Barony

Barony, a roguelike released in 2015, presents an interesting benchmark case for the Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 pairing. The measured data shows this combination delivers high frame rates across all tested resolutions and settings, but the scaling patterns reveal distinct roles for each component. The CPU provides substantial headroom, while the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher resolutions and quality presets, making this a balanced yet GPU-limited system for this title.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and boosts up to 5.60 GHz, which is critical for Barony's frame generation. The processor's large 33 MB shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 contribute to its overall capability, though the game itself does not appear to be heavily multithreaded based on the performance data.

In the measured results, the CPU's impact is most visible at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 340.1 FPS, a figure that demonstrates the i7-14700KF's ability to feed frames rapidly. The CPU's single-core performance, reflected in a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6290, is particularly relevant for a roguelike where game logic, procedural generation, and entity updates often run on a limited number of threads. The processor's 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates it sits near the top of the performance hierarchy, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-14700K (0% delta) and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (-0.4% delta), showing it is essentially on par with those chips for general compute tasks.

The processor's multi-core strength, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44557 and a Passmark multithread score of 52425, ensures that background tasks or any auxiliary threads in Barony will not cause frame drops. However, the measured FPS data shows that at 4K Ultra, the frame rate falls to 53.3 FPS, which is far below what the CPU alone could support. This indicates that while the i7-14700KF is more than capable of driving high frame rates, the system's overall performance ceiling in this game is determined by the graphics card, not the processor. The CPU's role here is to provide a stable, high-frequency platform that does not introduce bottlenecks, which it does admirably given the 1080p results.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, featuring 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock of 2460 MHz and base clock of 1830 MHz drive 3072 shading units, which deliver 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The card's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present but less relevant for Barony, which is not a graphically intensive title by modern standards.

The GPU's performance in the measured data is clearly the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the RTX 4060 produces 340.1 FPS, but moving to Ultra at the same resolution drops the frame rate to 153.4 FPS, a reduction of over 50%. This scaling pattern is consistent across all resolutions: at 1440p, the range goes from 216 FPS at Low to 98.1 FPS at Ultra, and at 4K, it spans from 114.4 FPS at Low down to 53.3 FPS at Ultra. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for Barony at all tested settings, as no memory-related stuttering or anomalies appear in the data.

The RTX 4060's 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the mid-range tier, which aligns with its measured performance. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (-0.6% delta) and Intel Arc B580 (0.7% delta), indicating it performs similarly to those cards in synthetic benchmarks. For Barony specifically, the GPU's pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s are more than adequate for the game's relatively simple geometry and effects. The data shows that the GPU's performance scales predictably with resolution, confirming its role as the primary constraint when settings are increased.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 216.3 FPS at 1080p to 138.8 FPS at 1440p, and then to 72.8 FPS at 4K. This represents a 66% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is handling the increased pixel count with diminishing returns. The drop from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep, with the frame rate nearly halving, which suggests the RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus become stressed at 4K.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 340.1 FPS at 1080p, 216 FPS at 1440p, and 114.4 FPS at 4K. The fact that the 4K Low result is still above 100 FPS shows that the CPU is capable of pushing high frame rates even at the highest resolution, but the GPU's fill rate limits the output. The difference between Low and High settings at 4K is 41.6 FPS (from 114.4 to 72.8), whereas at 1080p the same settings difference is 123.8 FPS (from 340.1 to 216.3). This narrowing gap at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as pixel count increases.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling: 153.4 FPS at 1080p, 98.1 FPS at 1440p, and 53.3 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the only data point below 60 FPS in the entire set, which indicates that this configuration is not suitable for 4K Ultra gameplay in Barony if a consistent 60+ FPS experience is desired. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra represents a 65% performance drop, which is consistent with the High settings pattern and reinforces that the RTX 4060's compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors, not the CPU.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 974th out of 1702 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 57th percentile of all tested systems. This mid-pack ranking is somewhat surprising given the CPU's high performance tier, but it reflects the GPU's mid-range status. The ranking suggests that while this combo delivers playable frame rates at most settings, there are many other combinations in the database that achieve higher average FPS, likely due to more powerful GPUs.

The combo's rank can be interpreted through the lens of its individual components. The i7-14700KF's 96th percentile CPU ranking is offset by the RTX 4060's 66th percentile GPU ranking, and the overall combo ranking of 57th percentile indicates that the GPU is dragging down the system's relative position. This is typical for a pairing where a high-end CPU is matched with a mid-range GPU, as the GPU's performance ceiling becomes the deciding factor in frame rate output. The fact that the combo ranks below the 50th percentile of all combos in the database suggests that many users have paired stronger GPUs with similar or weaker CPUs to achieve better overall gaming performance in Barony.

Despite the mid-pack ranking, the measured data shows this combo is highly playable for the vast majority of scenarios. The only configuration that falls below 60 FPS is 4K Ultra, and even the 4K High setting maintains 72.8 FPS. For a roguelike game that is not typically competitive in terms of frame rate requirements, this combo provides ample performance for smooth gameplay. The rank of 974 out of 1702 also indicates that there is significant headroom in the database for other combos with higher-end GPUs to outperform this setup, but the i7-14700KF's strong single-core performance ensures that the CPU will not be a limiting factor in most gaming scenarios.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the user's resolution and frame rate target. For 1080p, all settings provide excellent performance: Low delivers 340.1 FPS, Medium 254.6 FPS, High 216.3 FPS, and Ultra 153.4 FPS. Since even Ultra at 1080p exceeds 150 FPS, users with 1080p displays can select Ultra settings without any meaningful performance sacrifice. The data shows that the jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 62.9 FPS, but the resulting frame rate of 153.4 FPS is still far above what most displays can show, making Ultra the recommended choice for 1080p users.

At 1440p, the situation is similar but with slightly tighter margins. Low produces 216 FPS, Medium 158.3 FPS, High 138.8 FPS, and Ultra 98.1 FPS. All of these are above 90 FPS, which is sufficient for smooth gameplay on most 1440p monitors. The recommendation here is to use High settings, which offers a good balance of visual quality and performance at 138.8 FPS. Ultra at 1440p still delivers 98.1 FPS, which is acceptable, but the 40.7 FPS drop from High to Ultra may not be worth the marginal visual improvements in a game like Barony where the art style is relatively simple.

For 4K, the choices are more constrained. Ultra drops to 53.3 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for smooth play. High settings at 4K produce 72.8 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced sections. Medium at 4K yields 83.8 FPS, and Low delivers 114.4 FPS. The best experience per the measured rows is Medium at 4K, as it provides 83.8 FPS while still offering better visual quality than Low. Users with 4K displays should avoid Ultra settings and consider High if they prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate, but Medium offers the most balanced experience. Overall, the data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming with high-to-ultra settings, while 4K users should stick to Medium or High for the smoothest experience.