Barony

Barony is a roguelike that, despite its simple visual presentation, proves surprisingly demanding on higher settings, and the combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 produces a wide spectrum of frame rates depending on how the game is configured. The measured data reveals a system that can easily handle the game at lower presets but begins to struggle as resolution and quality settings increase, particularly at 4K. The RTX 2060, a Turing-era GPU that sits at the 58th percentile among all tested GPUs, appears to be the primary constraint in this pairing, while the 24-core CPU demonstrates it has ample headroom to spare in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination indicates that the optimal experience hinges on the target resolution and the desired balance between visual fidelity and frame rate smoothness. At 1920x1080, the most forgiving resolution tested, the system delivers exceptional performance across all presets. The High preset achieves an average of 167 FPS, which is well above the threshold for high-refresh-rate displays. The Medium preset offers a more balanced experience at 194 FPS, providing a slight performance boost over High with presumably minor visual differences. For players with 144Hz monitors, the Ultra preset at 120 FPS is also viable, though it does not fully saturate the refresh rate. The Low preset, at 261 FPS, is excessively fast for most displays and would likely only be useful for competitive play where maximum responsiveness is prioritized over all else.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain highly playable, but the gap between presets widens. The High preset delivers 105 FPS, which is still excellent for most gaming scenarios. The Medium preset at 123 FPS provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS and is arguably the sweet spot for this resolution, offering a significant performance cushion while maintaining a solid visual experience. The Ultra preset drops to 76 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS baseline but begins to approach the territory where frame pacing could become noticeable on some displays. The Low preset at 165 FPS shows that the hardware is more than capable of pushing high frame rates at this resolution when visual quality is reduced.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes dramatically. The RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM and its overall compute capability become the limiting factor. The High preset produces an average of 55 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The Medium preset at 64 FPS is the best option for 4K gaming, offering a frame rate that is just above the 60 FPS target while maintaining a reasonable level of visual quality. The Ultra preset, at 39 FPS, is nearly unplayable for a roguelike where quick reactions are essential, and the Low preset at 86 FPS, while smooth, sacrifices too much visual detail to be recommended for general play. The data strongly suggests that for 4K, the Medium preset is the only sensible choice, and even then, the experience is borderline. For the best overall experience across all resolutions, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the most balanced combination of visual quality and performance, with the High preset at 1920x1080 as a close second for those prioritizing visual detail.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus bottlenecking the RTX 2060 in Barony?

A: No, the data indicates the opposite. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 261 FPS, which is exceptionally high. The CPU has 24 cores and 24 threads, placing it in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, so it is unlikely to be a constraint in this title. The GPU is the more probable limiting factor, as evidenced by the significant FPS drops when increasing resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 perform relative to its closest rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 15290, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 at 15283 (a 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon 680M at 15270 (a 0.1% delta). It is slightly ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM by 0.6% and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 by 0.8%, suggesting it performs on par with these other GPUs in synthetic tests.

Q: Can this system achieve 60 FPS at 4K in Barony?

A: Yes, but only at the Medium preset. The measured data shows an average of 64 FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, with a minimum of 55 FPS and a maximum of 74 FPS. The High preset falls to 55 FPS average, and Ultra drops to 39 FPS, so Medium is the only viable preset for a stable 60 FPS experience at 4K.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 261 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 120 FPS. This represents a difference of 141 FPS, or roughly a 54% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings. The High preset sits in between at 167 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-core performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 83807, which is a 0.2% difference. The AMD EPYC 4584PX scores 83090 (1.1% lower), and the AMD EPYC 9135 scores 82980 (1.2% lower). Its only faster rival in this group is the AMD EPYC 7F72, which scores 85072, putting it 1.3% ahead.

Q: Is the RTX 2060's performance in Barony consistent with its overall GPU percentile ranking?

A: The RTX 2060 ranks in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, indicating it is a mid-range performer. The measured FPS data in Barony shows it can handle 1080p and 1440p very well, but struggles at 4K with high settings. This is consistent with its mid-range positioning, as the 4K results show clear limitations in this demanding scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks at position 2308 out of 2935 tested combos for Barony. This places the system in the lower 21% of all combinations tested, which is surprising given the individual components' performance characteristics. The CPU is a top-tier processor, ranking in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU is a mid-range part in the 58th percentile. The low combo ranking suggests that the GPU is severely limiting the overall gaming experience in this title, as the system's performance is likely closer to what a much weaker CPU would achieve when paired with the same GPU.

The data implies that the RTX 2060 is the bottleneck in this pairing. The CPU's immense processing power, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and PassMark multi-thread score of 60860, is largely unused in a game like Barony, which likely does not scale well across 24 cores. The combo rank of 2308 out of 2935 means that most other system configurations, even those with significantly weaker CPUs, are able to outperform this pairing in this specific game. This is a clear indication that the GPU is the determining factor for the system's gaming performance in Barony, and upgrading the GPU would yield far more significant improvements than any CPU upgrade could provide.

The disparity between the CPU's high percentile ranking and the combo's low ranking underscores the importance of balance in a gaming system. A 24-core processor with a 5.80 GHz boost clock is overkill for a game that is likely limited by single-threaded performance and GPU rendering capability. The benchmark results indicate that this combo is poorly optimized for Barony, with the system's potential being held back by its graphics card. For users of this system, the data suggests that they are leaving significant performance on the table, and the gaming experience would be substantially improved by a more powerful GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive look at how this system performs across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates exceptional capability. The Low preset achieves an average of 261 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset. The Medium preset delivers 194 FPS, with a minimum of 165 FPS and a maximum of 224 FPS, showing a stable and smooth experience. The High preset averages 167 FPS, and the Ultra preset still manages a respectable 120 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system is never CPU-bound and can easily handle any settings configuration.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows the first signs of GPU limitation. The Low preset produces 165 FPS, which is exactly 100 FPS less than at 1080p, representing a significant drop. The Medium preset averages 123 FPS, with a minimum of 104 FPS and a maximum of 141 FPS. The High preset delivers 105 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 76 FPS. The pattern is clear: as resolution increases, the frame rates decrease proportionally, indicating that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the GPU's limitations become severe. The Low preset still manages 86 FPS, which is playable, but the Medium preset drops to 64 FPS (with a minimum of 55 and maximum of 74). The High preset averages 55 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS target, and the Ultra preset falls to a disappointing 39 FPS. The disparity between Low and Ultra at 4K is 47 FPS, showing that the GPU cannot handle the increased graphical load at this resolution. The data reveals a clear trend: the system is most effective at 1080p, capable at 1440p, and only marginally playable at 4K with reduced settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveal important insights about the system's bottleneck. At the Low preset, the frame rate drops from 261 FPS at 1080p to 165 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 96 FPS, and then to 86 FPS at 4K, a further reduction of 79 FPS. This represents a total drop of 175 FPS, or approximately 67% from the 1080p baseline. At the Medium preset, the drop is from 194 FPS to 123 FPS to 64 FPS, a total reduction of 130 FPS, or about 67%. The High preset shows a similar pattern: 167 FPS to 105 FPS to 55 FPS, a total drop of 112 FPS, or approximately 67%. The Ultra preset drops from 120 FPS to 76 FPS to 39 FPS, a total reduction of 81 FPS, or about 68%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets is striking. The system loses roughly two-thirds of its performance when moving from 1080p to 4K, regardless of the quality settings. This uniform scaling strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting component, as resolution scaling affects the pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth usage, which are GPU-bound tasks. The RTX 2060's 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth appear insufficient for the demands of 4K rendering in Barony, particularly at higher settings.

The data also shows that the CPU is not a factor in this scaling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller FPS drops at higher resolutions, as the GPU would have more time to render each frame while waiting for the CPU. Instead, the FPS drops are proportional to the increase in pixel count, which is the classic signature of a GPU-limited system. The 24-core CPU, with its high single-thread score of 7303 in Cinebench R23, has more than enough processing power to feed the GPU at all tested resolutions, but the GPU simply cannot keep up with the increasing workload.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with 36 MB of shared L3 cache. Its benchmark performance is exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303. The PassMark multi-thread score of 60860 and single-thread score of 4823 further confirm its top-tier status, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs.

In the context of Barony, the CPU's role appears to be minimal based on the measured FPS data. The game is a roguelike, which typically relies more on game logic and procedural generation than on complex physics or AI. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 261 FPS, which is likely approaching the game engine's internal frame rate limit. This high frame rate indicates that the CPU is not a constraint, as even the most demanding game logic would struggle to limit a processor with this level of single-threaded performance.

The CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads are likely underutilized in Barony, as the game probably does not scale well across many cores. The high boost clock of 5.80 GHz and strong single-core performance are more relevant to gaming, but even these are not fully taxed given the GPU limitations. The data shows that the CPU has significant headroom, as evidenced by the fact that the same CPU could likely achieve similar FPS numbers with a much more powerful GPU. The CPU's PassMark data compression score of 698346 and integer math score of 166194 suggest it excels at computational tasks, but these are not directly applicable to gaming performance in this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. It has 30 ray tracing cores and 240 tensor cores, and is manufactured on a 12 nm process. The GPU has a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1680 MHz, with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its FP32 compute performance is 6.451 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In Barony, the GPU is clearly the determining factor for performance. The measured FPS data shows a direct correlation between resolution and frame rate, with the GPU's limitations becoming increasingly apparent as the pixel count rises. At 1080p, the GPU can deliver between 120 and 261 FPS depending on the preset, showing it is capable of handling the game's demands at this resolution. However, at 4K, the GPU struggles to maintain 60 FPS even at Medium settings, with the Ultra preset dropping to 39 FPS.

The GPU's 6 GB of VRAM is likely a constraint at 4K, particularly with higher texture quality settings. The memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s also appears insufficient for the high-resolution rendering, as the FPS drops are consistent with a memory-bandwidth-bound scenario. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 14111 places it in the 58th percentile, and its nearest rivals include the GTX 580 (0% delta) and the Radeon 680M (0.1% delta), indicating it is a mid-range performer. The data suggests that for Barony, the RTX 2060 is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but falls short at 4K, making it the primary bottleneck in this system.