Barony

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

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a desktop processor built on the Arrow Lake-S architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. This is a 10-core, 10-thread part with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. It lacks hyper-threading, so thread count equals core count, which is a notable design choice for a mainstream desktop CPU. The chip carries 20 MB of shared L3 cache, with 192 KB of L1 and 3 MB of L2 per core. Memory support is dual-channel DDR5 with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, and the CPU connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Core Ultra 5 225 posts a multi-core score of 25,891 in Cinebench R23 and a single-core score of 3,655 in the same test. Its PassMark multithread score is 30,459, while single-thread performance lands at 4,412. These numbers place the CPU in the 85th percentile of all processors tested, and its average benchmark score is 36,938. The nearest rivals in aggregate performance are the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (36,945, delta 0%), the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (37,018, -0.2%), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (37,093, -0.4%), and the Intel Core i9-12900T (37,112, -0.5%). Essentially, the Core Ultra 5 225 trades blows with these chips within a fraction of a percent.

For a roguelike like Barony, CPU demands are typically modest because the genre focuses on procedural generation and simulation rather than massive physics or AI threads. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the combo achieves 94 FPS, which indicates the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 622 FPS, a figure that suggests the processor's single-core boost of 4.90 GHz is sufficient to feed the GPU at extreme frame rates. The 10-core/10-thread layout is more than adequate for a game that rarely scales beyond a few threads, and the high boost clock helps maintain frame pacing in scenes with many entities on screen. The lack of hyper-threading is unlikely to matter here, as Barony's workload is not heavily parallelized.

The CPU's 65-watt TDP (though this number is not a measured power draw in the data) and 3 nm process node indicate efficiency, but the benchmark results are what matter. With a Cinebench R20 multi-core score of 6,317 and a single-core score of 891, the processor shows balanced performance that aligns with its mid-range positioning. In the context of this game, the CPU role is to provide a high-frequency, low-latency foundation that never throttles the GPU, and the measured FPS at 1080p Low (622 FPS) confirms that role is fulfilled without strain.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB203 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It packs 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs. The GPU has 84 ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores. Its base clock is 2,295 MHz with a boost clock of 2,617 MHz, while memory runs at 1,875 MHz (30 Gbps effective). The card is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s. The FP32 compute throughput is 56.28 TFLOPS, with a pixel rate of 293.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 879.3 GTexel/s.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5080 scores 8,637 in 3DMark Steel Nomad (DX12), 235,901 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 255,450 in Geekbench Vulkan. Its PassMark G3D score is 36,565, and the GPU compute score is 21,789. The card sits in the 87th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 56,083. Nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757, delta 0.6%), the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698, delta 0.7%), the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828, delta 2.3%), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (57,367, delta -2.2%). The RTX 5080 is slightly ahead of the 8060S and 6750 GRE, but trails the RX 9070 GRE by about 2.2% in aggregate score.

In Barony, the GPU's role is to render the game's visual effects, which include dynamic lighting, particle systems, and potentially large sprite counts typical of roguelikes with graphical overlays. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for any resolution in this title, as Barony is not a VRAM-hungry game. The memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s ensures that texture streaming and framebuffer operations are never constrained. At 4K Ultra, the combo averages 94 FPS, which is well within playable territory. The boost clock of 2,617 MHz allows the GPU to maintain high utilization even when the CPU is delivering frames at 622 FPS in 1080p Low.

The RTX 5080's ray tracing cores are largely irrelevant for Barony, as the game does not utilize RT effects, but the raw rasterization performance shines. The 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute provides ample headroom for the game's shader work. The measured FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows the GPU becoming the limiting factor at higher resolutions, which is expected for a title that is not CPU-bound. The card's 360-watt TDP and dual-slot design (as per the fact pack) are physical attributes, but the performance data indicates that the RTX 5080 delivers a smooth experience across all settings in this game.

# 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 resolution scaling. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 622 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, it drops to 392 FPS, a reduction of 230 FPS or about 37%. At 4K Low, the average is 205 FPS, which is 417 FPS lower than 1080p Low. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is heavily utilized at lower resolutions, but the CPU still has headroom, as the frame rates are exceptionally high.

At Medium settings, the scaling is similar but with slightly lower absolute numbers. 1080p Medium averages 462 FPS (with min/max of 393/532), 1440p Medium averages 292 FPS (min/max 248/336), and 4K Medium averages 152 FPS (min/max 130/175). The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 170 FPS (about 37%), and from 1440p to 4K is 140 FPS (about 48%). This shows that the GPU is the primary limiter as resolution increases, because the percentage drop is larger at higher resolutions where pixel count grows.

High settings show a similar trend: 1080p High averages 397 FPS, 1440p High averages 250 FPS, and 4K High averages 131 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 147 FPS (37%), and from 1440p to 4K is 119 FPS (48%). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the limiting component is the GPU's fill rate and shading capacity, not the CPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to plateau at lower resolutions, but instead the frame rates continue to rise dramatically, indicating the CPU has spare capacity.

At Ultra settings, the pattern continues: 1080p Ultra averages 284 FPS, 1440p Ultra averages 180 FPS, and 4K Ultra averages 94 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 104 FPS (37%), and from 1440p to 4K is 86 FPS (48%). The 4K Ultra result of 94 FPS is still playable, but it shows that the RTX 5080 is working hard to maintain that frame rate. The scaling data indicates that this combo is CPU-limited only at very low resolutions and settings, such as 1080p Low where 622 FPS is achieved, but even then the CPU does not appear to cap the frame rate—it simply delivers what the GPU can produce. Overall, the resolution scaling points to the GPU as the dominant limiting factor in Barony, with the CPU providing ample headroom across all tested configurations.

# How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 193rd out of 2,935 tested combos in Barony. This places the combo in the top 6.6% of all configurations in the database. The rank reflects the aggregate performance across all resolutions and settings, and the data shows that this pairing is well above average for this game. The CPU's 85th percentile standing among all CPUs and the GPU's 87th percentile standing among all GPUs contribute to a high overall ranking, though the combo rank is not simply an average of those percentiles—it is based on the measured FPS data.

The rank of 193 out of 2,935 means that 2,742 other combos perform worse in Barony, while 192 perform better. This is a strong result for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The CPU's nearest rivals (Ryzen 5 5600F, Ryzen 5 5500X3D, Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450, Core i9-12900T) have nearly identical aggregate scores, so pairing any of them with the RTX 5080 would likely yield similar rankings. The GPU's nearest rivals (Radeon 8060S, RX 6750 GRE, Pro W5700X, RX 9070 GRE) are within a few percent of the RTX 5080's average score, so combos using those GPUs with a comparable CPU would likely fall in the same ranking range.

It is important to note that the combo rank is specific to Barony. The game's roguelike nature, with its procedural dungeons and moderate graphical demands, means that the CPU plays a smaller role than in CPU-intensive titles. The high frame rates at 1080p (622 FPS Low) indicate that this combo is far from the top of the charts, but the 193rd rank shows it is still in the upper echelon. The fact that 192 combos outperform this one suggests that those configurations likely use faster CPUs or GPUs, such as a higher-tier Core Ultra 7 or 9 with an RTX 5090, but the data does not specify which combos rank higher. What the data does show is that the Core Ultra 5 225 + RTX 5080 is a balanced pairing for Barony, with the GPU doing most of the heavy lifting at higher resolutions.

# FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings for this combo?

A: The average FPS at 4K Ultra is 94 FPS. This is the lowest average among all tested settings and resolutions, but it remains playable.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in aggregate benchmark score?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has an average benchmark score of 36,938. Its closest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, scores 36,945, a delta of 0%. The Ryzen 5 5500X3D scores 37,018 (-0.2%), the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 scores 37,093 (-0.4%), and the Core i9-12900T scores 37,112 (-0.5%). The CPU is effectively tied with these processors.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS is 622, achieved at 1080p Low settings. This indicates the combo has significant headroom at lower resolutions.

Q: Does the GPU have enough VRAM for Barony at any resolution?

A: The RTX 5080 has 16 GB of GDDR7 memory. Barony is not a VRAM-intensive title, and the data shows no indications of memory limitations at any tested resolution or setting, including 4K Ultra.

Q: How does the GPU rank among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 5080 is in the 87th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 56,083. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 8060S, scores 55,757, a delta of 0.6% in favor of the RTX 5080.

Q: What is the FPS difference between 1080p High and 4K High?

A: At 1080p High, the average FPS is 397. At 4K High, the average FPS is 131. The drop is 266 FPS, or about a 67% reduction, highlighting the GPU's role as the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

# Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 in Barony is as follows, organized by resolution and settings.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: Average FPS 622. This is the highest recorded average in the entire dataset, indicating that the combo is far from being CPU-limited at this resolution.
• Medium: Average FPS 462, with a minimum of 393 and maximum of 532. The spread of 139 FPS between min and max shows some frame variability, but the average remains very high.
• High: Average FPS 397. This is a drop of 65 FPS from Medium, showing the cost of higher graphical fidelity.
• Ultra: Average FPS 284. The drop from High to Ultra is 113 FPS, which is the largest single-setting reduction at 1080p.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: Average FPS 392. This is 230 FPS lower than 1080p Low, a 37% reduction.
• Medium: Average FPS 292, with a minimum of 248 and maximum of 336. The min-max spread is 88 FPS, narrower than at 1080p Medium.
• High: Average FPS 250. The drop from Medium is 42 FPS.
• Ultra: Average FPS 180. This is 70 FPS lower than High, and 104 FPS lower than 1080p Ultra.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: Average FPS 205. This is 187 FPS lower than 1440p Low, a 48% reduction.
• Medium: Average FPS 152, with a minimum of 130 and maximum of 175. The min-max spread is 45 FPS, the tightest of any Medium setting, suggesting more stable frame pacing at 4K.
• High: Average FPS 131. The drop from Medium is 21 FPS.
• Ultra: Average FPS 94. This is the lowest average across all configurations, and it is 37 FPS lower than 4K High. The drop from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra is 190 FPS, a 67% reduction.

The data shows a consistent pattern: each resolution step (1080p to 1440p to 4K) reduces FPS by roughly 37% to 48%, depending on settings. The absolute FPS figures remain high even at 4K Ultra (94 FPS), confirming that this combo is well-suited for Barony across all tested configurations. The min/max values are only provided for Medium settings, and they show that frame variability increases at lower resolutions, which is typical when the CPU is feeding frames at very high rates.