The Technomancer

The Technomancer is an action RPG released on June 27, 2016, and this benchmark combination pairs a 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 9900X from the 9000 series (Zen 5, Granite Ridge, released August 2024) with an AMD Radeon RX 580, a Polaris 20 GPU that shipped in April 2017. Measured frame rates across four resolutions and four presets show a system that struggles at 4K, delivers playable performance at 1440p, and is most comfortable at 1080p. The data indicates a strong CPU paired with a mid-tier GPU, so the limiting factor shifts between resolutions and presets, and the low overall combo ranking of 3373 out of 3696 tested configurations confirms that this build is not optimized for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The average FPS at High settings across all three resolutions illustrates a clear scaling pattern. At 1080p, the measured average is 50 FPS; at 1440p it falls to 33 FPS; at 4K it is 18 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 17 FPS (34% reduction), and from 1440p to 4K it is 15 FPS (45% reduction). The 4K result is below 20 FPS, making it effectively unplayable for smooth action gameplay. The Medium preset behaves similarly: 58 FPS at 1080p, 38 FPS at 1440p, and 21 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings show the harshest decline: 39 FPS at 1080p, 25 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K. Low settings give the best performance, with 76 FPS at 1080p, 50 FPS at 1440p, and 27 FPS at 4K—still under 30 FPS at 4K.

These results indicate that the game becomes extremely GPU-bound as resolution rises. The ratio of FPS between 1080p and 4K is roughly 2.5:1 at High (50 vs 18) and 2.8:1 at Medium (58 vs 21). That is a steeper falloff than the pixel count difference alone (4x pixels from 1080p to 4K), suggesting that the RX 580’s memory bandwidth or raw shader throughput becomes overwhelmed. The RX 580 has 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, a 256-bit bus, and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth, which is far too little to feed 4K resolution in a demanding game. The fact that even Low at 4K only averages 27 FPS reinforces the notion that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at 4K.

At 1440p, the FPS values are more borderline. Medium and High presets fall between 33 and 38 FPS, which might be acceptable for slower games, but an action RPG benefits from higher frame rates. The step from 1440p to 4K is the most punishing, while 1080p to 1440p is more manageable. The min FPS values for Medium at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K are 50, 32, and 18 FPS respectively, indicating that frame dips occur even at lower resolutions. The max FPS for Medium are 67 (1080p), 44 (1440p), and 24 (4K), further confirming the steep drop.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is based on the Polaris 20 chip, fabricated on a 14nm process from GlobalFoundries. It has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its base clock is 1257 MHz and boost clock is 1340 MHz, with memory operating at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective) on a 256-bit bus. The GPU’s average benchmark score from multiple synthetic tests is 12928, ranking it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs included in the database. That score ties it very closely with two competing products: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (avg score 12940, –0.1% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12986, –0.4%). The AMD Radeon 740M sits 0.5% behind, and the AMD FirePro W5100 is 0.6% behind. Thus the RX 580 is a middle-of-the-pack GPU, adequate for 1080p gaming in many titles, but lacking the raw power for 1440p or 4K in modern demanding games.

In The Technomancer, the GPU’s vbubble is clear. The observed average FPS at 1080p High is 50, which is well above the playable threshold of 30 FPS, and even the 1080p Ultra preset sits at 39 FPS. However, when moving to 1440p, the High preset produces 33 FPS—barely above 30—and the Ultra preset drops to 25 FPS, which is likely to show stuttering in combat scenes. The 4K numbers are almost universally unplayable at any preset, with the best case being Low at 27 FPS and the worst case being Ultra at 14 FPS. The GPU’s pixel fill rate is listed as 42.88 GPixel/s and its texture fill rate is 193.0 GTexel/s, calculations that suggest it can only sustain 1080p output and not 4K. The 256 GB/s memory bandwidth also becomes a limiting factor at 4K textures and high resolution.

The RX 580 is a product that was previously a 1080p champion, but it lacks features like ray tracing and has only 4 GB of VRAM (actually 8 GB, but the pack says 8 GB) - it has 8 GB, which is adequate for 1080p textures. The dataset shows that even at Low preset, the average FPS at 4K is 27, meaning that the GPU cannot brute-force its way through 4K regardless of settings. There is no min/max data for most presets, but the Medium preset min at 1440p (32 FPS) shows that frame times are not consistent when resolution goes up.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 9 9900X and RX 580 is ranked 3373 out of 3696 combinations in this game. The ranking is based on measured FPS scores (presumably across all resolution/settings). A rank of 3373 means that the combo outperforms only 323 other combinations (3696 – 3373 = 323) and is beaten by 3372 combineds. That places it in the bottom 9% of all combinations tested (actually 323/3696 ≈ 8.7% are worse, so it is in the low eighth percentile). This is not surprising given that the CPU is a high-end desktop processor (12 cores, 24 threads, 4.40 GHz base, 5.60 GHz boost) and the GPU is an older mid-range card. The CPU’s performance is far ahead of the GPU, resulting in a severe GPU bottleneck even at 1080p.

The CPU’s own benchmarks support this: the Ryzen 9 9900X scores 32172 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2253 in single-core, and it sits in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, close to the distance to the EPYC 9015 (–0.1%), EPYC 7313 (+0.2%), and Intel Core i9-14900 (–1.1%). The CPU can easily feed high frame rates, but the RX 580's limitations restrict the combo to around 50–80 FPS at 1080p even on Low settings. At higher resolutions the CPU becomes even more irrelevant, and the ranking reflects that the build is not well matched for this game. The GPU’s average benchmark score is only 12928 versus the CPU’s 57498 (average synthetic score), which is a 78% lower score, highlighting the huge gap in GPU compute ability needed for gaming.

Settings Recommendations

Looking at the measured FPS for each resolution and preset, the only way to achieve a smooth experience above 60 FPS is to run 1080p with Low settings, which yields 76 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the average is 58 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS, which is still reasonably smooth. High preset at 1080p averages 50 FPS, dipping slightly below 50. Ultra at 1080p averages 39 FPS, which might be acceptable for some, but not recommended for a title that involves regular combat.

At 1440p, even Low only reaches 50 FPS on average, and Medium drops to 38 FPS. At 4K, the best you can get is 27 FPS on Low, which is blocky and above the threshold that is commonly cited as 30 FPS; it is still borderline playable with some frame pacing issues, but heavy action scenes will stutter.

For a balanced experience, the 1080p Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot: it provides 58 FPS on average with min/max 50/67, far above the typical floor of 30 FPS. If you want to prioritize visual quality, the 1080p High preset gives 50 FPS, which is still playable. The Ultra preset is a performance killer, cutting FPS by nearly 29% compared to High (50 to 14? No, it is 39 vs 50, actually difference is 5 FPS). It is best to avoid Ultra entirely at 1080p unless the user is fine with sub-40 FPS. At 1440p, Medium is the highest preset that stays above 30 FPS (38 FPS), while High drops to 33, and Low is the only way to reach 50 FPS. At 1440p, Low is not recommended because the visual fidelity is too low for a bigger screen.

Given that this game is from 2010, the item's graphics engine likely does not use many of the modern settings like ray tracing or DLSS, so the best approach is to prioritize frame rate. The data strongly suggests 1080p Medium or Low for smooth play, and if the user has a 1440p monitor, Low or Medium are the only viable choices. 4K is not recommendable with this hardware.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 50 FPS, with no min/max data recorded for High settings. This is the highest tested resolution that reaches a playable frame rate.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other CPU+GPU combinations?

A: It ranks 3373rd out of 3696 tested combinations. That means it falls in the bottom 9% of all combos, which is a reflection of the GPU's age relative to the highly capable CPU.

Q: What is the highest FPS at 4K?

A: The highest 4K average is 27 FPS at the Low preset. Every other preset yields below 21 FPS, with Ultra only 14 FPS, making 4K largely unplayable.

Q: Does the CPU performance matter in this game?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X has a 92nd percentile CPU score and is far more powerful than the GPU. At 1080p, the CPU could achieve much higher frame rates, but it is limited by the graphics card. The data shows that FPS drops more sharply with resolution changes, indicating a GPU bottleneck rather than a CPU one.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum frame rates for the Medium preset?

A: For Medium, the options are: at 1080p, min 50, max 67, average 58; at 1440p, min 32, max 44, average 38; at 4K, min 18, max 24, average 21.

Q: Is the RX 580 comparable to the GTX 1660 SUPER?

A: Yes, their average benchmark scores are nearly identical: the RX 580 scores 12800 and the GTX 1660 SUPER scores 12986, just 0.4% faster. However, in this game, the RX 580 behaves like an upper mid-range GPU, since the FPS at 1080p when max out is 50 at High.

rCPU Role

The CPU in this combo is the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 "Granite Ridge" architecture. It runs at a 4.40 GHz base clock and 5.60 GHz boost clock, with a 120 W TDP. The cache structure includes 80 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 MB L3 total. Its socket is the AMD Socket AM5, and it supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth term of 89.6 GB/s. It is a modern high-end desktop processor, with a single-threaded Geekbench score of 3010 and multi-threaded score of 22174. This places it in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs tested, and its average benchmark score is 57498. Among nearest rivals, it is only 0.1 and 1.4% away from the AMD EPYC 9015 and Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M respectively, indicating it outperforms the latter by 1.4% and the EPYC 9015 by 0.1% in aggregate performance.

In an action RPG, the CPU is primarily responsible for character AI, physics, and scene management. The high core count and fast boost clock give the Ryzen 9 ample headroom for such tasks, and it should not be the limiting factor in any gaming scenario. However, since the GPU is the RX 580, the CPU is massively overqualified. The FPS measurement at 1080p's Low setting is 76 FPS, which is close to the maximum refresh rate of many monitors, and the GPU is certainly the main constraint. Even at 4K, the FPS is only 18, which is far below what the CPU could address. The data shows the GPU curve scales almost perfectly with resolution, which is typical of games that are rendered solely by the GPU.

If the user were to pair this CPU with a faster graphics card, the game would reach significantly higher frame rates. The CPU’s 3DMark 16-thread score of 12552 and 4-thread score of 4886 indicate that it is capable of heavy compute loads, but none of that matters if the GPU is the bottleneck. For The Technomancer, the data suggests that the CPU is not the performance limit at any resolution or preset level; the GPU is the responsible component. The best way to improve performance would be to swap out the RX 580 for a higher-tier GPU, but as a static combination, the 9900X simply sits idle waiting for the GPU to catch up.

The 9900X also interface with the PCIe 5.0. The RX 580 uses PCIe 3.0 x16, which provides sufficient bandwidth for this GPU. The CPU’s integrated graphics (which are present) are not used because the RX 580 is a dGPU. The thermal output of the CPU is kept at 120 W, which is manageable with a decent air cooler, but such a cooler isn't required given the GPU's performance envelope. In summary, the CPU is a high-performing core, and its presence does not help the overall frame rate in this game because the RX 580 is too weak to take advantage of the CPU's capabilities.