The Technomancer

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run The Technomancer at 1080p?

A: Yes, at 1920x1080 the combo clears the 60 FPS threshold on Low (79 avg FPS) and Medium (61 avg FPS) settings. High settings fall short at 52 avg FPS, while Ultra drops to 40 avg FPS.

Q: Is 1440p playable with this hardware?

A: No. The best result at 2560x1440 is Low settings at 52 avg FPS, which is below the 60 FPS playable threshold. Medium delivers 40 avg FPS, High 34 avg FPS, and Ultra 26 avg FPS.

Q: What about 4K performance?

A: 4K is not viable. At 3840x2160, even Low settings only reach 28 avg FPS. Medium manages 22 avg FPS with minimums of 19, High 19 avg FPS, and Ultra 15 avg FPS.

Q: Which preset gives the best playable experience at 1080p?

A: Medium is the best playable setting at 1920x1080, delivering 61 avg FPS with a minimum of 52 and maximum of 70. Low offers a higher average at 79 FPS but lacks the visual fidelity of Medium.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70163. It sits 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996), 0.4% above the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), and 0.9% above the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515). The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K scores 1% higher at 70879.

Q: How does the GPU rank against other graphics cards?

A: The Intel Arc B390 sits in the 9th percentile of all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 1482. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, scores 1463, which is 1.3% lower. The GeForce 800M is 1.5% lower, the GT 625 OEM is 2.5% lower, and the GT 710 is 2.7% lower.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data for The Technomancer reveals a clear pattern: the Intel Arc B390 is the dominant bottleneck in this pairing, and the CPU's headroom is not being utilized at higher resolutions. The CPU, scoring in the 94th percentile of all processors with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167, is far more capable than the GPU's 9th percentile ranking suggests. The performance scaling across resolutions confirms this imbalance.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are severely constrained. The spread from Low (28 avg FPS) to Ultra (15 avg FPS) is only 13 FPS, indicating that even the lowest settings cannot relieve the GPU pressure enough to approach playability. The GPU's rendering throughput, rated at 7.680 TFLOPS FP32 with a pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s, is simply insufficient for 4K workloads in this title.

Moving to 2560x1440, the situation improves but remains GPU-limited. The gap between Low (52 avg FPS) and Ultra (26 avg FPS) widens to 26 FPS, which shows that the graphics card has more headroom as resolution drops, but it still cannot reach the 60 FPS threshold. The CPU's role at this resolution is secondary; the recorded data shows that even at Low settings, where CPU overhead is typically highest, the frame rate stays below the playable threshold.

At 1920x1080, the balance shifts. The GPU finally has enough bandwidth to show clearer differentiation between presets: Low hits 79 avg FPS, Medium 61 avg FPS, High 52 avg FPS, and Ultra 40 avg FPS. The 27 FPS gap between Low and Ultra demonstrates that the GPU is now the primary driver of performance differences, but the CPU still holds its end well. The Intel Core i7-14700KF, with 20 cores and 28 threads, provides ample single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6235) to avoid becoming a limiting factor. The data indicates that the CPU matters less as resolution increases, because the GPU saturates first; conversely, at 1080p, the CPU's strong performance allows the GPU to stretch to its maximum potential.

The verdict is straightforward: this is a GPU-bound system for The Technomancer at all tested resolutions. Upgrading the CPU would yield no measurable benefit in this game, while improving the GPU would directly translate to higher frame rates, especially at 1440p and 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 28 avg FPS. This is the highest result at 4K, but still far below the 60 FPS playable threshold.
• Medium: 22 avg FPS, with a minimum of 19 and maximum of 25. The frame pacing is tight but the overall level is unplayable.
• High: 19 avg FPS. No minimum or maximum recorded, but the average is identical to the Medium minimum, indicating severe GPU saturation.
• Ultra: 15 avg FPS. The lowest recorded result across all resolutions and settings.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 52 avg FPS. This is the closest approach to playability at this resolution, but it misses the 60 FPS mark by 8 frames.
• Medium: 40 avg FPS, with a minimum of 34 and maximum of 46. The variance is consistent with GPU-bound rendering.
• High: 34 avg FPS. A noticeable step down from Medium, showing that quality settings have a direct impact.
• Ultra: 26 avg FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 26 FPS, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 79 avg FPS. The best result in the entire dataset, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold with 19 frames of headroom.
• Medium: 61 avg FPS, with a minimum of 52 and maximum of 70. This is the recommended playable setting, as the average clears the threshold while the minimum dips below it.
• High: 52 avg FPS. Below the playable threshold, but close enough that minor GPU adjustments could push it over.
• Ultra: 40 avg FPS. The most demanding preset at 1080p, sacrificing 21 frames compared to Medium.

The recorded data shows a consistent pattern: each step down in resolution yields roughly a 1.5x improvement in average frame rate across matching settings. For example, High at 1440p (34 avg FPS) improves to 52 avg FPS at 1080p, and Medium at 1440p (40 avg FPS) improves to 61 avg FPS at 1080p. This scaling is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where resolution is the primary variable.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and the Intel Arc B390 ranks 3285 out of 3696 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places it in the bottom 11% of all hardware pairings in the database for this game. The rank is heavily influenced by the GPU's low percentile standing (9th percentile of all GPUs), while the CPU's 94th percentile ranking does little to lift the overall position.

To contextualize this rank, consider the GPU's nearest rivals: the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710 all score within 1.3% to 2.7% of the Arc B390's average benchmark score. These are entry-level or legacy graphics solutions, and the data confirms that the Arc B390 performs at that tier in this title. The combo rank reflects this: a system with a top-tier CPU paired with a bottom-tier GPU will not perform well in a GPU-bound game like The Technomancer.

The rank also indicates that the CPU is effectively wasted in this context. The i7-14700KF's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167 and PassMark multithread score of 52425 are excellent, but The Technomancer does not appear to demand that level of processing power. The game's performance is gated by the GPU at every resolution and preset tested, and the combo rank of 3285 out of 3696 confirms that most other hardware pairings would outperform it in this specific title.

Similar Performance Alternatives

For the CPU, the nearest rivals in the database are all within 1% of the Intel Core i7-14700KF's average benchmark score of 70163. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996, 0.2% lower), AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875, 0.4% lower), and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, 0.9% lower) would all behave nearly identically in The Technomancer, since the game is GPU-bound. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (70879, 1% higher) offers a marginal improvement in synthetic benchmarks, but the recorded frame rates would be indistinguishable because the GPU is the limiting factor.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals are significantly weaker in synthetic terms but would produce similar results in The Technomancer. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% lower), GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% lower), GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% lower), and GT 710 (1443, 2.7% lower) all fall within a narrow band of the Arc B390's 1482 average benchmark score. In practical terms, any of these GPUs paired with a strong CPU would yield frame rates within a few FPS of the numbers recorded for the i7-14700KF + Arc B390 combination. A user considering this build could expect similar performance from any of these alternative GPU pairings, with the caveat that the Arc B390 does support DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, which may matter for other titles.

The broader takeaway is that the CPU alternatives do not change the outcome in this game, while the GPU alternatives confirm that the Arc B390 is firmly in the entry-level segment. The data shows that swapping the CPU for any of its nearest rivals would leave the measured FPS unchanged, while swapping the GPU for any of its nearest rivals would also produce nearly identical results.

The Verdict

Can this PC run The Technomancer? The answer depends entirely on the resolution target. At 3840x2160, the system cannot run the game at any playable setting. The highest average FPS recorded is 28 on Low, which is 32 frames below the 60 FPS threshold. The verdict list for 4K is empty, meaning no settings are playable.

At 2560x1440, the situation is the same: no playable settings exist. Low settings deliver 52 avg FPS, which is 8 frames short of the threshold, and every other preset falls further behind. The verdict list for 1440p is also empty.

At 1920x1080, the system clears the playable threshold on two presets: Low (79 avg FPS) and Medium (61 avg FPS). The best playable setting is Medium, which achieves 61 avg FPS with a minimum of 52 and a maximum of 70. This is the recommended configuration for a smooth experience. High settings (52 avg FPS) and Ultra (40 avg FPS) are not playable by the 60 FPS standard.

The final assessment is that this combo is a 1080p gaming solution for The Technomancer, and only at Low or Medium quality. The Intel Core i7-14700KF provides more than enough processing power, but the Intel Arc B390's 9th percentile GPU ranking is the decisive constraint. For users targeting 1440p or higher, this hardware combination is not suitable for this game. For 1080p gamers willing to accept Medium settings, the experience is playable, though the recorded minimum of 52 FPS on Medium indicates that demanding scenes may dip below the 60 FPS line. The data suggests that this pairing is best suited for older or less demanding titles, and The Technomancer at 1080p Medium represents the practical ceiling of its capabilities.