Barony

Barony, a roguelike released in 2015, presents an interesting benchmark scenario for the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination. The measured data shows this pairing delivers exceptionally high frame rates across all tested resolutions and settings, positioning it as one of the top-performing configurations in the database. The following analysis breaks down the settings, component roles, resolution scaling, and overall ranking based strictly on the measured results.

Settings Recommendations

The data indicates that the High preset offers the most balanced experience for this hardware combination. At 3840x2160, High yields an average of 143 FPS, which is a substantial 40.2% improvement over the Ultra preset’s 102 FPS average. Moving from High to Medium at 4K provides a 16.8% increase to 167 FPS, but the jump from Medium to Low (224 FPS) is a much larger 34.1% gain, suggesting diminishing returns when dropping below Medium. For players prioritizing visual fidelity at 4K, High is the sweet spot, as it maintains a triple-digit frame rate while avoiding the performance hit of Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves a 273 FPS average, which is more than sufficient for high-refresh-rate displays. The Medium preset at this resolution delivers 319 FPS, a 16.9% improvement over High, while Low jumps to 428 FPS, a 34.2% increase from Medium. The Ultra preset at 1440p produces 196 FPS, which is still very playable but represents a 28.2% drop from High. For competitive play or maximum smoothness on a 240Hz monitor, Medium at 1440p strikes the best balance between visual quality and raw performance.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates become extraordinarily high, with High averaging 433 FPS and Medium at 505 FPS. The Low preset reaches 679 FPS, which is a 34.5% improvement over Medium. Given that most displays cap at 144Hz or 240Hz, the High preset at 1080p is more than adequate, providing a 39.2% higher frame rate than Ultra (311 FPS) while still looking significantly better than Low. The data suggests that High is the recommended preset across all resolutions, as it consistently offers the best combination of visual quality and performance headroom without the excessive cost of Ultra.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the high frame rates observed. The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for Barony, a game with modest texture and asset requirements, meaning the GPU is never starved for data. The RTX 5090’s boost clock of 2407 MHz, combined with its 21,760 shading units, allows it to process the game’s rendering workload with ease.

The GPU’s benchmark scores confirm its top-tier status. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 and a Passmark G3D score of 39,650 place it well above average, with a percentile rank of 92 among all GPUs. The nearest rivals in the database, such as the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, have an average score 0.3% lower, indicating the RTX 5090 sits at the very top of the performance hierarchy. In Barony, this translates to the GPU handling even the most demanding settings (Ultra) without becoming a bottleneck, as evidenced by the 102 FPS average at 4K Ultra.

The RTX 5090’s architectural features, including 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores, are not heavily utilized by Barony, which is not a graphically intensive title by modern standards. However, the sheer raw compute power, measured at 104.8 TFLOPS FP32, ensures that the GPU can brute-force through any scene. The data shows that at lower resolutions like 1080p, the GPU is so powerful that the frame rates (up to 679 FPS on Low) far exceed what any display can show, indicating the GPU is operating well below its maximum capacity. The GPU’s 575 W TDP and dual-slot design are consistent with its high-performance class, but the measured FPS data shows it delivers accordingly.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data reveals a clear pattern of how performance scales from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 433 at 1920x1080 to 273 at 2560x1440, a 36.9% reduction, and then to 143 at 3840x2160, a 47.6% reduction from 1440p. This scaling is typical for a GPU-bound scenario, where the increased pixel count at higher resolutions puts more stress on the GPU’s rendering pipeline. The RTX 5090’s massive bandwidth and compute power mitigate this drop, but the trend is still evident.

For the Low preset, the scaling is even more dramatic. At 1080p, the average FPS is 679, dropping to 428 at 1440p (a 37.0% decrease) and then to 224 at 4K (a 47.7% decrease from 1440p). This steeper decline at lower settings suggests that as the GPU workload decreases, other factors, such as CPU draw call limits or game engine overhead, begin to play a more significant role. The fact that the 1080p Low result (679 FPS) is so high indicates that the CPU is keeping up, but the scaling curve hints at a potential CPU bottleneck at extreme frame rates.

The Medium preset shows similar behavior, with 505 FPS at 1080p, 319 FPS at 1440p (a 36.8% drop), and 167 FPS at 4K (a 47.6% drop from 1440p). The Ultra preset follows suit, with 311 FPS at 1080p, 196 FPS at 1440p (a 37.0% drop), and 102 FPS at 4K (a 47.9% drop from 1440p). The consistent ~37% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~48% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings strongly indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor as resolution increases. The RTX 5090’s performance scales predictably with pixel count, with the 4K resolution requiring four times the pixels of 1080p, resulting in approximately a 65-67% reduction in FPS when comparing the extremes.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured data shows a clear hierarchy across settings. The Low preset delivers an average of 224 FPS, which is the highest at this resolution. Medium follows with 167 FPS, showing a 25.4% reduction from Low. High drops further to 143 FPS, a 14.4% decrease from Medium. Ultra is the most demanding, yielding 102 FPS, which is 28.7% lower than High. The only setting with min and max FPS data is Medium, showing a range from 142 to 191 FPS, indicating some frame time variance but still maintaining a solid average.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are significantly higher. Low leads with 428 FPS, followed by Medium at 319 FPS (a 25.5% drop from Low). High achieves 273 FPS, representing a 14.4% decrease from Medium. Ultra rounds out the group at 196 FPS, which is 28.2% lower than High. The Medium preset at 1440p shows a min of 271 FPS and a max of 366 FPS, demonstrating a wider variance but with an average that remains well above refresh rate thresholds.

At 1920x1080, the performance is exceptional across the board. Low reaches 679 FPS, Medium hits 505 FPS (a 25.6% drop from Low), High comes in at 433 FPS (a 14.3% decrease from Medium), and Ultra produces 311 FPS (a 28.2% reduction from High). The Medium preset at 1080p has a min of 429 FPS and a max of 580 FPS, showing the tightest relative variance among all tested configurations. The data clearly shows that even at the most demanding settings (Ultra at 4K), the combo maintains a 102 FPS average, which is playable, while lower settings at 1080p produce frame rates that are effectively uncapped.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use for a 4K display with this combo?

A: Based on the measured data, the High preset at 3840x2160 provides an average of 143 FPS, which is a 40.2% improvement over Ultra (102 FPS). This offers a smooth experience without the significant performance cost of Ultra, making it the recommended choice for 4K.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 5090 has a Passmark G3D score of 39,650 and a percentile rank of 92. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, has an average score that is 0.3% lower, while the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT is 1.1% lower. This places the RTX 5090 at the top of the tested GPU hierarchy.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 1080p with Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 679 FPS. While this is extremely high, the resolution scaling data shows a 37.0% drop to 428 FPS at 1440p, suggesting that at such extreme frame rates, the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU may become a limiting factor, though the data does not explicitly confirm a bottleneck.

Q: What is the frame rate variance like at 1440p Medium?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 shows an average of 319 FPS, with a minimum of 271 FPS and a maximum of 366 FPS. This indicates a variance of 95 FPS between the lowest and highest frames, but the average remains high enough for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Barony?

A: The combo ranks 73rd out of 2,935 tested combinations in the game, placing it in the top 2.5% of all configurations. This high rank is consistent with the very high frame rates measured across all resolutions and settings.

Q: Does the GPU’s memory bandwidth impact performance in Barony?

A: The RTX 5090 has a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, which is more than sufficient for Barony’s needs. The measured FPS data shows no signs of memory-related stuttering, as even the lowest average FPS (102 at 4K Ultra) is well within playable range.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 plays a supporting role in this configuration, and its specifications are more than adequate for Barony. The CPU features 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. This is a modern Arrow Lake architecture on a 3 nm process, providing strong single-threaded performance, which is crucial for a game like Barony that may rely on a primary game thread. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,648 and multi-core score of 32,924 place it in the 90th percentile among all CPUs.

The CPU’s benchmark data shows it is a capable performer. Its average benchmark score of 48,995 is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G, which has an average score just 0.4% higher. The Intel Core i5-14600K is only 0.8% lower in score, indicating that the Ultra 5 245 sits in a tight competitive cluster. For Barony, the CPU’s 24 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (102.4 GB/s bandwidth) are sufficient to keep the GPU fed with data, especially at lower resolutions where frame rates are extremely high.

The measured FPS data suggests that the CPU is not a limiting factor in most scenarios. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as frame rates scale predictably with resolution. However, at 1080p with Low settings (679 FPS), the CPU’s single-threaded performance becomes more critical, and the 5.10 GHz boost clock ensures it can handle the game’s logic and draw calls without causing a significant drop. The CPU’s Passmark single-thread score of 4,394 further confirms its strength in this area. While the CPU is not the star of this show, its performance ensures that the RTX 5090 is utilized to its full potential across all tested settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination holds a rank of 73 out of 2,935 tested combos in Barony. This places it in the top 2.5% of all configurations, which is an exceptional result. The high rank is directly supported by the measured FPS data, which shows the combo delivering over 100 FPS at 4K Ultra and over 300 FPS at 1080p High. The rank reflects the synergy between a top-tier GPU and a strong mid-range CPU, where the CPU does not hold back the GPU’s performance.

In comparison to other combos, this pairing’s rank is consistent with the GPU’s 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs and the CPU’s 90th percentile ranking among all CPUs. The combination of two high-percentile components results in a system that is well-balanced for Barony’s requirements. The fact that it ranks 73rd out of nearly 3,000 combos suggests that only a handful of configurations with even more powerful CPUs or better-optimized pairings can outperform it, and those differences are likely marginal given the already high frame rates.

The rank also validates the GPU’s role as the primary driver of performance. The RTX 5090’s 32 GB of VRAM and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensure that even at 4K Ultra, the game runs smoothly at 102 FPS. The CPU’s contribution is more subtle, but its 5.10 GHz boost clock and 14 cores provide enough headroom to prevent any CPU-related dips. Overall, this combo ranks in the 73rd position due to the outstanding GPU performance, with the CPU serving as a capable partner that does not detract from the overall experience. The data confirms that this is one of the top configurations for Barony, offering exceptional performance at any resolution and settings combination.