Barony

Barony is a roguelike that, on this Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combo, becomes less about survival and more about raw frame throughput, with the data showing a system so powerful that it pushes even 4K Ultra past the 100 FPS mark. The benchmark results indicate that the RTX 5090 is the dominant force here, but the CPU’s 14 cores and 5.00 GHz boost clock ensure it never becomes a bottleneck, even at 1080p where frame rates exceed 300 FPS across all settings. This pairing ranks in the top 2.5% of all tested combos for this game, placing it at rank 73 out of 2,935, which reflects its ability to obliterate any performance ceiling Barony could present. The measured data shows a system that is overkill for the game’s demands, yet it delivers a consistently smooth experience that highlights the extremes of both components.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep but expected, revealing a shift in the limiting factor. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the combo produces 311 FPS, which drops to 196 FPS at 1440p and further to 102 FPS at 4K. This represents a 67% reduction in average FPS from 1080p to 4K, a clear indication that the GPU is being increasingly taxed as pixel count rises. The RTX 5090’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient, but the raw compute demand of 4K resolution is what brings the frame rate down from the stratospheric levels seen at lower resolutions.

Looking at the Low preset, the scaling pattern is even more pronounced. At 1080p Low, the system hits 679 FPS, which is a staggering number that highlights the CPU’s capability to feed frames. At 1440p Low, it drops to 428 FPS, and at 4K Low, it settles at 224 FPS. The 4K Low result is still 73% faster than the 4K Ultra result, showing that the GPU’s workload is heavily influenced by settings. The data suggests that even at 4K, the CPU is not the primary constraint; the 224 FPS at Low settings demonstrates headroom, while the 102 FPS at Ultra shows the GPU is working harder. The limiting component at 4K Ultra is clearly the GPU, as the frame rate scales almost inversely with the increased shading and texture work.

The Medium preset offers a middle ground, with 505 FPS at 1080p, 319 FPS at 1440p, and 167 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium result of 167 FPS is notable because it is higher than the 4K High result of 143 FPS, which is counterintuitive until you consider that the High preset might enable more demanding effects that disproportionately impact the GPU. The data shows a consistent ~50% performance hit when moving from 1440p to 4K across all settings, which is a typical GPU-bound scaling pattern. For a game like Barony, where visual fidelity is secondary to gameplay, the 4K performance is still exceptional, with even the most demanding preset staying above 100 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows indicate that the Ultra preset is the most demanding, yielding 102 FPS at 4K, 196 FPS at 1440p, and 311 FPS at 1080p. While these numbers are all playable, the jump from High to Ultra is significant, costing roughly 29% of the frame rate at 4K. The High preset, conversely, offers a better balance, with 143 FPS at 4K and 273 FPS at 1440p, representing a more efficient use of the GPU’s resources. The data suggests that for players prioritizing a stable high refresh rate at 4K, High is the optimal choice, as it provides a 40% boost over Ultra while still delivering visually rich graphics.

For competitive or high-refresh-rate gaming, the Low preset is the clear winner, especially at 1080p and 1440p. At 1080p Low, the system produces 679 FPS, and at 1440p Low, it produces 428 FPS, both of which are far beyond the capability of any standard display. Even at 4K Low, the 224 FPS result is exceptional, making this preset the best for maximizing frame throughput. The Medium preset serves as a compromise, offering 167 FPS at 4K and 319 FPS at 1440p, which are respectable figures but do not provide the same headroom as Low.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on the target resolution. At 4K, the High preset is recommended because it maintains a high average FPS of 143 without the performance penalty of Ultra. At 1440p, the High preset also shines with 273 FPS, but the Ultra preset’s 196 FPS is still sufficient for most high-refresh displays. At 1080p, the Ultra preset’s 311 FPS is more than adequate, but the Medium preset’s 505 FPS shows that there is ample headroom to reduce settings for even higher frame rates. The data indicates that the GPU is so powerful that the settings recommendations are more about display refresh rate than about achieving playability.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the centerpiece of this combo, and its specifications directly correlate with the measured performance. The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. This massive memory pool and bandwidth ensure that texture streaming and high-resolution assets are never a bottleneck, even at 4K Ultra. The GPU’s boost clock of 2407 MHz, paired with 21,760 shading units, provides the raw compute power needed to drive the high frame rates seen in the data. The 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is a clear indicator of its capability, and the benchmark results confirm this with a PassMark G3D score of 39,650.

The GPU’s role becomes more apparent when analyzing the frame rate scaling. At 1080p Low, the 679 FPS result is likely limited by the CPU’s ability to issue draw calls, but the GPU is still capable of processing them. As resolution increases to 4K, the GPU’s workload expands, and the frame rate drops to 224 FPS at Low, showing that the GPU is now the primary processor. The data shows a 67% performance drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which is a typical GPU-bound scenario. The RTX 5090’s 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are not directly relevant to Barony’s roguelike rendering, but they contribute to the overall architecture that supports the high fill rates.

The GPU’s 176 ROPs and 680 TMUs are crucial for pixel and texture processing, and the measured 4K Ultra result of 102 FPS demonstrates that even this flagship GPU is challenged by the highest settings. The 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate are among the highest ever recorded, and they translate directly to the frame rates seen in the data. The RTX 5090’s percentile rank of 92 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79,842, places it in the elite tier, and its nearest rivals, such as the Tesla P100, are not even close in terms of gaming performance, as evidenced by the 0.3% deltaPct in average score.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a combo rank of 73 out of 2,935 tested combinations in Barony. This places it in the top 2.5% of all systems, indicating exceptional performance that is only surpassed by a small fraction of other pairings. The rank is a reflection of the synergy between the CPU and GPU, where the CPU’s single-core performance of 2,085 in Cinebench R23 ensures that it can keep up with the GPU’s frame output. The data shows that this combo is not just powerful but also well-balanced, avoiding the bottleneck that can plague less carefully matched systems.

The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 and Intel Core i9-13900HX, have average benchmark scores of 46,030 and 46,098, respectively, which are within 0.1% of the Core Ultra 5 235’s 46,062 average. This indicates that the CPU’s performance is on par with these alternatives, but the combo rank suggests that the RTX 5090 is the differentiator. The GPU’s nearest rivals, including the Tesla P100, have average scores that are similar, but the RTX 5090’s gaming-oriented architecture makes it far more suitable for this title. The rank 73 out of 2,935 is a strong endorsement of the combo’s overall capability.

In comparison to other tested combos, the data shows that this pairing excels at all resolutions. At 1080p Ultra, the 311 FPS result is higher than what most systems can achieve, and at 4K Ultra, the 102 FPS result confirms the GPU’s power. The combo rank is not just about peak FPS but also about consistency, and the measured data shows that the system maintains high frame rates across all settings. The 89th percentile for the CPU and 92nd percentile for the GPU further reinforce that this is a top-tier combination.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 plays a supporting role in this combo, but its specifications are critical for achieving the high frame rates seen at lower resolutions. The CPU has 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. This single-threaded performance is essential for Barony, which, as a roguelike, may rely on a single game thread for logic and physics. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,085 indicates strong per-core performance, which allows the CPU to feed the GPU with data efficiently.

At 1080p Low, the system produces 679 FPS, which is a clear indication that the CPU is able to process the game’s logic at an extremely high rate. The 14 cores are more than sufficient for the game’s multithreaded aspects, but the high boost clock is what drives the single-threaded performance. The CPU’s L3 cache of 24 MB shared and L2 cache of 3 MB per core help reduce latency, which is crucial for maintaining high frame rates. The PassMark single-thread score of 4,516 and multithread score of 37,816 show that the CPU is well-rounded, but its role in this combo is primarily to avoid being a bottleneck.

The CPU’s 65 W TDP and 3 nm process node, manufactured by TSMC, indicate an efficient design that does not generate excessive heat, allowing the boost clock to be sustained. The data shows that the CPU’s performance is not the limiting factor, as the frame rate scales more with resolution and settings than with CPU load. The nearest rivals, such as the Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, have similar average scores, but the Core Ultra 5 235’s boost clock of 5.00 GHz gives it an edge in single-threaded tasks. The CPU’s 89th percentile rank among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 46,062, confirms that it is a capable partner for the RTX 5090.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS shows a wide range depending on settings. The Low preset delivers an average of 679 FPS, which is the highest recorded in the data. The Medium preset produces 505 FPS, with a minimum of 429 FPS and a maximum of 580 FPS, indicating some variance but still an exceptionally smooth experience. The High preset achieves 433 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 311 FPS. These results show that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, as even the most demanding preset produces well over 300 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease but remain impressive. The Low preset yields 428 FPS, the Medium preset 319 FPS with a minimum of 271 FPS and a maximum of 366 FPS, the High preset 273 FPS, and the Ultra preset 196 FPS. The 1440p results show a more balanced load between CPU and GPU, with the GPU beginning to assert its influence as the pixel count increases. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 37% across all settings, which is a typical scaling factor.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. The Low preset still manages an average of 224 FPS, which is remarkable for 4K. The Medium preset produces 167 FPS, with a minimum of 142 FPS and a maximum of 191 FPS. The High preset drops to 143 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 102 FPS. The 4K results show that even the most demanding settings are playable, but the data indicates that the RTX 5090’s 32 GB VRAM and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are being utilized to their fullest. The 4K Ultra result of 102 FPS is a strong showing, but it is less than half of the 1080p Ultra result, highlighting the GPU’s workload.