The Technomancer

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the AMD Radeon 890M delivers a playable but constrained experience in The Technomancer, with performance firmly bottlenecked by the integrated graphics solution. The data shows this combo ranks near the bottom of the tested pool, and while the CPU provides substantial headroom, the iGPU struggles to maintain smooth framerates at higher resolutions and settings. The sweet spot for this configuration is 1080p with Low settings, where the average FPS nearly doubles compared to the High preset.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, indicating that the AMD Radeon 890M is the definitive limiting component in this pairing. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 70 FPS. Scaling up to 2560x1440 drops the average to 46 FPS, a reduction of roughly 34%. Moving further to 3840x2160, the average falls to 25 FPS, which represents a 64% decrease from the 1080p Low result. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario where the rendering load at higher resolutions overwhelms the available pixel throughput and shading resources.

The situation becomes more pronounced when examining the High settings preset. At 1080p High, the average is 46 FPS. This drops to 30 FPS at 1440p, and then plummets to 17 FPS at 4K. The jump from 1440p to 4K at High settings results in a 43% performance loss, while the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 35% of the framerate. These consistent, proportionate declines across resolution steps underscore that the iGPU's fixed execution resources are saturated, and the CPU's 16 cores and 5.40 GHz boost clock are not the constraining factor.

The Ultra preset offers the clearest evidence of the GPU bottleneck. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 36 FPS; at 1440p, it falls to 23 FPS; and at 4K, it bottoms out at 13 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is barely a slideshow, with the data showing a 64% drop from the 1080p Ultra figure. The resolution scaling behavior here is nearly linear with pixel count, which is a textbook sign that the system is starved for GPU throughput rather than CPU instruction issue or memory bandwidth. The Radeon 890M's 1024 shading units and 32 ROPs, running at a boost clock of 2900 MHz, simply cannot feed the framebuffer fast enough at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX and the AMD Radeon 890M places at rank 2667 out of 2825 tested combos in The Technomancer. This percentile placement, in the bottom 6% of all configurations, confirms that the integrated graphics solution is the overwhelming weak point. The CPU is a high-end mobile part, but the benchmark results indicate that its potential is entirely untapped in this game due to the GPU ceiling.

The comboRankInGame of 2667 out of 2825 suggests that nearly every discrete GPU configuration, and even many older integrated solutions, will outperform this pairing in this specific title. The data does not include direct rival combo scores, but the GPU's own percentile ranking provides context. The AMD Radeon 890M sits at the 45th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9210. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Vega 8 (with a deltaPct of -0.1%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (deltaPct -0.7%), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 (deltaPct -0.9%). These rivals are all older or lower-tier parts, and the fact that the 890M is only 0.1% ahead of the Vega 8 highlights that this iGPU is competitive with entry-level discrete GPUs from several generations ago.

The CPU, in contrast, is a top-tier performer. The Ryzen 9 8945HX holds the 95th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 76212. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (deltaPct 0.1%), the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (deltaPct -0.4%), and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (deltaPct 0.6%). The deltaPct values are all within 1% of each other, indicating that the 8945HX is statistically tied with the fastest desktop and mobile processors available. This massive disparity between CPU ranking (95th percentile) and GPU ranking (45th percentile) is the core story of this combo: a flagship processor shackled to an entry-level graphics solution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Dragon Range. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with 64 MB of L3 cache. In The Technomancer, which is a 2016 Action RPG, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw call submission. The benchmark data shows that the CPU is not a limiting factor at any resolution or settings preset.

The evidence for this is the consistent performance scaling with resolution and settings. If the CPU were the bottleneck, reducing resolution from 1440p to 1080p would yield minimal FPS gains, as the CPU would still be processing the same number of game entities and physics calculations. However, the data shows that dropping from 1440p Low (46 FPS) to 1080p Low (70 FPS) produces a 52% improvement in framerate. This substantial gain indicates that the CPU has abundant headroom to feed the GPU more frames, but the GPU cannot render them fast enough at higher resolutions.

The 8945HX's passmark multithread score of 51405 and single-thread score of 3907 are elite-level figures. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 42713 and single-core score of 6030 further confirm its dominance. With 32 threads available, the processor can easily handle the multithreaded workloads of modern game engines, and its high single-thread performance ensures that legacy titles like The Technomancer, which may rely on fewer threads, still run efficiently. The 16 cores and 32 threads provide a massive buffer, ensuring that even if the game engine attempts to utilize multiple threads for AI or particle effects, the CPU will not become a constraint.

The memory support for DDR5, with dual-channel configuration and 83.2 GB/s bandwidth, also contributes to the CPU's ability to feed data quickly. However, because the Radeon 890M uses "System Shared" memory, the CPU and GPU are contending for the same memory bandwidth. This shared memory architecture can introduce latency and bandwidth contention, but the data suggests that at 1080p Low, the system still manages to achieve 70 FPS, indicating that the memory subsystem is adequate for this workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of this combo's capabilities across four resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low settings yield an average of 70 FPS, Medium yields 54 FPS (with a minimum of 46 and maximum of 62), High yields 46 FPS, and Ultra yields 36 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 34 FPS, or a 49% reduction in performance. This is a significant drop, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects, likely including higher texture quality, more detailed shadows, and increased draw distances, heavily tax the iGPU's 32 ROPs and 64 TMUs.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance degrades across the board. Low settings drop to an average of 46 FPS, which is exactly the same as the 1080p High result. Medium settings average 35 FPS (minimum 30, maximum 41), High settings average 30 FPS, and Ultra settings average 23 FPS. The 1440p Low result being identical to the 1080p High result is a useful baseline: it shows that the GPU's rendering capacity is such that the resolution increase at Low settings is equivalent to the settings increase at 1080p in terms of performance cost.

At 3840x2160, the results become largely unplayable. Low settings average 25 FPS, Medium averages 19 FPS (minimum 16, maximum 22), High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages 13 FPS. The 4K Low result of 25 FPS is below the threshold for smooth gameplay, and the Ultra result of 13 FPS is effectively a static image. The minimum FPS data points available (16 FPS at 4K Medium, 30 FPS at 1440p Medium, and 46 FPS at 1080p Medium) show that frame pacing is also a concern, with the minimums often dipping well below the averages, which can cause stuttering.

The data shows a clear pattern: 1080p is the only resolution where the combo achieves consistently playable framerates, and even then, only at Low and Medium settings. The 70 FPS at 1080p Low is the standout result, providing a smooth experience. The 54 FPS at 1080p Medium is also acceptable, though the 46 FPS minimum could cause occasional hitches. Anything above 1080p Medium results in averages below 50 FPS, which is generally considered the threshold for demanding action games.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 890M is an integrated graphics processor based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process. It features 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation pipelines. The boost clock is 2900 MHz, which is high for an iGPU, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate. However, the memory configuration is "System Shared," meaning it relies on the system's DDR5 memory rather than dedicated VRAM. This shared memory setup is a critical limitation, as the bandwidth is "System Dependent" and the effective memory bandwidth for the GPU is constrained by the CPU's dual-channel memory bus.

In The Technomancer, the GPU's role is the primary determinant of performance. The 890M's passmark G3D score of 8076 and its 45th percentile ranking among all GPUs place it in the lower half of the performance spectrum. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Vega 8, is only 0.1% slower in average benchmark score, which is a stark reminder that this iGPU, despite being several generations newer, does not offer a significant performance leap over older integrated solutions. The 890M is also 0.7% slower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, a discrete GPU from 2015, and 0.9% slower than the GTX 465, a GPU from 2010.

The measured FPS data directly reflects these benchmark scores. The 890M's 32 ROPs are insufficient to handle the pixel fill rate demands of 4K resolutions, resulting in the 17 FPS average at 4K High. The 64 TMUs are similarly taxed when texture filtering and anisotropic filtering are enabled at higher settings. The GPU's FP32 performance of 5.939 TFLOPS is modest, and while it is sufficient for 1080p Low, it struggles with the shader complexity of the Ultra preset. The 16 ray tracing cores are present, but The Technomancer does not use ray tracing, so they offer no benefit here; the raw rasterization performance is what matters.

The GPU's TDP of 15 W is remarkably low, which is typical for an iGPU, but it also means the power delivery and thermal headroom are limited. The 890M cannot boost to its 2900 MHz clock for sustained periods under heavy load, which may explain why the minimum FPS figures are significantly lower than the averages in the Medium presets. The shared memory architecture also means that the GPU and CPU are competing for the same memory channels, and at 4K resolutions, the memory bandwidth demand likely exceeds what the system can provide, further contributing to the low framerates.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo are 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This configuration yields an average of 70 FPS, which provides a smooth and responsive experience for an Action RPG. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 16 FPS (from 70 to 54 FPS), which is a 23% performance penalty. While 54 FPS is still technically playable, the minimum FPS of 46 at Medium settings is dangerously close to the threshold where frame pacing becomes noticeable, and the visual upgrade from Low to Medium may not be worth the risk of stuttering.

The High preset at 1080p drops the average to 46 FPS, which is below the 50 FPS threshold for demanding titles. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 36 FPS, which is borderline unplayable for a game that requires precise timing in combat. Therefore, the data clearly indicates that Low settings at 1080p is the only preset that provides a consistently smooth experience, with 70 FPS offering sufficient headroom for demanding scenes.

For users who insist on higher visual fidelity, 1080p Medium is the maximum acceptable setting, with an average of 54 FPS. However, the 46 FPS minimum suggests that there will be noticeable drops during intense combat sequences. At 1440p, the Low preset averages 46 FPS, which is playable but not ideal; any higher settings at 1440p result in averages below 35 FPS, which is not recommended. At 4K, no settings preset is playable, with the Low preset averaging 25 FPS, which is below the minimum threshold for interactive gameplay.

The data supports a clear verdict: this combo is designed for 1080p gaming at low to medium settings. The CPU has massive headroom, but the iGPU's shared memory and limited ROPs and TMUs cap the experience. Users should prioritize resolution over settings, as dropping from 1440p Low to 1080p Low yields a 52% framerate improvement, while dropping from 1080p High to 1080p Low only yields a 34% improvement. The 1080p Low preset is the only configuration that fully utilizes the CPU's potential while keeping the GPU within its comfort zone, delivering a 70 FPS experience that is smooth and responsive.