Barony

Barony, a roguelike from 2015, may not be the first title that comes to mind for a high-end hardware analysis, but the measured data for the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 tells a compelling story about how modern components handle an older, CPU-intensive genre. With frame rates ranging from a low of 51 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 335 FPS at 1080p Low, this combination demonstrates a wide performance envelope that shifts its bottleneck depending on the resolution and quality preset selected. The data reveals a system capable of exploiting high refresh rate displays at lower resolutions while still providing playable, though less spectacular, results at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination in Barony offers a clear hierarchy of performance across its four quality presets, and the optimal choice depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1080p, the experience is overwhelmingly GPU-unconstrained, with even the Ultra preset delivering a robust 153 FPS average. However, the data shows that the Medium preset, at 249 FPS average, provides a significant 62.7% performance uplift over Ultra (249 vs 153 FPS) while likely offering a substantial visual improvement over the Low preset, which hits 335 FPS. For high-refresh-rate 1080p displays, the Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot, as it delivers a frame rate well beyond the 144Hz threshold while retaining more graphical fidelity than Low.

Moving up to 1440p, the performance curve becomes more pronounced. The Ultra preset drops to a 97 FPS average, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. The High preset at 135 FPS is a more balanced choice, offering a 39.2% improvement over Ultra while still maintaining a high level of visual quality. The Medium preset at 157 FPS is the standout option for 1440p, providing a 61.9% performance increase over Ultra (157 vs 97 FPS) and hitting that 144Hz-plus sweet spot that makes motion feel exceptionally fluid. This preset balances the load between the CPU and GPU, preventing the frame rate from being limited by either component.

At 4K, the situation inverts, and the GPU becomes the primary constraint. The Ultra preset falls to a 51 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS target most players consider the minimum for a smooth experience. The High preset at 70 FPS is the minimum viable option for a stable 60 FPS experience, but the Medium preset at 82 FPS is the clear recommendation for 4K gaming. It provides a 60.8% improvement over Ultra (82 vs 51 FPS) and a 17.1% improvement over High (82 vs 70 FPS), resulting in a much more comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. The data suggests that for this specific title and hardware combo, the Medium preset at 4K offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, as it does at 1080p and 1440p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H is a 16-core, 22-thread mobile processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. In Barony, a roguelike that typically involves complex procedural generation, pathfinding, and simulation of game state, the CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are likely to be heavily utilized. The data supports this, as the frame rates at lower resolutions, where the GPU is not the bottleneck, are exceptionally high, indicating the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with a massive number of frames.

The processor's benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15028 and a single-core score of 1743, place it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i5-14600T and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360, show a deltaPct of 0% and 0.1%, respectively, indicating this chip is well-matched with its peers in raw compute power. In Barony, this compute power translates to an ability to handle the game's logic without introducing a frame rate ceiling at 1080p, where the 335 FPS Low preset result suggests the CPU is the limiting factor, but it is a very high limit.

However, the CPU's role becomes more nuanced at higher resolutions. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 51, but at 4K Low, it rises to 110. This 53.6% increase in performance when lowering settings at the same resolution indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck in this scenario, not the CPU. The CPU is likely capable of producing more frames, but the GPU cannot render them fast enough at 4K, especially with higher quality settings. The 16 cores and 22 threads provide ample headroom for the game's single-threaded and multi-threaded tasks, ensuring that the Core Ultra 7 155H does not become a performance wall in this title, even when pushing for high frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, is the dominant force in determining frame rates at higher resolutions and settings. With 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus and a bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s, it has ample memory bandwidth for a title like Barony, which is not known for massive texture sizes. The GPU's boost clock of 2512 MHz and its 6144 shading units provide substantial raw rendering power, as evidenced by its Passmark G3D score of 29137, placing it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's influence is clearly visible in the scaling of performance with resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low (335 FPS) and Ultra (153 FPS) is a 54.3% drop in performance, showing that even at a modest resolution, the higher-quality settings begin to tax the GPU. When moving from 1080p Ultra (153 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (97 FPS), there is a 36.6% drop, and from 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra (51 FPS), there is a further 47.4% drop. This dramatic scaling is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering resolution and settings are the primary constraints.

Interestingly, the RTX 5070's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are not modern gaming cards but professional GPUs like the AMD Radeon Pro 580 and Radeon Pro WX 7100, with deltaPct values of 0.1% and 0.8%, respectively. This suggests that in the aggregate benchmark, the RTX 5070's performance is comparable to these workstation parts, but in Barony specifically, the measured data shows it is more than capable of delivering high frame rates at 1440p and even playable frame rates at 4K. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for this game's needs, and the GPU's compute power is the deciding factor in the 4K performance gap, where the 70 FPS High and 82 FPS Medium results highlight the need to lower settings to achieve a smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 holds a rank of 1591 out of 2935 tested combos in Barony, placing it in the 45.8th percentile of all systems. This is a surprisingly low rank for a modern, high-end pairing, and it suggests that Barony's performance is not heavily dependent on the latest GPU architecture or maximum CPU core counts. The game's age (released in 2015) and roguelike nature likely mean that many older or lower-end combinations can achieve high frame rates, as the game's engine is not particularly demanding on modern hardware.

The rank implies that there are 1344 tested combinations that perform better in this specific game. This could be due to several factors. For instance, newer CPUs with higher single-thread performance might handle the game's logic more efficiently, or systems with faster memory could reduce latency. However, the data does not support a single cause. The combo's rank is likely a reflection of the game's optimization for older hardware, where a mid-range CPU from a few generations ago paired with a mid-range GPU could produce similar frame rates to this high-end mobile CPU and desktop-class GPU.

Despite the middling rank, the measured FPS data shows this combo is far from a poor performer. The 153 FPS at 1080p Ultra and 97 FPS at 1440p Ultra are excellent results that would satisfy most gamers. The rank should be interpreted as a measure of relative performance against all other tested systems, and the fact that it sits near the median suggests that Barony does not scale well with the extreme high-end hardware this combo represents. The bottleneck analysis from the resolution scaling indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, but at 1080p, the CPU's performance is sufficient to push frame rates to over 300 FPS on low settings, which reflects its strength in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K provides a detailed picture of where the bottleneck lies for this system in Barony. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 335 at 1080p to 211 at 1440p, a 37.0% decrease, and then to 110 at 4K, a 47.9% decrease from 1440p. This pattern indicates that even at the lowest settings, the GPU becomes increasingly stressed as resolution increases, but the CPU is still able to maintain a very high frame rate ceiling. The 335 FPS at 1080p Low suggests the CPU is the primary limiter at this setting, as the GPU could likely render more frames if the CPU could provide them.

At the Medium preset, the scaling is similar: 249 FPS at 1080p, 157 FPS at 1440p (a 36.9% drop), and 82 FPS at 4K (a 47.8% drop from 1440p). This consistent ~37% drop from 1080p to 1440p across Low and Medium settings points to a GPU-bound scenario at 1440p for these presets, as the resolution increase directly impacts the GPU's fill rate and pixel processing. The drop from 1440p to 4K is even larger at ~48%, which is expected given the 2.25x increase in pixel count, further confirming the GPU is the limiting factor.

The High and Ultra presets show a more aggressive scaling pattern. At High, the FPS drops from 214 at 1080p to 135 at 1440p (a 36.9% drop) and then to 70 at 4K (a 48.1% drop from 1440p). At Ultra, the drop is from 153 at 1080p to 97 at 1440p (a 36.6% drop) and then to 51 at 4K (a 47.4% drop from 1440p). This data strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting component across all resolutions above 1080p, as the performance scaling closely follows the pixel count increase. The CPU's role is only apparent at 1080p Low, where the frame rate is so high that the processor's ability to feed the game becomes the constraint.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use for a 144Hz monitor at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 157 FPS, which is the only preset that exceeds the 144 FPS target at this resolution. The High preset at 135 FPS falls short of this mark.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K. Lowering the settings from Ultra (51 FPS) to Low (110 FPS) at 3840x2160 results in a 115.7% performance increase, which is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all other tested systems in Barony?

A: The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 ranks 1591st out of 2935 tested combinations, placing it in the 45.8th percentile.

Q: Can this system achieve 60 FPS at 4K with high settings?

A: Yes, the High preset at 3840x2160 yields an average of 70 FPS, providing a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS target. The Ultra preset, however, drops to 51 FPS and is not recommended for a smooth 4K experience.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate this combo can achieve in Barony?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 335, which occurs at the 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset. This indicates the CPU is capable of delivering a very high frame rate ceiling in this game.

Q: Is the 12 GB VRAM on the RTX 5070 sufficient for Barony?

A: Based on the measured data, the 12 GB of GDDR7 memory is more than sufficient for Barony, as the game's performance scales with resolution and settings in a pattern consistent with GPU compute limits, not memory capacity limits.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table details the exact average FPS figures measured for this hardware combination, along with minimum and maximum FPS where available.

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|------------|----------|---------|---------|---------|

| 3840x2160 | High | 70 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 110 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 82 | 70 | 94 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 51 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | High | 135 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 211 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 157 | 133 | 181 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 97 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | High | 214 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 335 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 249 | 211 | 286 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 153 | - | - |

The data shows a clear and consistent progression: as resolution and quality settings increase, the average FPS decreases. The Medium preset is the only one with measured minimum and maximum FPS values, showing a 24 FPS variance at 1080p, a 48 FPS variance at 1440p, and a 24 FPS variance at 4K. This variance suggests that the Medium preset, while delivering high average frame rates, can have noticeable frame time spikes, particularly at 1440p. The Low and High presets, while not having measured min/max values, are likely more stable given their higher average FPS and less demanding GPU load. The Ultra preset, with its lower average FPS, is the most demanding and likely exhibits the most frame time inconsistency, though this is not explicitly measured in the data.