Barony

The Intel Core i9-14900K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 produces a highly unusual performance profile in Barony, a roguelike title from 2015. The combination ranks 1414th out of 1702 tested combos, placing it in the lower third of all configurations. However, the measured frame rates reveal that this ranking is not a story of outright weakness, but rather one of extreme scaling behavior where the CPU's enormous headroom is capped by a mid-range GPU that struggles at higher resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: What is the combo's overall rank in Barony?*

A: The pair ranks 1414th out of 1702 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 17% of all systems tested for this game.

Q: How does the i9-14900K compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The processor scores 79824 on average, which is 0.7% ahead of both the Intel Core i9-14900KF and Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF, and 0.9% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K. It trails the AMD EPYC 7413 by a marginal 0.3%.

Q: What is the maximum and minimum average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average is 259.9 FPS at 1080p Low settings. The lowest is 37.2 FPS at 4K Ultra settings.

Q: How does the RTX 2060's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 16074. It sits 0.5% below the AMD Radeon RX 7600S and 1.8% above the AMD Radeon Pro W5500. Its closest performance peers are the Radeon Pro 5600M and Pro 5700, both of which score 16351, putting them 1.7% ahead.

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 164.8 FPS at 1080p to 54.2 FPS at 4K. This represents a reduction of approximately 67% when moving to the higher resolution.

Q: Does the GPU's percentile ranking suggest it is a bottleneck?

A: The RTX 2060 sits in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, while the i9-14900K is in the 97th percentile among all CPUs. This significant gap in relative standing strongly indicates the GPU is the limiting component in most scenarios.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz, featuring a substantial 36 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a desktop-class component with a 125 W TDP, designed for Intel Socket 1700 and supporting both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. Its synthetic benchmark scores are formidable: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a single-core score of 7040, alongside a Geekbench multi-core score of 20370.

In the context of Barony, a roguelike game released in 2015, the CPU's role is primarily to ensure that frame pacing remains consistent and that the game logic never becomes the limiting factor. The data supports this interpretation. At 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 259.9 FPS, a figure that far exceeds the refresh rate of most displays. Even at 1080p Ultra, the average remains a high 122.2 FPS. The processor's 97th percentile ranking against all CPUs, combined with its 0.9% lead over the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, confirms that it provides more than sufficient computational power for this title. The game's roguelike nature, with procedural generation and numerous entities, can be CPU-intensive, but the i9-14900K's 32 threads and high boost clock of 6.00 GHz ensure that this is not a point of failure. The benchmark results indicate that the CPU is effectively "invisible" in the performance equation, allowing the GPU to dictate the final output.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture GPU built on TSMC's 12 nm process, featuring 1920 shading units, 30 RT cores, and 240 tensor cores. It comes with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is rated at 1680 MHz, and it delivers 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The card's average benchmark score is 16074, placing it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs. This is a stark contrast to the CPU's 97th percentile standing, and it is this disparity that defines the combo's behavior in Barony.

The GPU's influence is most evident in the scaling of frame rates with resolution. At 1080p Low, the RTX 2060 manages 259.9 FPS, but this drops to 163.5 FPS at 1440p and 86.9 FPS at 4K. This is a clear indication that the GPU is being pushed harder as pixel count increases. The memory configuration is also a factor; the 6 GB VRAM capacity may become a constraint at higher resolutions and settings, although the measured data does not show a catastrophic drop. The GPU's close proximity to the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (0.5% difference) in synthetic tests suggests that its raw compute capability is competitive with that mobile part, but its age is apparent in the 4K Ultra result of 37.2 FPS. The data shows that the RTX 2060 is the primary determinant of performance, and its mid-range standing means that the powerful CPU is often left underutilized.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination's rank of 1414 out of 1702 combos is a direct consequence of the GPU's relative weakness compared to the CPU. With 1702 total combinations tested, this system sits in the bottom 17%, which is a poor showing for a configuration featuring one of Intel's flagship processors. The data suggests that pairing a top-tier CPU with a mid-range GPU does not yield a top-tier gaming experience in this title. The CPU's synthetic performance, which is 0.7% ahead of the Core i9-14900KF and 0.7% ahead of the Core Ultra 7 265KF, does not translate into a high ranking because the GPU cannot keep pace with the CPU's output.

The ranking highlights an imbalance. In Barony, the measured FPS at 1080p High (164.8 FPS) and 1440p High (102.6 FPS) are respectable, but they are not exceptional when compared to the broader field of 1702 combos. The 4K Ultra result of 37.2 FPS is particularly telling, as it falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for smooth gameplay. This places the combo in a difficult position: it is powerful enough for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but it lacks the graphical horsepower to compete with higher-end configurations at 4K. The rank relative to other combos is a reflection of the GPU's 58th percentile standing, which drags down the overall system performance despite the CPU's top-tier status.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data provides a clear picture of the system's bottleneck. From 1080p to 4K at High settings, the average FPS drops from 164.8 to 54.2, a reduction of 110.6 FPS or approximately 67%. This is a massive drop, and it points directly to the GPU as the limiting component. When the CPU is capable of delivering 259.9 FPS at 1080p Low, the fact that the 4K Low result is only 86.9 FPS shows that the GPU's pixel throughput is the constraint. The RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM and 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth are simply not sufficient to maintain high frame rates at 4K.

The scaling pattern across all settings is consistent. At every resolution, moving from Low to Ultra incurs a significant penalty. At 1080p, the drop from Low (259.9 FPS) to Ultra (122.2 FPS) is 53%. At 1440p, the drop from Low (163.5 FPS) to Ultra (74.4 FPS) is 54%. At 4K, the drop from Low (86.9 FPS) to Ultra (37.2 FPS) is 57%. These consistent percentage drops indicate that the GPU is operating at its limits across all settings, and the CPU is not the primary factor in the performance decline. The data shows that the i9-14900K has ample headroom, as evidenced by the high 1080p Low score, but the RTX 2060 cannot translate that CPU potential into higher frame rates at more demanding resolutions. This is a classic GPU-bound scenario, where the resolution and settings increase the load on the graphics card, not the processor.