The Technomancer

# The Technomancer with AMD Ryzen 5 9600X + AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting stress profile for modern hardware. This pairing of a 6-core Zen 5 CPU and a RDNA 3 GPU produces a wide spread of frame rates that reveals where the bottleneck shifts as resolution climbs. The measured data shows this combo ranks 728th out of 1656 tested combinations, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database, but the shape of the performance curve tells a more nuanced story than the raw rank suggests.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 195.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 70.7 FPS at 3840x2160 — a reduction of 125.1 FPS, which represents a 64% loss. This is a dramatic scaling curve that indicates the GPU is being pushed to its limits at higher resolutions, especially since the Low preset at 1080p produces such high frame rates that the CPU must be keeping pace comfortably.

Moving to Medium settings, the scaling is similar but with a slightly lower ceiling: 152.7 FPS at 1080p drops to 50.5 FPS at 4K, a loss of 102.2 FPS (67%). The High preset shows 125.4 FPS at 1080p falling to 48.9 FPS at 4K, a 76.5 FPS reduction (61%). Ultra settings start from a lower base of 101.4 FPS at 1080p and decline to 36.9 FPS at 4K, losing 64.5 FPS (64%). The consistency of this roughly 60-67% drop across presets suggests the rendering workload scales linearly with pixel count, which is typical for a title that is not heavily dependent on exotic effects.

The 1440p data points sit almost exactly halfway between the 1080p and 4K results, which reinforces the notion of predictable scaling. At High settings, 1440p delivers 82.7 FPS, which is 34% lower than 1080p and 41% higher than 4K. This linearity implies that neither the CPU nor the GPU is creating a sudden cliff at any resolution — the system scales gracefully, though the 4K Ultra result of 36.9 FPS is the only sub-40 FPS reading in the entire set.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7700 XT brings 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 432.0 GB/s. The memory clocks are listed at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective). These specifications are relevant because The Technomancer's texture-heavy environments and particle effects can consume significant VRAM at higher resolutions. With 12 GB available, the card should handle 1440p and even 4K textures without spilling into system memory, though the data cannot confirm VRAM usage directly.

The GPU's boost clock of 2544 MHz and game clock of 2171 MHz are the key performance drivers. The chip contains 3456 shading units, 216 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, which together produce a pixel rate of 244.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 549.5 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput of 35.17 TFLOPS is substantial for a mid-range card. Looking at the benchmark scores, this GPU achieves a PassMark G3D score of 22547 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 127549, with a percentile rank of 73 against all GPUs.

The nearest rivals in the database are interesting: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 scores 30109 (0% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 570 scores 30158 (-0.2% delta), and the NVIDIA Tesla M60 scores 29969 (0.4% delta). The RX 7700 XT's average benchmark score of 30097 places it in a tight cluster where a 0.6% delta separates the top from the bottom. This suggests the GPU is well-matched against its peers, but the measured FPS in The Technomancer shows it responding strongly to resolution changes, indicating the rendering pipeline is sensitive to the GPU's raw fill rate and bandwidth.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) architecture, built on a 4 nm process. It operates at a base clock of 3.90 GHz and boosts to 5.40 GHz, with 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 per core. The CPU has a TDP of 65 W, which is modest for a desktop part, and supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s.

The CPU's benchmark results are strong: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 25525 and single-core scores 3603, while Geekbench multicore and single-core scores are 15182 and 3363 respectively. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7585 and single-thread score of 1253 indicate balanced multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. The CPU ranks in the 85th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28246.

The nearest CPU rivals show tight competition: the Intel Core i5-13490F scores 28173 (0.3% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 230 scores 28164 (0.3% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS scores 28369 (-0.4% delta). The 9600X's 6-core/12-thread configuration is sufficient for modern games, and the high single-thread performance is particularly relevant for The Technomancer, which was released in 2016 and may not scale perfectly across many cores. The measured FPS data supports this: at 1080p Low, the 195.8 FPS average suggests the CPU can feed the GPU at very high frame rates, and the scaling to 4K shows the GPU becoming the limiting factor as expected.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of Ryzen 5 9600X and Radeon RX 7700 XT achieves a rank of 728 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the 44th percentile of all tested pairings. This is a mid-pack result that might seem modest given the individual component strengths, but it reflects the game's age and its specific hardware demands.

The 1080p results are strong — 125.4 FPS at High and 101.4 FPS at Ultra — which would place this combo comfortably above average for that resolution. However, the 4K Ultra result of 36.9 FPS drags down the overall picture. The rank of 728 suggests that many other combinations achieve higher frame rates in this title, likely because The Technomancer does not heavily utilize the CPU's 12 threads or the GPU's advanced features like ray tracing. The game's 2016 release predates RDNA 3, so the RX 7700 XT's modern architecture may not be fully leveraged.

The combo's rank relative to its 1656 total suggests it sits just above the median, which aligns with the GPU's 73rd percentile ranking and the CPU's 85th percentile. The discrepancy between component percentiles and combo rank indicates that The Technomancer is not a title that rewards top-tier hardware proportionally — the game's engine appears to cap performance at certain levels regardless of component strength.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Technomancer?

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the combo delivers 82.7 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average jumps to 125.4 FPS, making 1080p the most fluid experience. The 4K High result of 48.9 FPS is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1440p?

A: Ultra at 2560x1440 produces 64.6 FPS, which is 18.1 FPS lower than High's 82.7 FPS. The 22% performance drop for the Ultra preset suggests the additional visual effects are costly, but the 64.6 FPS result remains above 60 FPS for a decent experience.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The 195.8 FPS result at 1080p Low indicates the GPU is not heavily stressed, and the CPU's strong single-thread score of 3603 in Cinebench R23 suggests it can handle the game's logic. The data implies the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases, but at 1080p the system is likely balanced with neither component fully maxed out.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K with Medium settings?

A: The measured average at 3840x2160 with Medium settings is 50.5 FPS. This is a marginal 1.6 FPS improvement over High's 48.9 FPS, indicating that the Medium-to-High transition has minimal impact on performance at 4K.

Q: How does this combo compare to the GPU's nearest rival, the RTX 5060?

A: The RX 7700 XT and RTX 5060 have identical average benchmark scores (30097 vs 30109, a 0% delta). However, the measured FPS in The Technomancer is specific to this AMD pairing, and the database does not provide direct comparison FPS for the rival GPU with this CPU.

Q: Is the 12 GB VRAM sufficient for 4K in this game?

A: The data shows playable frame rates at 4K (48.9 FPS High, 36.9 FPS Ultra), which suggests the 12 GB memory capacity is not causing catastrophic failures. The 432.0 GB/s bandwidth appears adequate, though the Ultra preset's 36.9 FPS indicates the GPU's compute limits are reached before memory becomes an issue.

Settings Recommendations

The data reveals a clear sweet spot for this combo. At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 82.7 FPS, which is 18.1 FPS higher than Ultra's 64.6 FPS and only 16.7 FPS lower than Medium's 99.4 FPS. The High preset appears to offer the best balance of visual quality and performance at this resolution, as the jump from High to Ultra costs 22% performance for what is typically a marginal visual gain in a 2016 title.

At 1920x1080, the High preset's 125.4 FPS is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, while Ultra's 101.4 FPS still clears 100 FPS for a very smooth experience. The Medium preset at 152.7 FPS is overkill for most displays, and Low at 195.8 FPS is only useful for competitive play. For 4K, the Medium preset at 50.5 FPS is the most reasonable choice, as High's 48.9 FPS provides negligible improvement and Ultra's 36.9 FPS is likely too choppy for comfortable play.

The data suggests that High settings at 1440p is the optimal configuration, offering 82.7 FPS — a 28% improvement over 4K High and a 34% reduction from 1080p High, but with significantly better image quality than 1080p and much smoother motion than 4K. The 1440p High result also sits comfortably above the 60 FPS target, providing headroom for demanding scenes.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates scale predictably with settings: Low produces 195.8 FPS, Medium delivers 152.7 FPS, High achieves 125.4 FPS, and Ultra drops to 101.4 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 43.1 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 24.0 FPS, showing diminishing returns as settings increase.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 126.2 FPS, Medium 99.4 FPS, High 82.7 FPS, and Ultra 64.6 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra represents a 48.8% performance drop, with each step costing roughly 16-26 FPS. The 1440p results show that even at Ultra, the combo maintains a playable frame rate above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates compress significantly: Low 70.7 FPS, Medium 50.5 FPS, High 48.9 FPS, and Ultra 36.9 FPS. The difference between Medium and High is just 1.6 FPS, suggesting that these two presets have similar GPU workloads at 4K. The Ultra preset is the only one that falls below 40 FPS, making it the least viable option for this resolution. The 4K Low result of 70.7 FPS is the only 4K configuration that exceeds 60 FPS, and it does so by a comfortable 10.7 FPS margin.