Barony

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a remarkably fluid experience in Barony, with the dataset showing that even at 4K, the combination rarely dips below playable thresholds. The measured frames per second (FPS) across all resolutions and settings indicate that this hardware pairing is more than capable of handling the roguelike's demands, though the optimal configuration depends on whether the user prioritizes maximum visual fidelity or maximum frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for settings at each resolution. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset still delivers an average of 139 FPS, which is far above the threshold for smooth gameplay on most displays. However, the High preset at 193 FPS and the Medium preset at 225 FPS show that there is substantial headroom for higher refresh rate monitors. For users with 144Hz or 165Hz displays, the High preset appears to be the sweet spot, offering a significant visual upgrade over Medium while maintaining an average FPS that fully utilizes such displays. The Low preset reaches 303 FPS, which is beneficial only for esports-grade 300Hz panels, but the visual compromise is likely too steep for a game that benefits from readability of environmental details.

At 2560x1440, the situation remains comfortable. The Ultra preset averages 87 FPS, which is playable on standard 60Hz displays and even on some 75Hz panels. However, the High preset at 122 FPS is a better recommendation for 1440p users, as it provides a 40% improvement over Ultra while still offering a high level of graphical quality. The Medium preset at 142 FPS is an even better option for high-refresh 1440p monitors, though the jump from High to Medium is less impactful than the jump from Ultra to High. The Low preset at 191 FPS is excessive for most 1440p displays, which typically cap at 165Hz or 240Hz, but it demonstrates the headroom available if the user is chasing maximum frame pacing.

The 3840x2160 results are where the settings choice becomes critical. The Ultra preset averages only 46 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for most 4K displays and would be noticeable in a fast-paced roguelike. The High preset at 64 FPS is the minimum recommended setting for 4K, as it stays above the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 74 FPS provides a more comfortable margin, and the min FPS of 63 for Medium confirms that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate rarely dips below the target. The Low preset at 100 FPS is the performance king, but it sacrifices too much visual quality for a game that relies on atmospheric lighting and particle effects for its roguelike charm. The data strongly suggests that for 4K, the Medium preset offers the best balance, while for 1080p and 1440p, High is the optimal choice.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD107 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. The data shows a base clock of 1830 MHz and a boost clock of 2460 MHz, which are the driving factors behind the raw compute throughput. The GPU has 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, with 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores. This configuration yields a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 15.11 TFLOPS. These specifications explain why the card is able to deliver the measured FPS numbers, particularly at higher resolutions where pixel throughput becomes a limiting factor.

The memory subsystem is an 8 GB GDDR6 configuration on a 128-bit bus, with a memory clock of 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective) and a total bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s. For Barony, a game with procedural dungeons and numerous dynamic lighting sources, the 8 GB frame buffer is sufficient at all tested settings, as the data shows no anomalies that would suggest VRAM capacity issues. The bandwidth is a more critical metric; at 4K resolution with High settings, the GPU must move large amounts of texture data, and the 272.0 GB/s bandwidth supports the observed 64 FPS average. The card’s transistor count of 18,900 million on a 159 mm² die gives a density of 118.9M / mm², which is high but not unusual for the 5 nm process node.

The RTX 4060's production status is listed as End-of-life, and its successor is the GeForce 50 series. Its benchmark scores place it in the 61st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17639. Its nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (which scores 17666, a -0.2% delta), the AMD Radeon 780M (17588, +0.3% delta), the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551, +0.5% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro 460 (17509, +0.7% delta). This indicates that the RTX 4060 sits in a competitive mid-range segment, but the measured FPS in Barony show that it punches above its percentile rank in this specific title, likely due to the game’s optimization for modern GPU features.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 1763 out of 2935 tested combos in Barony. This places the pairing in the 60th percentile of all configurations tested, which is respectable but not top-tier. The rank suggests that while this combo delivers excellent performance at 1080p and 1440p, it is not among the elite combinations that dominate the 4K Ultra benchmarks. The 4K Ultra result of 46 FPS is the primary reason for the mid-pack ranking; many other combos achieve higher scores at that extreme setting.

The CPU component of this combo, the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, has a percentile rank of 85 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35670. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 (avg score 35719, -0.1% delta), the Intel Core 7 250H (35728, -0.2% delta), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (35802, -0.4% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (35909, -0.7% delta). These rivals are all within 0.7% of the Core Ultra 9 185H's average score, indicating that the CPU is well-matched to its peers. The GPU, however, has a lower percentile rank of 61, and its rivals are significantly older or lower-end parts, which suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor in this combo’s overall ranking.

The combo rank indicates that for 1080p and 1440p gaming, this pairing is overqualified, with FPS numbers that far exceed the refresh rates of most displays. The data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck at these resolutions, as the FPS scales consistently with GPU load. At 4K, the combo rank suffers because the RTX 4060 is stretched to its limits, particularly at the Ultra preset. The rank of 1763 out of 2935 is a fair assessment of the combo’s overall capability, as it excels in the mainstream resolutions while falling short of the absolute peak performance required for 4K Ultra.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Barony at 4K 60 FPS?*

A: Yes, but only with the right settings. The High preset averages 64 FPS, and the Medium preset averages 74 FPS, both of which are above the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset falls short at 46 FPS.

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Barony?*

A: The 2560x1440 resolution with High settings provides the best balance, delivering 122 FPS average. This offers a significant visual upgrade over 1080p while maintaining frame rates that exceed the refresh rate of most 1440p monitors.

Q: How does this combo compare to similar CPUs in benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H has an average benchmark score of 35670, which is within 0.7% of its nearest rivals, including the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 and the Intel Core 7 250H. This indicates that the CPU is highly competitive with its direct peers.

Q: Is the RTX 4060 a good match for the Core Ultra 9 185H in this game?

A: The data shows an excellent match at 1080p and 1440p, where the GPU is the primary driver of performance. At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, but the combo still achieves playable frame rates at High and Medium settings.

Q: What is the lowest FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The lowest recorded average FPS is 46, which occurs at 3840x2160 with the Ultra preset. The lowest min FPS recorded is 63, which occurs at 3840x2160 with the Medium preset.

*Q: Does the combo's ranking in Barony reflect its overall performance?*

A: The combo ranks 1763 out of 2935 combos, which is in the 60th percentile. This is a fair representation, as it excels at mainstream resolutions but is not optimized for the highest-end 4K Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable scaling curve as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the High preset, the average FPS drops from 193 at 1080p to 122 at 1440p, a decrease of 37%, and then to 64 at 4K, a further drop of 48% from 1440p. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering resolution directly impacts the workload on the RTX 4060. The transition from 1080p to 1440p represents a 1.78x increase in pixel count, and the FPS drop of 37% is less severe than the pixel increase, suggesting that the GPU has headroom at 1080p.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern, with FPS dropping from 225 at 1080p to 142 at 1440p (a 37% decrease) and then to 74 at 4K (a 48% decrease from 1440p). The Low preset exhibits the same relative scaling, with 303 FPS at 1080p, 191 at 1440p, and 100 at 4K. The consistency of these percentage drops across presets indicates that the limiting component scales uniformly with resolution. The Ultra preset shows a slightly steeper drop, from 139 at 1080p to 87 at 1440p (a 37% decrease) and then to 46 at 4K (a 47% decrease from 1440p).

This scaling behavior strongly suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting component in this combo. The CPU, with its 16 cores and 22 threads, provides ample processing power at all resolutions, as evidenced by the fact that the FPS drops are directly proportional to the increase in pixel count. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a plateau in FPS at lower resolutions, where the CPU cannot keep up with the GPU’s output. Instead, the FPS continues to scale with resolution, indicating that the RTX 4060 is doing the heavy lifting. The data also shows that the gap between the Low and Ultra presets widens at higher resolutions, from a 54% difference at 1080p (303 vs 139) to a 54% difference at 4K (100 vs 46), confirming that the GPU’s limits are reached at the highest settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is a mobile processor from the Core Ultra Series 1, built on the Meteor Lake architecture using Intel’s 7 nm process node. The CPU features 16 cores and 22 threads, with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, with a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. The TDP is 45 W, making it a high-performance mobile part.

In Barony, the CPU’s role appears to be secondary to the GPU, given the resolution scaling analysis. The CPU’s benchmark scores, however, show that it is a capable performer. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 17984.5, and its single-core score is 1810.5. In Geekbench, it scores 11657 multicore and 1794 single-core. These scores place the CPU in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35670. The CPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350, which scores 35719 on average, and the Intel Core 7 250H at 35728, both of which are within 0.2% of the Core Ultra 9 185H’s score.

The high single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1810.5, is crucial for Barony, as roguelike games often have simulation and logic threads that are single-threaded. The boost clock of 5.10 GHz ensures that these threads are processed quickly, preventing any CPU-induced frame hitches. The multicore performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 17984.5, also ensures that background tasks and the game’s procedural generation systems do not interfere with frame pacing. The data shows that at 1080p with the Low preset, the combo achieves 303 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game, but at more reasonable settings like High at 1080p (193 FPS), the CPU has ample headroom. The CPU’s integrated graphics, Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 128EU, are not relevant for this discrete GPU configuration, but they do indicate the processor’s versatility. Overall, the Core Ultra 9 185H provides a strong foundation for the RTX 4060, ensuring that the GPU is the primary determinant of the FPS numbers observed.