The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting case study in CPU and GPU scaling when paired with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER. The measured data shows a system that is clearly capable of high refresh rate 1080p gaming, but which begins to struggle as resolution increases, particularly at the most demanding settings. This analysis walks through the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, interprets what those numbers mean for the hardware’s respective roles, and places the combination within the broader benchmark database.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge. It operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The CPU’s 64 MB of L3 cache and 1 MB of L2 per core provide substantial on-die storage for game data. Its benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32172 and a single-core score of 2253, placing it in the 92nd percentile among all CPUs in the database. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 12552 and max-thread score of 13929 indicate robust multi-threaded performance, which is relevant for a game like The Technomancer that can utilize multiple cores for physics and AI.

In the context of The Technomancer, the CPU’s role appears to be largely secondary to the GPU, but not entirely negligible. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 157 FPS on average. This high frame rate suggests that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to avoid a bottleneck at lower resolutions and settings. The single-thread performance, as evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 1286 and Geekbench single-core score of 3010, helps ensure that the game’s main logic thread does not become a limiting factor. However, as resolution increases, the workload shifts to the GPU, and the CPU’s influence on average FPS diminishes.

The data shows that the Ryzen 9 9900X is not the primary constraint in this pairing for The Technomancer. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 29, which is far below what the CPU could theoretically support. The CPU’s 12 cores and 24 threads are more than sufficient for a 2016 title; the Passmark multi-thread score of 54643 and the Cinebench R15 multi-core score of 5008 reinforce that there is ample headroom. The bottleneck at higher resolutions is clearly the GPU. At 1080p, the CPU’s performance enables frame rates that exceed 100 FPS on High and Medium settings, demonstrating that it can handle the game’s computational demands without becoming a limiting factor.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the best resolution and setting combination for the highest average FPS?

A: The highest average FPS in the measured data is 157 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is followed by 120 FPS at 1920x1080 with Medium settings, indicating that lower resolutions and settings yield the highest frame rates.

Q: How does the average FPS change from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 103 at 1920x1080 to 67 at 2560x1440, and further to 37 at 3840x2160. This represents a 64% reduction in average FPS from 1080p to 4K, showing a significant performance scaling penalty at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for the Medium preset at 2560x1440?

A: For the Medium preset at 2560x1440, the measured minimum FPS is 67, with an average of 79 FPS and a maximum of 91 FPS. This indicates that the system maintains a playable frame rate even during demanding scenes at this resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the limiting factor at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 29, which is well below the CPU’s capabilities. The Ryzen 9 9900X has a high multi-threaded performance score, while the RTX 2070 SUPER’s average benchmark score of 20282 places it in the 65th percentile among GPUs. The data strongly suggests the GPU is the limiting factor at this resolution and setting.

Q: How does the system’s performance at 1080p Ultra compare to 1440p Ultra?

A: At 1920x1080 Ultra, the average FPS is 80, while at 2560x1440 Ultra, it drops to 53. This is a 34% reduction in average FPS when moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same Ultra preset, highlighting the GPU’s workload increase.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the average FPS is 102 on Low settings and 53 on Ultra settings. This is a 49 FPS difference, or a 48% reduction, showing that the Ultra preset nearly halves the frame rate compared to Low at this resolution.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured data provides a clear picture of how different presets affect performance. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 157 FPS, which is exceptionally high. The Medium preset delivers 120 FPS, which is still far above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. High settings provide 103 FPS, and Ultra drops to 80 FPS. For a player with a 1080p display, the High preset appears to offer the best balance, as it maintains a high average frame rate of 103 FPS while likely providing better visual fidelity than Medium or Low. The Ultra preset, at 80 FPS, is also playable but sacrifices 23 FPS compared to High for presumably marginal visual gains.

At 2560x1440, the situation changes. Low settings deliver 102 FPS, Medium delivers 79 FPS, High delivers 67 FPS, and Ultra drops to 53 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 67 is exactly at the 60 FPS threshold, making it a safer choice for consistent performance. High settings, with an average of 67 FPS, are also viable, but the lack of a reported minimum FPS means there is some uncertainty about frame pacing. For 1440p, the Medium preset is recommended as it provides a solid average of 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS, ensuring a smooth experience without the steep performance cost of Ultra.

At 3840x2160, all presets struggle to reach 60 FPS. Low settings achieve 56 FPS, Medium achieves 43 FPS, High achieves 37 FPS, and Ultra falls to 29 FPS. The Low preset is the only one that comes close to playable frame rates, with an average of 56 FPS. For 4K gaming, the Low preset is the only recommendation from the measured data, as higher settings result in frame rates that are likely to feel stuttery and unresponsive. The Medium preset at 4K has a minimum FPS of 37, which is well below acceptable for most players.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 2144 out of 3696 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places the combo in the 42nd percentile of all tested systems, meaning that roughly 58% of other combinations perform better in this specific game. This ranking is notably lower than the individual component percentiles: the CPU is in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. The discrepancy suggests that the GPU is the primary factor dragging down the overall ranking, as the CPU’s high performance is not fully utilized in this title.

The combo’s rank of 2144 out of 3696 indicates that while the system is not at the bottom of the pile, it is firmly in the lower half of tested configurations. The GPU’s nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M with an average score of 20480 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile with 20534, are all within 1.5% of the RTX 2070 SUPER’s average benchmark score of 20282. This suggests that the RTX 2070 SUPER is a mid-tier performer in the current database, and its performance in The Technomancer reflects that. The CPU’s nearest rivals, including the AMD EPYC 9015 and Intel Core i9-14900, have average scores within 1.4% of the Ryzen 9 9900X’s 57498, but this does not translate into a high in-game ranking because the game is not heavily CPU-bound.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data across resolutions provides a clear demonstration of how the system scales with increasing pixel count. At High settings, the average FPS is 103 at 1920x1080, 67 at 2560x1440, and 37 at 3840x2160. This represents a scaling pattern where moving from 1080p to 1440p reduces FPS by 35%, and moving from 1440p to 4K reduces FPS by 45%. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 64%. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering workload increases quadratically with resolution.

At Low settings, the average FPS is 157 at 1080p, 102 at 1440p, and 56 at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 35%, and from 1440p to 4K is 45%, mirroring the High settings scaling. The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical across different settings suggests that the GPU is consistently the limiting component, regardless of the visual preset. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to remain more constant at lower resolutions and settings, but instead, the FPS scales directly with the number of pixels being rendered.

The 4K Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 37 and maximum of 50 further confirms the GPU limitation. The RTX 2070 SUPER, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, is simply not powerful enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K in this game. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 20282, which is in the 65th percentile, indicates that it is a mid-range card by current standards, and 4K is beyond its comfortable operating range for a game like The Technomancer. The data clearly shows that the GPU is the limiting component at all resolutions above 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The following is a detailed breakdown of the measured average FPS for each resolution and settings combination.

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest performance. With Low settings, the average FPS is 157. The Medium preset yields an average of 120 FPS, with a minimum of 102 and a maximum of 139. High settings produce an average of 103 FPS. The Ultra preset, the most demanding, still achieves an average of 80 FPS. All settings at 1080p are above the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that this resolution is well within the capabilities of the hardware.

At 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably. Low settings yield an average of 102 FPS. The Medium preset provides an average of 79 FPS, with a minimum of 67 and a maximum of 91. High settings deliver an average of 67 FPS. Ultra settings produce an average of 53 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset is the only one that maintains a minimum FPS above 60, making it the recommended choice at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain playable frame rates. Low settings achieve an average of 56 FPS, which is just below 60. The Medium preset yields an average of 43 FPS, with a minimum of 37 and a maximum of 50. High settings produce an average of 37 FPS. Ultra settings drop to an average of 29 FPS. None of the presets at 4K achieve a consistently smooth experience, with the Low preset being the only one that comes close to playable territory.

The data shows a clear hierarchy: 1080p is fully playable at all settings, 1440p is playable at Low through High settings, and 4K is only marginally playable at Low settings. The Ultra preset at 4K, with an average of 29 FPS, is effectively unplayable for most users.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is a Turing-architecture GPU based on the TU104 chip, manufactured on a 12 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. The GPU has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. Its base clock is 1605 MHz, with a boost clock of 1770 MHz. The memory runs at 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective. The GPU’s compute capabilities include 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 40 RT cores, although ray tracing is not a factor in The Technomancer.

The RTX 2070 SUPER’s performance in The Technomancer is directly tied to its memory bandwidth and shading capacity. The 8 GB of VRAM is sufficient for the game at all tested resolutions, as The Technomancer is not known for extreme texture requirements. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 20282, which places it in the 65th percentile, indicates that it is a capable mid-range card. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Arc B570 with an average score of 20556 and the Intel Arc A750 with 20582, are all within 1.5% of its performance, confirming that it is a solid but not exceptional performer.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the GPU can deliver over 100 FPS on High settings, but at 4K, even Low settings only reach 56 FPS. This is a classic sign of a GPU that is limited by its raw pixel throughput and memory bandwidth. The RTX 2070 SUPER’s boost clock of 1770 MHz is not particularly high by modern standards, and its 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is insufficient for the demands of 4K gaming. The GPU’s Passmark DirectX 12 score of 67 and DirectX 11 score of 151 reflect its moderate performance in modern APIs, which is consistent with the observed frame rates.

In summary, the RTX 2070 SUPER is the component that determines the system’s overall capability in The Technomancer. Its 8 GB of VRAM is adequate, but its compute power and memory bandwidth are only sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K requiring significant settings reductions to achieve playable frame rates. The GPU’s percentile ranking of 65 and its position among rivals like the RTX 3070 Mobile and Intel Arc B570 confirm that it is a mid-tier product, and the measured data in this game reflects that positioning.