The Technomancer

# How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D paired with the Intel Arc B390 ranks 2500th out of 2825 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the bottom 11% of all configurations. This is a deeply unbalanced pairing: the CPU sits at the 92nd percentile among all processors, while the GPU sits at the 9th percentile among all graphics cards. The result is a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound in every measurable scenario, with the Arc B390 acting as the definitive performance ceiling.

The combo's rank of 2500 reflects the GPU's position rather than the CPU's capability. In a game like The Technomancer, which is an Action RPG from 2016, the rendering workload scales with resolution and settings, and the Arc B390 simply cannot keep pace with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D's potential. The CPU's nearest rivals—the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M, Intel Xeon w5-2545, Intel Core i9-14900, and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470—all have average benchmark scores within a fraction of a percent of the 9850X3D, confirming that the processor is elite-tier. Meanwhile, the GPU's nearest rivals—the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710—are all legacy or low-end parts, confirming the B390's position at the very bottom of the GPU hierarchy.

What this means in practice is that the combo's ranking is almost entirely determined by the GPU. The data shows a 2500th-place finish despite a top-tier CPU, and the gap between the two components' percentiles (92 vs. 9) is the widest possible indicator of bottlenecking. The CPU is not the limiting factor at any resolution or setting; the GPU is. This is not a combo that scales well with CPU headroom—it is a combo where the GPU saturates long before the CPU breaks a sweat.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D a strong processor for gaming?

A: Yes. The CPU sits at the 92nd percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 58386. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-14900 (deltaPct 0.5%) and the Intel Xeon w5-2545 (deltaPct -0.2%), meaning it trades blows with top-tier desktop and workstation chips.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The B390 has an average benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it at the 9th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (deltaPct 1.3%), GeForce 800M (deltaPct 1.5%), GT 625 OEM (deltaPct 2.5%), and GT 710 (deltaPct 2.7%)—all are within 3% of the B390's score, confirming it is a very low-end part.

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves in The Technomancer?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 79 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 61 FPS, and at 1080p High it is 52 FPS. These are the only settings where the combo approaches playable framerates.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in The Technomancer?

A: No. At 3840x2160, the best average FPS is 28 at Low settings. Medium averages 22 FPS, High averages 19 FPS, and Ultra averages 15 FPS. All 4K results are below playable thresholds, with the GPU being the clear bottleneck.

Q: Does the CPU affect FPS at lower resolutions?

A: The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would theoretically matter most, the combo only reaches 79 FPS. Given the CPU's 92nd percentile ranking and the GPU's 9th percentile ranking, the GPU is the limiting factor at all tested resolutions and settings.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in this game?

A: The combo ranks 2500th out of 2825 tested combinations in The Technomancer. This places it in the bottom 11% of all combos, consistent with the GPU's low percentile ranking.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K in The Technomancer reveals a GPU that is completely overwhelmed by pixel count. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 52 at 1920x1080 to 34 at 2560x1440, then to 19 at 3840x2160. That is a 63% reduction from 1080p to 4K, a steep decline that indicates the Arc B390's rendering pipeline saturates quickly as resolution increases.

The Low settings curve tells a similar story: 79 FPS at 1080p, 52 FPS at 1440p, and 28 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is 34%, and from 1440p to 4K is 46%. These are not linear scaling curves—they are exponential declines typical of a GPU that runs out of shading throughput and memory bandwidth. The B390 has a system-shared memory configuration, meaning its bandwidth is "System Dependent," and this likely contributes to the severe 4K penalty.

At Ultra settings, the combo manages 40 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p, and 15 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the lowest recorded average across all tests, and it is barely a slideshow. The scaling pattern across all settings is consistent: the GPU is the bottleneck at every resolution, and the CPU's 8-core, 16-thread configuration with a 5.60 GHz boost clock never becomes a limiting factor. If the CPU were the constraint, we would expect to see FPS plateaus at lower resolutions, but instead we see continuous drops as resolution climbs—a clear GPU-bound signature.

The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (79 FPS) and Ultra (40 FPS) is 39 FPS. At 4K, the difference between Low (28 FPS) and Ultra (15 FPS) is only 13 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU is the sole limiter—when the pixel workload dominates, settings-based differences shrink because the GPU is already at its maximum output.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce an average of 79 FPS, which is the only fully playable result in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 FPS and a maximum of 70 FPS, indicating some frame-time variance but still a playable experience. High settings average 52 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 40 FPS. The 1080p results are the only resolution where any settings level approaches or exceeds 60 FPS, and even then only Low and Medium do so.

At 2560x1440, playability becomes marginal. Low settings average 52 FPS, which is technically playable but not smooth. Medium averages 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 46 FPS, showing significant frame dips. High settings average 34 FPS, and Ultra drops to 26 FPS. None of the 1440p results maintain a consistent 60 FPS, and the minimum FPS values at Medium (34 FPS) suggest noticeable stuttering during demanding scenes.

At 3840x2160, the combo is not viable for gameplay. Low settings average 28 FPS, Medium averages 22 FPS with a minimum of 19 FPS and a maximum of 25 FPS, High averages 19 FPS, and Ultra averages 15 FPS. All 4K results are below 30 FPS, and the Medium minimum of 19 FPS indicates that even the lower settings cannot maintain a stable frame rate. The 4K Ultra result of 15 FPS is effectively unplayable.

Across all resolutions, the Medium settings results include min and max FPS values, while the other settings only provide averages. The Medium 1080p result (61 avg, 52 min, 70 max) shows a spread of 18 FPS, and the Medium 1440p result (40 avg, 34 min, 46 max) shows a spread of 12 FPS. The Medium 4K result (22 avg, 19 min, 25 max) shows a spread of only 6 FPS, indicating that at 4K the GPU is so saturated that frame times become more consistent—but at a very low level.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the primary performance limiter in this combo. Its benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 places it at the 9th percentile among all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all low-end NVIDIA parts from previous generations: the GT 520MX (deltaPct 1.3%), GeForce 800M (deltaPct 1.5%), GT 625 OEM (deltaPct 2.5%), and GT 710 (deltaPct 2.7%). These deltas are all within 3%, meaning the B390 is not even meaningfully faster than these legacy GPUs—it is in the same performance class.

The GPU's specifications explain its weak results. It has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster operation units, with 12 ray tracing cores. Its boost clock is 2500 MHz with a base clock of 300 MHz, and its pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput is 7.680 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These are not terrible numbers on paper for an integrated part, but the memory configuration is the critical weakness: the B390 uses System Shared memory, with System Shared bandwidth that is "System Dependent." This means the GPU relies on the CPU's DDR5 memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, which is far below what a discrete GPU would have.

The 80 W TDP and IGP form factor (slot width "IGP", bus interface "IGP", no power connectors) confirm this is an integrated graphics solution, likely part of the Panther Lake platform. The 3 nm process node from Intel and Xe3-LPG architecture are modern, but the system-shared memory bottleneck is evident in the 4K results. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the combo averages 15 FPS, and at 4K High it manages only 19 FPS—these are consistent with a GPU that cannot access enough memory bandwidth to feed its shading units at high pixel counts.

The GPU's percentile rank of 9 means it outperforms only 9% of all GPUs in the database. In The Technomancer, this translates to sub-30 FPS at 4K across all settings and sub-60 FPS at 1440p for all settings except Low. The B390 is simply not designed for this game at high resolutions, and its role in this combo is to bottleneck the CPU's output completely.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is an extremely capable processor that is wasted in this pairing. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its architecture is Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) on a 4 nm process from TSMC, with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. The cache configuration is substantial: 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 96 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a desktop part on AMD Socket AM5, supporting DDR5 memory with dual-channel access and 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

The CPU's benchmark results are strong across the board. In Cinebench R23, it scores 22807 multi-core and 2228 single-core. In PassMark, it scores 41318 multi-thread, 4704 single-thread, 123140 integer math, 81998 floating point math, and 474501 data compression. Its average benchmark score is 58386, and it sits at the 92nd percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (deltaPct 0.1%), Intel Xeon w5-2545 (deltaPct -0.2%), Intel Core i9-14900 (deltaPct 0.5%), and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 (deltaPct -0.7%)—all within 1% of the 9850X3D's average score.

In The Technomancer, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU, and it does so without ever becoming a constraint. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking: the FPS scales directly with resolution and settings, which is the signature of a GPU-bound system. Even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would be most likely to limit performance, the combo only reaches 79 FPS—a result that is capped by the GPU's throughput, not the CPU's capability.

The 9850X3D's 96 MB of L3 cache and 5.60 GHz boost clock are the kind of specifications that would excel in CPU-heavy games, but The Technomancer is not one of them. The CPU's percentile rank of 92 versus the GPU's rank of 9 is the clearest possible indicator of imbalance. The CPU has a launch MSRP of $499, and its production status is Active, with a release date of 2026-01-28. It supports ECC memory, has PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes, and includes integrated Radeon Graphics, but none of these features matter in this combo because the Arc B390 is the only graphics output. The data shows that the CPU is doing everything it can; the GPU is simply incapable of translating that into playable frame rates at higher resolutions.