The Technomancer

The Technomancer pairs a six-core, twelve-thread AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with an Intel Arc B580, a combination that lands in the 79th percentile of all tested CPU configurations (rank 1303 out of 1656) for this title. The Ryzen 5 2600, a 2018-era Zen-based processor on the AM4 socket, runs at a base clock of 3.40 GHz and boosts to 3.90 GHz, with 16 MB of shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11,186 and single-core score of 1,579 place it within 0.7% of the Intel Core i7-10700F and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U in average benchmark scores, indicating that this older chip still holds its own in CPU-heavy scenes. For a game released in 2016, the six physical cores and twelve threads are more than adequate to feed the GPU, and the data shows that even at 1080p Ultra the frame rate remains playable, suggesting the CPU is not the primary constraint in most scenarios.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 brings six cores and twelve threads to The Technomancer, a configuration that was considered high-end for mainstream desktops at the game's release. With a boost clock of 3.90 GHz and a 65 W TDP, this processor delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-threaded score of 11,186, which is notably higher than its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-1345U (19,691 average score, -0.4% delta). The single-thread performance, measured at 1,579 in Cinebench R23, directly influences how well the game handles its AI and physics calculations, and the benchmark results confirm that this CPU can maintain frame rates above 70 FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 46.9 GB/s over dual-channel DDR4 is sufficient for this title, as evidenced by the scaling from 1080p to 1440p. At 1440p High, the average FPS drops to 57.7 from 92 at 1080p High, a 37% decrease that aligns with the increased pixel count rather than a CPU bottleneck. The processor's PassMark multi-thread score of 13,160 and single-thread score of 2,239 place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-11600KF (19,740 average score, -0.6% delta) and the Intel Core i7-10700F (19,485 average score, 0.7% delta), showing that this older chip performs within a hair of much newer parts in synthetic tests.

In The Technomancer specifically, the CPU's role becomes more pronounced at lower resolutions where the GPU has headroom. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 136.2 FPS, which is 1.48 times the 1080p High result of 92 FPS, indicating that the CPU can push frames well beyond what the GPU can render at higher settings. The 12-thread count helps with the game's background streaming and entity management, and the data shows no signs of CPU-induced stuttering even at the highest preset.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of the Ryzen 5 2600 and Arc B580 ranks 1303 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the 21st percentile from the bottom — meaning roughly 79% of all tested systems perform better. This rank is heavily influenced by the GPU's position; the Arc B580 itself sits in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23,021 that is just 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon 760M and 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. The CPU's 77th percentile standing is comparatively stronger, yet the combo's overall rank suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor in most scenes.

The rank becomes clearer when examining the measured frame rates. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 70.5 FPS, which is competitive with many mid-range systems from the past few years. However, at 1440p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 47.4 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 26.5 FPS — numbers that place this combo in the lower half of the ranking table for high-resolution gaming. The 1656-combo pool includes systems with much newer CPUs and GPUs, so a 2018 processor paired with a 2024 graphics card lands exactly where the data suggests: solid for 1080p, acceptable for 1440p, and marginal for 4K.

What is notable is the consistency of the CPU's contribution. The Ryzen 5 2600's Cinebench R20 multi-core score of 4,698 and PassMark physics score of 673 are not exceptional, but they are sufficient to avoid becoming the bottleneck in a game that is primarily GPU-bound at higher settings. The combo's rank of 1303 reflects a balanced pairing where neither component drastically underperforms the other, but both are outclassed by newer hardware in the upper tier of the ranking.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data provides four presets at each resolution, and the results point to Medium as the sweet spot for most users. At 1080p, Medium delivers 103.3 FPS, which is 12% higher than High's 92 FPS and 47% higher than Ultra's 70.5 FPS, while still maintaining visual quality that is nearly indistinguishable from High in most scenes. The jump from Low to Medium is substantial — from 136.2 to 103.3 FPS — but Low sacrifices too much visual fidelity for the 32% gain, making it only suitable for competitive play where frame rate trumps graphics.

At 1440p, Medium yields 66.4 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while High drops to 57.7 FPS and Ultra to 47.4 FPS. The step from Medium to High costs 13% of the frame rate, and the visual difference is subtle enough that Medium is the recommended preset for 1440p monitors. For 4K, none of the presets achieve a playable 60 FPS; Medium reaches 37.2 FPS, High 31.9 FPS, and Ultra falls to 26.5 FPS. Low is the only 4K option that approaches playability at 47.6 FPS, but even that is below the 60 FPS ideal.

The data suggests that this combo is best experienced at 1080p with Medium or High settings, where the frame rates exceed 90 FPS and the CPU's six cores are not stressed. At 1440p, Medium is the pragmatic choice, offering 66.4 FPS with a reasonable balance of quality and performance. Ultra presets are only recommended for 1080p, where the 70.5 FPS average is still smooth enough for an action RPG, but the 32% frame rate penalty compared to Medium makes it a luxury rather than a necessity.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern, with the frame rate dropping by 65% at High settings (92 to 31.9 FPS) and by 65% at Ultra (70.5 to 26.5 FPS) when moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. This near-linear relationship with pixel count — 4K has exactly four times the pixels of 1080p — indicates that the Intel Arc B580 is the limiting component, not the Ryzen 5 2600. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain more constant across resolutions, but the data shows a steady decline that tracks with the GPU's rendering workload.

At Medium settings, the drop from 103.3 FPS at 1080p to 37.2 FPS at 4K is a 64% reduction, and at Low settings it goes from 136.2 to 47.6 FPS, a 65% drop. This consistency across all presets is the hallmark of a GPU-limited scenario. The Arc B580's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and 456 GB/s bandwidth are not overtaxed by this 2016 game, but the compute units (2,560 shading units running at 2670 MHz) simply cannot render 8.3 million pixels at high frame rates.

The 1440p results further confirm this analysis. Moving from 1080p to 1440p increases pixel count by 78%, and the frame rate drops by 37% at High (92 to 57.7 FPS) and 36% at Ultra (70.5 to 47.4 FPS). This sub-linear drop suggests that at 1440p, the CPU begins to provide some relief, but the GPU still dominates the performance equation. The Ryzen 5 2600's single-thread score of 1,579 in Cinebench R23 is sufficient to keep the game logic running, but the Arc B580's raw pixel throughput is the deciding factor in all measured scenarios.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Arc B580, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with the Xe2-HPG architecture, is the primary driver of performance in The Technomancer. With 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, it offers 456 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for a game from 2016 that was designed for GPUs with far less VRAM. The GPU's 2560 shading units run at a fixed 2670 MHz for both base and boost clocks, delivering 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. This places the B580 in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23,021 that is within 0.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 and 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA P106-100.

The B580's performance in The Technomancer is directly tied to its pixel fill rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s. At 1080p Ultra, the GPU produces 70.5 FPS, which translates to 1.36 billion pixels processed per second — a figure that is well within the B580's theoretical limits. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 15,748 and DirectX 12 score of 76 indicate strong DirectX 12 performance, which is relevant for a game that supports newer APIs despite its age.

The 12 GB VRAM is never a limiting factor in this title, as even at 4K Ultra, the game's texture requirements are modest by modern standards. The B580's memory clock of 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective) provides sufficient bandwidth to prevent any memory-related stuttering. The GPU's 190 W TDP and 450 W suggested PSU are not constraints in a system with a 65 W CPU, and the data shows that the B580's performance is consistent across all presets, with no thermal throttling observed in the measured frame rates. The GPU is clearly the star of this pairing, and its capabilities are the reason the combo can achieve playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p despite the aging CPU.