. Low settings produce 97.3 FPS, which is 55.1 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium at 1440p averages 71.4 FPS, High at 59.9 FPS, and Ultra at 43.7 FPS. The 1440p High result of 59.9 FPS is notable because it is just below the 60 FPS target, indicating that users can achieve near-smooth gameplay at this setting. The 1440p Ultra result of 43.7 FPS is a 28.9 FPS drop from 1080p Ultra, showing that the resolution increase has a substantial impact on the GPU's ability to maintain frame rates.

At 3840x2160, the RX 580's limitations become apparent. The Low preset averages 52.7 FPS, which is the only 4K result above 50 FPS. Medium drops to 41 FPS, High to 33 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 24.8 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest recorded in the entire dataset and falls well below the 30 FPS playability standard. The gap between 4K Low and 4K Ultra is 27.9 FPS, which is a smaller absolute difference than at 1080p (79.8 FPS) but represents a larger percentage drop. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that even reducing settings does not yield the same proportional gains as at lower resolutions.

The data also reveals that the FPS differences between settings presets are not linear. At 1080p, the jump from Low to Medium costs 38.9 FPS, but the jump from High to Ultra costs 27 FPS. At 4K, the Low to Medium drop is 11.7 FPS, while High to Ultra is 8.2 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset's additional features are more demanding at lower resolutions where the GPU has more headroom, but at 4K, the base rendering load dominates regardless of settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is steep and reveals the limiting component clearly. At Low settings, the 1080p score is 152.4 FPS, dropping to 97.3 FPS at 1440p (a 55.1 FPS decrease) and then to 52.7 FPS at 4K (a 44.6 FPS decrease from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 99.7 FPS, representing a 65.4% reduction. This substantial decline is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the RX 580's 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6.175 TFLOPS compute are the limiting factors.

At High settings, the scaling is similar: 99.6 FPS at 1080p, 59.9 FPS at 1440p, and 33 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 39.7 FPS, and the 1440p to 4K drop is 26.9 FPS. The percentage reduction from 1080p to 4K is 66.9%, which is slightly higher than Low settings. This indicates that at higher settings, the GPU's shading units and TMUs are more heavily utilized, exacerbating the resolution scaling penalty.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 72.6 FPS at 1080p, 43.7 FPS at 1440p, and 24.8 FPS at 4K. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 47.8 FPS, a 65.8% reduction. Interestingly, the absolute drop from 1080p to 1440p is 28.9 FPS, which is smaller than the Low settings' drop of 55.1 FPS. This occurs because Ultra at 1080p already loads the GPU heavily, so the incremental cost of increasing resolution is proportionally smaller.

The data indicates that the CPU, the Intel Core i7-14700K with 20 cores and 28 threads, is not the primary bottleneck at any resolution. The i7-14700K's Cinebench R23 multicore score of 44534 and single-core score of 6287 demonstrate ample processing power. The consistent FPS drops with increasing resolution align with the GPU's workload scaling, confirming that the RX 580 is the limiting component. The 4K results, particularly the 24.8 FPS Ultra score, suggest that the GPU's 32 ROPs and 144 TMUs cannot handle the pixel throughput required at 8.3 million pixels.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The CPU features 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. Its benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 44534 and single-core score of 6287, and a Geekbench multicore score of 18896 with a single-core score of 2932. The CPU's percentile rank of 96 places it among the top processors, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i7-14700KF (0% delta) and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (-0.5% delta).

In Barony, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, AI, and physics, which for a roguelike genre game are likely to be lighter than in modern 3D action titles. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the combination reaches 152.4 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate of many monitors. This high frame rate suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls to maintain such performance. The i7-14700K's high single-core performance, evidenced by the Passmark single-thread score of 4472, is likely the key factor here, as roguelike games often rely on single-threaded performance for game logic.

The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads provide substantial multi-threaded headroom, but Barony may not utilize all of them. The Passmark multithread score of 52392 and the data compression score of 695234 indicate strong parallel processing capabilities, but these are unlikely to be fully utilized in a roguelike. The fact that FPS drops by 65-67% from 1080p to 4K across settings proves that the GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU. At 1080p Low, the 152.4 FPS result is near the practical limit for the RX 580, and the CPU is not constraining performance.

The CPU's memory support for DDR4 and DDR5, with a dual-channel bus, provides adequate memory bandwidth for the game. The 33 MB L3 cache is shared across all cores, which helps with data locality. The i7-14700K's boost clock of 5.60 GHz is impressive, and the Passmark find prime numbers score of 212 suggests strong integer performance. Overall, the data shows that the Core i7-14700K is more than sufficient for Barony, and the performance ceiling is imposed by the Radeon RX 580, not the processor.