Barony

Barony, a roguelike released in 2015, presents a unique benchmark scenario for the Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings are exceptionally high, indicating that the game's engine is far from being a stress test for this flagship hardware. The data suggests that the primary limitation in this pairing is not the GPU's raw rendering power, but rather the game's own engine and CPU processing overhead, particularly at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates the shift in system bottleneck. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combination achieves an average of 686.1 FPS. This extraordinarily high figure indicates that the game is heavily CPU-bound at this resolution, as the RTX 5090 can render frames far faster than the game logic can be processed. When moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset average drops to 435.3 FPS, a substantial reduction, but still a very high number. At 3840x2160, the Low preset yields 228.9 FPS, showing that the GPU is finally beginning to take on more of the workload, though the frame rate remains far above what any standard display can showcase.

The scaling pattern across all settings is consistent. For instance, the High preset experiences a steep decline from 438.5 FPS at 1080p to 277.5 FPS at 1440p, and then to 147.8 FPS at 4K. This represents a significant 36.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p, followed by a 46.7% drop from 1440p to 4K. This pattern suggests that while the GPU is becoming more of a factor at higher resolutions, the CPU is still a significant contributor to the performance ceiling even at 4K, given the absolute frame rates are still very high. The Ultra preset shows a similar trend, with 316.6 FPS at 1080p dropping to 202.2 FPS at 1440p and finally to 101.4 FPS at 4K. The fact that even at 4K Ultra, the average frame rate exceeds 100 FPS, indicates that the RTX 5090 is not being fully utilized by this title, and the limiting component is the game engine's single-threaded or low-threaded nature.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i7-14700KF a bottleneck for the RTX 5090 in Barony?

A: Yes, benchmark results indicate a significant CPU bottleneck, especially at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system produces 686.1 FPS, a rate so high that it suggests the GPU is waiting on the CPU to issue draw calls and process game logic. The frame rate scaling, with a large drop from 1080p to 1440p, is a classic sign of a CPU-limited scenario.

Q: What is the performance headroom of this CPU-GPU combination in this game?

A: The data shows massive headroom. At 4K Ultra, the system still averages 101.4 FPS, which is far above the refresh rate of most monitors. This indicates that the hardware is capable of running the game at maximum settings with a high frame rate, and the user is more likely to be limited by their display's refresh rate than by the computer's performance.

Q: How does the i7-14700KF compare to its rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70104, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. It performs nearly identically to the Intel Core i7-14700K, with a deltaPct of 0. It is also 0.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9115 and 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X. The Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 is 1.3% ahead in the average score, but all these processors are in a very tight performance band.

Q: What does the RTX 5090's percentile ranking mean for its overall performance?

A: The RTX 5090 sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs based on its average benchmark score of 84306. This places it in the top tier of graphics cards available. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, is virtually identical, scoring 0.1% higher in the average benchmark.

Q: Is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings significant at 4K?

A: Yes, the difference is substantial. The Low preset at 4K produces an average of 228.9 FPS, while the Ultra preset produces 101.4 FPS. This is a 127.5 FPS difference, representing a 55.7% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings. This indicates that the Ultra settings introduce a significant GPU load, although the resulting frame rate is still very playable.

Q: Does the game's release date correlate with the measured performance?

A: The game was released in 2015, which is much earlier than the release of the CPU (2023) and GPU (2025). The extremely high frame rates measured are consistent with a game from that era, which was designed for less powerful hardware. The data suggests that Barony's engine does not fully utilize the multi-core capabilities of the i7-14700KF, which has 20 cores and 28 threads, and is instead limited by a few faster cores.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend entirely on the user's display refresh rate. At 4K, the High preset provides an average of 147.8 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate gaming. The Ultra preset, at 101.4 FPS, is still very smooth and offers the maximum visual fidelity. For users with a 144Hz display, the High preset is the best choice to comfortably exceed the refresh rate. For those with a 120Hz display, the Ultra preset is a viable option, as it provides a frame rate that is close to the display's maximum.

At 1440p, the performance is so high that the Ultra preset, with an average of 202.2 FPS, is the clear recommendation. This provides the best visual quality while still delivering a frame rate that is far beyond the capabilities of most monitors. The High preset at 277.5 FPS offers even more headroom, but the visual fidelity of Ultra is preferable when the performance cost is so minimal. At 1080p, all settings are playable at extreme frame rates. The Ultra preset's average of 316.6 FPS is a good choice for competitive play or for users with very high refresh rate monitors. The Medium preset at 508.5 FPS and Low at 686.1 FPS provide little practical benefit in terms of visual quality for the extra frame rate.

The data shows that the High preset is a strong balance across all resolutions, offering a substantial improvement over Medium while maintaining a high frame rate. For example, at 1440p, High yields 277.5 FPS, while Medium yields 325.2 FPS. The difference of 47.7 FPS is noticeable, but the visual upgrade of High is generally worth the performance trade-off. For the best experience on a modern high-refresh-rate display, the High preset at 4K is recommended, as it balances visual quality with a frame rate that fully utilizes the hardware.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system's performance is extraordinary across all presets. The Low preset achieves an average of 686.1 FPS, which is the highest measured in this dataset. The Medium preset produces an average of 508.5 FPS, while the High preset is slightly lower at 438.5 FPS. The Ultra preset, while the most demanding, still delivers an average of 316.6 FPS. These numbers confirm that at this resolution, the CPU is the primary limiting factor, as the GPU is capable of producing these frames with ease.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. The Low preset averages 435.3 FPS, followed by Medium at 325.2 FPS, and High at 277.5 FPS. The Ultra preset at this resolution produces an average of 202.2 FPS. The performance drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant for all presets, but the absolute values are still in a range that is considered excellent for gaming. This indicates a shift from a purely CPU-bound state to a more balanced workload, but the CPU is still a limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's load is at its highest. The Low preset averages 228.9 FPS, which is a substantial drop from the 1440p result. The Medium preset follows with 167.8 FPS, and the High preset with 147.8 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, producing an average of 101.4 FPS. This resolution demonstrates the scaling of the GPU workload, but even here, the frame rates are high enough to suggest that the game engine's performance ceiling is being approached. The difference between the High and Ultra presets at 4K (147.8 FPS vs 101.4 FPS) highlights the significant cost of the highest quality settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a flagship graphics card built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, featuring a massive 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. Its core clocks are listed at a base of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz. In the context of Barony, these specifications are massively overqualified. The measured frame rates, which exceed 600 FPS at 1080p Low, show that the GPU's raw compute power is not the limiting factor in this game. The game's simple geometry and effects do not require the high memory bandwidth or the 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power that this card offers.

The GPU's role in this benchmark is primarily to render the frame once the CPU has processed the game logic. The data shows that the RTX 5090 is capable of rendering frames far faster than the game can supply them, even at 4K. The memory capacity of 32 GB is also not a factor, as a roguelike from 2015 will use a tiny fraction of that for textures and assets. The GPU's high performance does ensure that the user will never be GPU-limited in this title, meaning that the visual quality settings can be set to maximum without worrying about frame rate drops, as the Ultra preset at 4K still maintains an average of over 100 FPS. The RTX 5090's synthetic benchmark score of 39650 in Passmark G3D and a percentile rank of 94 vs all GPUs confirm its top-tier status, but in this specific legacy title, its dominance is not fully exercised.