Barony

Barony, a roguelike title from 2015, presents an interesting case study when paired with the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. The measured frame rates across a range of resolutions and settings reveal a system that is exceptionally capable of high refresh rate gameplay, though the balance between CPU and GPU influence shifts noticeably as resolution increases. The data indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU’s headroom is the primary driver of performance, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the definitive bottleneck.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K has a profound impact on average frame rates, clearly illustrating the shift in system bottleneck. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces an average of 214.4 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings, the average drops to 136.3 FPS, a significant reduction that suggests the GPU is beginning to feel the load. At 3840x2160, the average plummets further to 72.4 FPS. This scaling pattern is consistent across all quality presets.

The most telling data point comes from comparing the Low and Ultra presets across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves a staggering 338.2 FPS, but this falls to 213.5 FPS at 1440p and 111.2 FPS at 4K. This steep decline indicates that even at Low settings, the increased pixel count at 4K is a substantial demand. The frame rate drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 227 FPS, a 67% reduction. This behavior is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario at higher resolutions.

Conversely, the scaling from Low to Ultra at a fixed resolution shows the GPU’s limits more clearly. At 1080p, the gap between Low (338.2 FPS) and Ultra (159 FPS) is 179.2 FPS, showing that the GPU has plenty of headroom to render more complex scenes. However, at 4K, the gap narrows to 60.1 FPS (from 111.2 to 51.1), which indicates that the GPU is already saturated by the pixel workload, leaving less performance headroom for visual fidelity enhancements. The data strongly suggests that at 4K, the RTX 4060 is the limiting component, while at 1080p, the i9-14900K’s immense processing power allows the GPU to stretch its legs.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a high-end desktop processor from the Core 14th Gen series, featuring 24 cores and 32 threads. Its architecture, Raptor Lake-R, is built on a 10 nm process and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. With a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz, this CPU provides substantial single-threaded performance, which is critical for a roguelike game like Barony that often relies on game logic, AI, and world generation.

The benchmark data shows the CPU’s raw capability. In Cinebench R23, it scores 49872 in multi-core and 7040 in single-core tests. Its Passmark single-thread score is 4697, and it excels in data compression (792694) and integer math (210622). This processing power is clearly not a bottleneck in Barony, as evidenced by the extremely high frame rates at 1080p. For instance, at 1080p Medium, the combo hits 250.6 FPS, and at 1080p High it achieves 214.4 FPS. These numbers suggest the CPU can feed the GPU far more frames than the GPU can render at lower resolutions.

The CPU’s percentile rank of 97 among all CPUs places it in the top tier of processors. Compared to its nearest rivals, its average benchmark score of 79824 is nearly identical to the AMD EPYC 7413 (80041, deltaPct -0.3) and slightly ahead of the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79245, deltaPct 0.7) and Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (79240, deltaPct 0.7). This indicates that in synthetic tests, the i9-14900K is at the top of its class, but in this specific game, its role is to provide a stable, high-FPS platform without being the constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

In the extensive database of tested combinations for Barony, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 995th out of 1702 total combos. This places it in the upper-middle tier of all tested systems, which is an interesting result given the strength of the CPU. The ranking suggests that while the CPU is a top-tier part, the GPU’s performance characteristics are what ultimately determine this combo’s position in the hierarchy.

The rank of 995 out of 1702 (roughly the 58th percentile) indicates that many other combinations of hardware are capable of producing higher average frame rates in this game. This is likely due to the fact that the RTX 4060, while a competent card, is not the most powerful GPU available. The data shows that the combination is more than capable of high frame rates, but it is not at the absolute top of the charts. The ranking is a holistic view of all resolutions and settings, and the GPU’s performance at 4K likely drags the overall rank down compared to combos with more powerful GPUs. The CPU’s massive headroom does not compensate for the GPU’s limitations at higher resolutions in the overall ranking scheme.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at the combo’s performance across a matrix of resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system is exceptionally fast. On Low settings, it averages 338.2 FPS. This drops to 250.6 FPS on Medium, 214.4 FPS on High, and 159 FPS on Ultra. These numbers are all well above the refresh rate of most high-end monitors, indicating a very smooth experience at 1080p.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows a clear step down. The Low preset yields 213.5 FPS, Medium produces 157.9 FPS, High drops to 136.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 100.4 FPS. The 1440p results show that the system can still handle high refresh rate gaming at this resolution, though the Ultra preset is starting to approach the 100 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor. The Low preset averages 111.2 FPS, which is still playable. However, the Medium preset drops to 83.4 FPS, High to 72.4 FPS, and Ultra to 51.1 FPS. The 4K results show a classic GPU-bound scenario where the frame rate is heavily influenced by the visual quality settings. The drop from Low to Ultra at 4K is a 60 FPS difference, demonstrating the RTX 4060’s struggle with the pixel count at this resolution, especially on higher presets. All data points are measured averages, providing a reliable picture of expected performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is 2460 MHz, and it has a TDP of 115 W. In the context of Barony, the GPU’s role is to handle the rendering workload, which includes textures, lighting, and effects. The 8 GB VRAM is likely sufficient for this title, even at 4K, as the game is from 2015 and does not have the massive texture requirements of modern AAA titles.

The GPU’s benchmark scores show it is a solid mid-range performer. Its Passmark G3D score is 19545, and its Geekbench OpenCL score is 101030. Its percentile rank among all GPUs is 66, which places it above the median. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4060’s average benchmark score of 23181 is very close to the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23321, deltaPct -0.6) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (23338, deltaPct -0.7). It is also slightly ahead of the Intel Arc B580 (23021, deltaPct 0.7).

The performance data in Barony confirms the GPU’s mid-range positioning. At 1080p, it is capable of delivering excellent frame rates, but it does not have the raw power of a higher-tier card. The 4K results, where the High preset yields 72.4 FPS and Ultra drops to 51.1 FPS, clearly show its limitations. The GPU’s 8 GB memory and 128-bit bus are the likely reasons for the steep performance drop at 4K, as the increased resolution demands more memory bandwidth and capacity. In this game, the RTX 4060 is the primary determinant of the combo’s performance ceiling, especially at higher resolutions.