The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 action RPG, presents an interesting test for the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination. The measured FPS data across resolutions and settings reveals a system that is firmly GPU-bound at higher resolutions but shows the CPU’s strength at lower settings. This analysis walks through the performance scaling, settings trade-offs, and the distinct roles each component plays in delivering the frame rates observed in the benchmark data.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 shows a classic pattern of GPU limitation intensifying as pixel count rises. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 110.8 at 1080p to 76.1 at 1440p, a reduction of 34.7 FPS, and then falls further to 40.5 at 4K. The scaling from 1440p to 4K represents a 46.8% performance loss, which is substantial and clearly indicates the graphics card is the primary bottleneck at that resolution. The data shows that moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 31% of the frame rate, while the jump to 4K costs an additional 47% relative to 1440p, highlighting the exponential cost of higher resolutions on the RX 6700 XT.

At Low settings, the scaling becomes even more revealing. The system achieves 170.1 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 109.0 at 1440p (a 35.9% decrease) and then to 62.7 at 4K (a 42.5% decrease from 1440p). The fact that Low settings at 1080p produces such high frame rates suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond what the RX 6700 XT can render at higher quality presets. However, the persistent drop to 4K even at Low settings confirms that the GPU's 12 GB of memory and its compute throughput are the limiting factors, not the Ryzen 7 7700's processing power.

The pattern across all settings shows a consistent hierarchy: 1080p is always the fastest, 1440p offers a middle ground, and 4K is the most demanding. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 62.7 versus 33.3 FPS, a 29.4 FPS difference, which indicates that even at the highest resolution, the preset choice has a massive impact on playability. This suggests that for 4K gaming, the user must carefully balance visual quality against frame rate, as the GPU cannot handle Ultra settings while maintaining a smooth experience.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, all presets deliver playable frame rates, with Low at 170.1 FPS, Medium at 133.4 FPS, High at 110.8 FPS, and Ultra at 88.9 FPS. For a standard 60 Hz display, even Ultra settings provide a comfortable margin above the refresh rate, making High or Ultra the recommended choices for visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more nuanced. High settings produce 76.1 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold but not by a huge margin. Medium settings offer 85.4 FPS, providing a better buffer for frame-time spikes, while Ultra drops to 55.4 FPS, which might be acceptable for some but falls below the 60 FPS target. Low settings at 109.0 FPS are overkill for most displays, so the best experience per the measured data is High or Medium, depending on whether the user prioritizes visuals or smoothness.

At 3840x2160, the choices are more constrained. High settings yield only 40.5 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target and likely feels stuttery on a high-refresh monitor. Medium settings improve this to 48.6 FPS, and Low reaches 62.7 FPS, which is the only preset that breaks the 60 FPS barrier at 4K. Given the data, Low settings at 4K provide the best playable experience, while Medium might be acceptable for users who prefer higher fidelity and can tolerate slightly lower frame rates. Ultra at 33.3 FPS is generally not recommended for smooth gameplay.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this system?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 170.1, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, which produces 62.7 FPS. Medium settings at 4K fall short at 48.6 FPS, and High settings are further behind at 40.5 FPS.

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

A: The Ultra preset at 2560x1440 produces 55.4 FPS, which is 20.7 FPS lower than the High preset's 76.1 FPS. This represents a significant performance cost for the extra visual detail.

Q: Is the system more CPU-bound or GPU-bound at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system reaches 170.1 FPS, suggesting the GPU is still the limiting factor, but the Ryzen 7 7700's high single-thread performance allows for very high frame rates. The CPU is not the primary bottleneck at any resolution, as evidenced by the consistent FPS drops when increasing resolution.

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

A: The difference is 81.2 FPS, with Low at 170.1 FPS and Ultra at 88.9 FPS. This shows the Ultra preset costs nearly half the frame rate compared to Low.

Q: How does the RX 6700 XT's performance rank against other GPUs in the database?

A: The GPU has an average benchmark score of 33721, placing it in the 77th percentile of all GPUs. It is 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A5000.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The benchmark data provides a complete matrix of average FPS across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 170.1 FPS on Low, 133.4 FPS on Medium, 110.8 FPS on High, and 88.9 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a steady decline, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium (36.7 FPS) and the smallest between High and Ultra (21.9 FPS). This suggests that the Ultra preset adds a significant load relative to High, but the jump from Low to Medium is also costly.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average FPS values are 109.0 for Low, 85.4 for Medium, 76.1 for High, and 55.4 for Ultra. The relative performance gap between presets narrows slightly compared to 1080p, but the absolute numbers are lower across the board. The difference between Medium and High is only 9.3 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra expands to 20.7 FPS, indicating that Ultra has a disproportionately large impact at 1440p.

At 3840x2160, the system produces 62.7 FPS on Low, 48.6 FPS on Medium, 40.5 FPS on High, and 33.3 FPS on Ultra. The scaling here shows a more linear decline, with differences of 14.1 FPS between Low and Medium, 8.1 FPS between Medium and High, and 7.2 FPS between High and Ultra. This pattern suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that each preset increment adds a more consistent but smaller absolute cost compared to lower resolutions.

The overall trend across the dataset is clear: resolution has a larger impact on FPS than settings at the high end, but settings still matter significantly. For example, changing from 1080p Low to 4K Low costs 107.4 FPS, while changing from 4K Low to 4K Ultra costs 29.4 FPS. This indicates that resolution scaling is the dominant factor in determining performance for this combination.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the clear bottleneck in this system at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the FPS data. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game's demands at 1080p and 1440p but strained at 4K. The core clocks are 2321 MHz base and 2581 MHz boost, with a game clock of 2424 MHz, and the RDNA 2.0 architecture with 2560 shading units delivers a pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s. These specifications translate to 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which explains why the GPU can handle 1080p Ultra at 88.9 FPS but struggles with 4K Ultra at 33.3 FPS.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its mid-to-high-end positioning. With an average benchmark score of 33721, it sits in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, putting it just 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A5000. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2435 and Geekbench scores (129041 Metal, 100730 OpenCL, 108032 Vulkan) indicate strong DirectX 12 and compute performance, which aligns with the game's 2016 release date and its likely DirectX 11 or 12 rendering path. The PassMark G3D score of 19786 further validates the GPU's capability, though the DirectX 12 score of 77 is notably lower than DirectX 11's 173, hinting at potential driver overhead in newer APIs.

The VRAM capacity is crucial for this game. At 4K Ultra, the game likely approaches the 12 GB limit, but the frame rate of 33.3 FPS suggests compute limits rather than memory capacity are the primary constraint. The 384.0 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for the game's textures, as evidenced by the linear FPS scaling between presets. Overall, the RX 6700 XT provides enough power for 1080p and 1440p gaming with high settings, but its 77th percentile ranking means it is not a top-tier 4K card.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 plays a supporting role in this system, providing enough processing power to avoid becoming a bottleneck at any tested resolution. With 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, the CPU has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 5 nm process node from TSMC contribute to its strong single-thread and multi-thread performance, which is critical for feeding the GPU with draw calls and game logic.

The CPU's benchmark results show it is a high-performing processor, sitting in the 91st percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 40468. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H, is only 0.1% faster, while the Intel Core i9-13905H is 0.6% slower. The Cinebench R23 scores of 29302 (multi-core) and 4136 (single-core) demonstrate excellent multi-threaded and single-threaded capability, which is essential for a game like The Technomancer that may not utilize all 16 threads efficiently. The 3DMark scores (8484 for 16 threads, 8479 for max threads) show that scaling beyond 8 threads yields minimal gains, but the CPU's high clock speeds ensure low latency.

The fact that the system achieves 170.1 FPS at 1080p Low indicates the CPU is not limiting the frame rate at lower resolutions. Even at 4K Low, the FPS drops to 62.7, which is a GPU-side limitation rather than a CPU one. The PassMark single-thread score of 4063 and multi-thread score of 34470 confirm that the Ryzen 7 7700 can handle the game's CPU demands without breaking a sweat. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 is more than sufficient for game data transfer, and the PCIe Gen 5 interface (with 24 lanes) ensures no bottleneck in data transfer to the GPU.

In summary, the CPU's role is to provide high frame rates at lower resolutions and settings, which it does effectively. The data shows that the Ryzen 7 7700 is not the limiting factor in this system; rather, the RX 6700 XT's rendering capabilities define the performance envelope, especially at 1440p and 4K.