The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that heavily favors the GPU. When paired with the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, the benchmark data reveals a configuration that is severely constrained by its graphics card, resulting in a gaming experience that is largely defined by resolution and settings compromises. The measured frame rates across all tested configurations indicate that this combination is positioned at the very bottom of the performance spectrum for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data clearly indicates that the most viable experience for this hardware combination is found at 1080p with the Low preset. At this configuration, the system achieves an average frame rate of 68.5 FPS, which is the only measured result that approaches a consistently smooth gameplay threshold. This represents a significant performance headroom over the Medium preset, which delivers 53.4 FPS, and a substantial 61% improvement over the High preset's 42.4 FPS. For users prioritizing frame rate stability, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the only setting that provides a playable foundation.

At higher resolutions, the frame rates become increasingly marginal. At 2560x1440, the Low preset yields an average of 41.8 FPS, which is playable but with noticeable dips. The Medium and High presets at this resolution produce nearly identical averages of 32.2 FPS and 32.1 FPS, respectively, indicating a bottleneck that is not alleviated by reducing graphical fidelity from Medium to High. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 25.9 FPS, making it unsuitable for action-oriented gameplay. At 3840x2160, all settings produce an unplayable experience, with the Low preset managing only 24.5 FPS and the High preset falling to 16.2 FPS.

Consequently, the data suggests that the optimal strategy is to prioritize resolution over visual quality. The performance delta between Low and Medium at 1080p is 15.1 FPS, which is a substantial gain for a single preset step. Given that the GPU is the primary limiting factor, the "best experience" is defined by the ability to maintain a higher frame rate. Therefore, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the recommended configuration, as it is the only setting that consistently delivers a frame rate above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset, while visually richer, should be avoided entirely, as it yields an average of just 34 FPS at 1080p and 11.9 FPS at 4K, rendering the game effectively static.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the definitive performance bottleneck in this configuration. The benchmark results consistently show that frame rates are tied almost exclusively to the GPU's workload, regardless of the CPU's capabilities. The GTX 1650 features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s. This is a modest allocation for a modern game like The Technomancer, which likely requires substantial texture memory at higher settings. The data supports this, as the frame rate drops precipitously when moving from Low to High settings at the same resolution, indicating that the GPU is struggling with increased memory pressure and shading complexity.

The GPU's clock speeds are listed with a base of 1485 MHz and a boost of 1665 MHz. However, the average FPS figures suggest that these clocks are insufficient to maintain a smooth experience in this title. The GTX 1650's compute capabilities, with 896 shading units and a peak FP32 performance of 2.984 TFLOPS, are simply outmatched by the game's demands at higher presets. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is particularly concerning; at 4K resolution, the Low preset achieves 24.5 FPS, which is only 8.3 FPS higher than the High preset's 16.2 FPS. This relatively small delta between Low and High at 4K suggests that the GPU is not just fill-rate limited but is also hitting a hard memory capacity wall, preventing any meaningful scaling from lower to higher settings.

The GPU's position in the market is reflected in its percentile ranking of 43 among all GPUs. It sits very close to its nearest rivals, including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile (with a deltaPct of -0.4) and the AMD Radeon 550X (also with a deltaPct of -0.4). This proximity in average benchmark scores, however, does not translate to playability in this specific title. The data shows that the GTX 1650 is fundamentally a 1080p-class card for older or less demanding games, and The Technomancer at higher settings exceeds its capabilities.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks at position 1607 out of 1656 total tested combos for The Technomancer. This places it in the bottom 3% of all configurations, a signal of the severe imbalance between the high-end CPU and the low-end GPU. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on Zen 5 architecture, has a benchmark percentile of 90 among all CPUs, indicating it is a top-tier processor. In contrast, the GPU's percentile of 43 is below average, creating a scenario where the processor's potential is entirely wasted.

This rank is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is capable of far higher frame rates in a CPU-bound scenario, but the GTX 1650 cannot deliver the necessary pixel throughput. The data indicates that this combo is effectively a GPU benchmark, with the CPU having negligible influence on the final FPS figures. The rank of 1607 suggests that almost any other GPU pairing would yield a better result in this game. The deltaPct values for the GPU's nearest rivals are all within 0.5% of its average score, confirming that the GTX 1650 is at the very bottom of the performance hierarchy, making this combo one of the weakest possible for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of the performance envelope. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: the Low preset averages 68.5 FPS, Medium averages 53.4 FPS, High averages 42.4 FPS, and Ultra averages 34 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent decline, with a total drop of 34.5 FPS from the lowest to the highest settings. The step from Low to Medium is a loss of 15.1 FPS, while the step from Medium to High is a loss of 11 FPS, and from High to Ultra is a loss of 8.4 FPS. This suggests that the GPU's shader and memory resources are progressively saturated as visual complexity increases.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 41.8 FPS for Low, 32.2 FPS for Medium, 32.1 FPS for High, and 25.9 FPS for Ultra. A notable anomaly appears here: the Medium and High presets yield nearly identical performance, with a difference of only 0.1 FPS. This indicates that at this resolution, the GPU is likely limited by its memory bandwidth or capacity, and the additional shading work required by the High preset does not impact the frame rate because the bottleneck lies elsewhere. The drop from Low to Medium is 9.6 FPS, while the drop from High to Ultra is 6.2 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. The Low preset averages 24.5 FPS, Medium averages 20.6 FPS, High averages 16.2 FPS, and Ultra averages 11.9 FPS. The delta between Low and High is 8.3 FPS, which is smaller than the delta seen at 1080p (26.1 FPS). This compression of frame rates at 4K further reinforces the theory of a hard VRAM limit, as the GPU cannot leverage its compute units effectively when the memory pool is exhausted.

Resolution Scaling

The impact of resolution scaling is dramatic and clearly illustrates the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at the Low preset results in a frame rate drop from 68.5 FPS to 41.8 FPS, a reduction of 39%. This is a substantial penalty for a 78% increase in pixel count, indicating that the GPU is not just fill-rate limited but also affected by other factors. Moving from 1440p to 4K at Low settings further reduces the average to 24.5 FPS, a 41% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU that is overwhelmed by the pixel throughput required at higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior varies by preset. At the Ultra preset, the frame rate drops from 34 FPS at 1080p to 25.9 FPS at 1440p (a 24% decrease) and then to 11.9 FPS at 4K (a 54% decrease from 1440p). The larger percentage drop from 1440p to 4K at Ultra settings suggests that the GPU's compute units are saturated, and the additional resolution creates a compounding effect on the workload. Conversely, at the Low preset, the drop from 1440p to 4K is 41%, which, while steep, is less severe, indicating that the GPU is relatively more capable of handling the lower graphical load.

The data unequivocally shows that the limiting component is the GPU. The CPU, which is a top-tier part, is never the constraint, as evidenced by the frame rates being entirely dependent on resolution and settings. The scaling from 1080p to 4K demonstrates that the GTX 1650 is a 1080p-centric card. The fact that the 4K Low preset (24.5 FPS) is barely above the 1440p High preset (32.1 FPS) further suggests that the GPU's memory subsystem is the primary bottleneck, as reducing settings at 4K provides diminishing returns. This configuration is therefore only suitable for 1080p gaming at lower presets, and any attempt to scale to higher resolutions will result in a significantly degraded experience.