The Technomancer

The Intel Core i7-14700KF and Intel Arc B570 combination is a study in imbalance for The Technomancer: the CPU ranks at the 94th percentile of all tested processors, while the GPU sits at the 65th percentile of all tested graphics cards. The measured frame rates show that the GPU governs playability, with the combo clearing 60 FPS at every 1080p preset, reaching 60 FPS at 1440p only on Low and Medium, and failing to hit 60 FPS at 4K on any preset. The CPU carries a launch MSRP of $384 and the GPU a launch MSRP of $219.

FAQ

Q: Can the Intel Core i7-14700KF + Intel Arc B570 run The Technomancer at 60 FPS?

A: At 1920x1080, yes — all four presets average at or above 60 FPS: Low 121, Medium 93, High 80, and Ultra 62. At 2560x1440, only Low (79) and Medium (61) reach the 60 FPS playable threshold. At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS; the best average is 44 FPS on Low.

Q: What is the best playable setting at 1440p?

A: Medium is the highest preset that stays playable, averaging 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 and a maximum of 70. Ultra averages 41 FPS and High 52 FPS, both below the threshold.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The B570's average benchmark score of 20556 puts it 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M, 0.1% behind the Intel Arc A750, and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon R9 M390X.

Q: How does the i7-14700KF compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: With an average benchmark score of 70163, the i7-14700KF is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F, 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, 0.9% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, and 1% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K.

Q: Which component limits performance in this game?

A: The GPU. The CPU is a 20-core, 28-thread part with a 94th percentile standing, while the GPU has a 65th percentile standing. Frame rates fall sharply as resolution rises — High preset goes from 80 FPS at 1080p to 52 FPS at 1440p to 29 FPS at 4K — a scaling pattern consistent with GPU-bound rendering.

Q: Where does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 2972 out of 3696 tested combos for The Technomancer, placing it in the lower half of the database.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data indicates that the i7-14700KF is far more capable than The Technomancer needs. The processor has 20 cores, 28 threads, a 3.40 GHz base clock, a 5.60 GHz boost clock, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 scores are 44167 multi-core and 6235 single-core, and it sits at the 94th percentile of all CPUs. The Arc B570, by contrast, is a mid-range card: 2304 shading units, 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus with 380 GB/s of bandwidth, and a 65th percentile standing. The game released on 2016-06-27, so it predates both components by years; the CPU is never the bottleneck.

The resolution scaling proves this. At the High preset, the measured average FPS drops from 80 at 1920x1080 to 52 at 2560x1440 to 29 at 3840x2160. At Low, it drops from 121 to 79 to 44. At Medium, from 93 to 61 to 33. At Ultra, from 62 to 41 to 22. In every case, the frame rate drops substantially at each higher resolution, and the drop from 1440p to 4K is larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p. That is the signature of a GPU-limited configuration: the CPU's performance is constant across resolutions, so the falling frame rates must be attributed to the B570's fill rate and memory bandwidth limits. The B570's pixel rate is 200 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 360 GTexel/s, figures that are modest next to the CPU's headroom.

At 1080p Low, the combo produces 121 FPS, which shows the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond the playable threshold. The GPU's 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is sufficient for a 2016 title at lower resolutions, but at 4K the 10 GB memory pool and 160-bit bus are overwhelmed. The CPU's role is essentially passive: it supplies the 28 threads and high single-core performance needed to avoid any CPU-side frame drops, but the measured results are governed by the GPU at every preset above 1080p Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers three resolutions and four presets. Only the Medium preset includes minimum and maximum frame data, so the analysis of min/max behavior is limited to that preset.

At 3840x2160, the combo is below the playable threshold across the board. Ultra averages 22 FPS. High averages 29 FPS. Medium averages 33 FPS, with a minimum of 28 and a maximum of 39. Low averages 44 FPS. None of these come close to the 60 FPS playable threshold; even the Low preset, which is the fastest 4K configuration measured, remains below the threshold.

At 2560x1440, the picture improves. Low averages 79 FPS, comfortably above the threshold. Medium averages 61 FPS, with a minimum of 52 and a maximum of 70 — the average clears 60, but the minimum suggests occasional dips below it. High averages 52 FPS and Ultra averages 41 FPS, both below the threshold. So 1440p playability is limited to Low and Medium, with Medium being the best playable setting.

At 1920x1080, the combo is fully playable. Low averages 121 FPS. Medium averages 93 FPS, with a minimum of 79 and a maximum of 107. High averages 80 FPS. Ultra averages 62 FPS, just above the 60 FPS threshold. The spread from Low to Ultra is 121 to 62, meaning the GPU still has to make significant sacrifices at the highest preset, but every preset clears the playable bar.

The Medium preset min/max data is worth noting. At 1080p, the minimum of 79 FPS is well above the threshold. At 1440p, the minimum of 52 FPS is below 60, so the average of 61 comes with visible dips. At 4K, the minimum of 28 FPS is unplayable. This shows that the combo's margin at 1440p Medium is thin, while at 1080p Medium the margin is substantial.

The Verdict

Can this PC run The Technomancer? Yes, but only at 1080p across all presets and at 1440p on Low and Medium. The verdict data is explicit: at 3840x2160, no settings are playable — the list of playable settings is empty. At 2560x1440, the playable settings are Low and Medium, with Medium being the best at an average of 61 FPS. At 1920x1080, all four settings — High, Low, Medium, and Ultra — are playable, with Ultra being the best at an average of 62 FPS.

The playable threshold is 60 FPS. At 1080p, the combo clears it with room to spare on every preset except Ultra, which clears it by a narrow margin. At 1440p, Medium is the ceiling, and even then the average is 61 with a minimum of 52. At 4K, the best average is 44 FPS on Low, which is below the threshold. The practical verdict: this is a 1080p gaming machine for The Technomancer, with 1440p possible only on reduced settings and 4K off the table.

The GPU is the decisive factor. A stronger GPU would shift the 1440p and 4K results, but with the Arc B570, the data says to treat 1080p Ultra as the maximum viable configuration. The 62 FPS average at 1080p Ultra is the best playable result available from this combination.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest rivals for the CPU and GPU define a small performance envelope. The i7-14700KF's average benchmark score of 70163 is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996), 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), 0.9% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515), and 1% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (70879). Any of those CPUs paired with the Arc B570 would produce nearly identical frame rates in The Technomancer, since the CPU is not the limiting factor.

The GPU side is similarly tight. The Arc B570's average benchmark score of 20556 is 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534), 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480), 0.1% behind the Intel Arc A750 (20582), and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20662). A system with the i7-14700KF and any of those GPUs would land within a fraction of a percent of the B570's performance. The Arc A750 is the closest GPU rival, and the RTX 3070 Mobile is nearly identical in average score despite being a mobile part.

For those looking at similar hardware, the practical takeaway is that swapping the CPU within the listed rival set changes nothing measurable, while swapping the GPU to an Arc A750 would shift results by only 0.1%. The measured FPS table for this combo can be treated as representative of the entire cluster of rival configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2972 out of 3696 tested combinations for The Technomancer. That places it in the lower half of the database, which is consistent with the GPU's 65th percentile standing. The CPU is a top-tier part at the 94th percentile, but the combo's rank is dragged down by the B570's mid-range position.

The rank reflects the game's GPU-bound nature. At 1080p, the combo is fully playable, and the 62 FPS average at Ultra is respectable for a 2016 Action RPG. But the database includes many combinations with stronger GPUs, and those combinations rank higher because they sustain 60 FPS at higher resolutions or with larger margins at 1080p. The i7-14700KF's high benchmark scores do not translate into a high in-game rank because the GPU cannot exploit them.

The data shows a clear hierarchy: the CPU is not the constraint, the GPU is. For The Technomancer specifically, this combo is a 1080p solution that ranks 2972nd overall. The measured frame rates at 1440p and 4K confirm that the B570 is the part to upgrade if higher-resolution playability is the goal.