The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that clearly separates the capabilities of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combination. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system where the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU's strength becomes more apparent at 1080p. This analysis uses the measured data to detail the scaling behavior, component roles, and optimal settings for this specific pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 demonstrates a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, with the most significant performance drop occurring between 1440p and 4K. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 77 FPS at 1080p to 50 FPS at 1440p, a 35% reduction, and then further to 28 FPS at 4K, representing a 64% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 5050’s rendering resources are increasingly saturated as pixel count rises, with the 4K Ultra result falling below the 30 FPS playability threshold.

The scaling at High settings follows a similar trajectory but with a slightly less severe drop at each step. From 98 FPS at 1080p, the average decreases to 64 FPS at 1440p (a 35% reduction) and then to 35 FPS at 4K (a 64% drop from 1080p). The consistency of these percentage drops across presets suggests that the limiting factor is resolution-dependent pixel throughput rather than a specific setting’s complexity. The data shows that 1440p High remains the highest resolution and preset combination that maintains an average above 60 FPS.

For Medium settings, the measured frame rates are 115 FPS at 1080p, 75 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 35%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 45%, showing a slightly more gradual decline at the highest resolution compared to Ultra. Low settings produce the highest frame rates: 150 FPS at 1080p, 98 FPS at 1440p, and 54 FPS at 4K, with the 4K result being the only Low preset that dips below 60 FPS. These numbers indicate that the RTX 5050 has enough headroom for 1440p gaming at most presets, but 4K requires significant compromises in visual fidelity to achieve playable frame rates.

The frame rate drops between resolutions are telling about the system’s balance. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 73 FPS (150 to 77), while at 4K, the same comparison yields only a 26 FPS difference (54 to 28). This narrowing gap at 4K confirms that the GPU becomes the overwhelming bottleneck, as even substantial reductions in settings cannot compensate for the raw pixel throughput required. The 4K Medium result of 41 FPS and 4K High result of 35 FPS are both below the 60 FPS target, suggesting that 4K gaming with this combo is only viable at Low settings, where the 54 FPS average approaches but does not reach smoothness.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, plays the decisive role in this game’s performance at resolutions above 1080p. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a memory bandwidth of 320.0 GB/s, which is sufficient for The Technomancer’s textures at 1080p and 1440p but becomes a potential limiting factor at 4K where memory pressure increases. The GPU’s boost clock of 2572 MHz and base clock of 2317 MHz are the active frequencies during workload, and the benchmark results show that the card operates within its expected performance envelope for a 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs.

The GPU’s 2560 shading units and 32 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 82.30 GPixel/s, which partially explains the steep performance drop at 4K. With a texture rate of 205.8 GTexel/s and 80 TMUs, the card can handle moderate texture workloads, but the 4K results show that fill-rate limits are reached. The measured 4K frame rates—54 FPS at Low, 41 FPS at Medium, 35 FPS at High, and 28 FPS at Ultra—correlate with the GPU’s compute capability of 13.17 TFLOPS FP32, which is modest for 4K rendering in a 2016 title that still stresses modern hardware.

Comparing the RTX 5050 to its nearest rivals in the database, its average benchmark score of 21035 places it near the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL, which scores 21153 (a 0.6% difference), and the AMD Radeon HD 8970M, which scores 21237 (a 1% difference). The RTX 5050 is 1.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, which scores 20713, and 1.6% behind the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile, which scores 21379. These close margins suggest that in raw compute terms, the RTX 5050 performs like a mid-range card from previous generations, which aligns with its 66th percentile standing. In The Technomancer, this translates to playable frame rates at 1080p across all presets and at 1440p for Low through High, but 4K requires the lowest settings to approach 60 FPS.

The GPU’s memory configuration, while not explicitly measured in the FPS data, likely contributes to the scaling behavior. The 8 GB capacity is not a limiting factor at 1080p or 1440p for this game, but at 4K, the combination of higher resolution textures and larger framebuffer demands could push memory usage closer to the limit, potentially causing the frame rate to drop more steeply than pure compute scaling would suggest. The 4K Medium result of 41 FPS, which includes a minimum of 35 FPS and maximum of 48 FPS, shows frame time variance that could indicate memory bandwidth constraints under load.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, provides substantial processing headroom that is not fully utilized in The Technomancer. The CPU’s base clock of 4.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz ensure that single-threaded performance is strong, as evidenced by its 3dmark single-thread score of 1286 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2253. The game, being a 2016 Action RPG, likely uses a limited number of threads, so the CPU’s multi-core capabilities—demonstrated by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32172 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 22174—are less relevant to frame rates than its per-core speed.

The CPU’s 92nd percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates it outperforms most processors in general benchmarks, but in this game, the measured FPS data suggests that the CPU is not the bottleneck at any resolution. At 1080p Ultra, the CPU delivers 77 FPS, which is likely near the game’s engine limit for that preset, but the GPU still has headroom to produce 150 FPS at Low settings, showing that the CPU can feed frames faster than the GPU can render them at lower settings. The 1080p Low result of 150 FPS is the highest measured frame rate in the dataset, confirming that the CPU does not constrain performance until very high frame rates.

The Ryzen 9 9900X’s nearest rivals in the database include the AMD EPYC 9015, which scores 57555 (a 0.1% difference, with the EPYC slightly higher), and the AMD EPYC 7313, which scores 57399 (a 0.2% difference, with the Ryzen slightly higher). The Intel Core i9-14900 scores 58115, which is 1.1% higher than the Ryzen, and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M scores 58323, which is 1.4% higher. These margins are small, indicating that the Ryzen 9 9900X performs competitively with these server-class and high-end desktop chips in synthetic benchmarks. In The Technomancer, the CPU’s advantage is most visible at 1080p Low, where the 150 FPS average likely approaches the engine’s frame rate cap, but it does not visibly affect the scaling pattern, which is dominated by GPU load.

The CPU’s L3 cache of 64 MB and DDR5 memory support with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s contribute to its ability to feed the GPU without stalling. However, the game’s reliance on GPU rendering means that CPU cache and memory bandwidth have minimal impact on the measured frame rates. The 1080p Medium result of 115 FPS and 1440p Low result of 98 FPS both indicate that the CPU can maintain high frame rates, but the GPU’s 4K performance is the limiting factor, with the CPU likely having more than enough capacity to handle the game’s logic at any resolution.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal preset for this combination depends on the target resolution and desired smoothness. At 1920x1080, all presets deliver playable frame rates, with Ultra averaging 77 FPS, High at 98 FPS, Medium at 115 FPS, and Low at 150 FPS. The data suggests that 1080p High is the best balance for most users, as it provides a 98 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold, while maintaining higher visual quality than Medium. The 1080p Ultra preset, at 77 FPS, is also viable if the user prioritizes visual fidelity over frame rate headroom, but the 21 FPS drop from High to Ultra may not justify the visual gains in a game from 2016.

For 2560x1440, the measured results show that High settings produce a 64 FPS average, which is marginally above the 60 FPS target. This is the highest preset that maintains smooth performance at this resolution, as Medium averages 75 FPS and Low averages 98 FPS, but Ultra drops to 50 FPS. The 1440p High result is the recommended choice for users with 1440p displays, as it offers a balance of visual quality and performance, though the 64 FPS average leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The 1440p Medium preset, at 75 FPS, provides a more comfortable margin and is a safer recommendation if frame rate stability is a priority.

At 3840x2160, the data shows that no preset achieves a 60 FPS average. Low settings produce 54 FPS, Medium 41 FPS, High 35 FPS, and Ultra 28 FPS. The 4K Low preset is the only viable option for playable frame rates, as it is the closest to 60 FPS, but even it falls short. Users with 4K displays should consider lowering the resolution to 1440p or accepting the Low preset at 4K, which still provides a playable experience at 54 FPS. The 4K Medium result of 41 FPS, with a minimum of 35 FPS, indicates that frame pacing could be inconsistent, making Low the better choice for smoothness.

The measured data also shows that the difference between Medium and High is relatively small in some cases, such as at 1080p where the gap is 17 FPS (115 to 98) and at 1440p where the gap is 11 FPS (75 to 64). This suggests that High settings offer a reasonable visual upgrade over Medium without a significant performance penalty. However, the jump from High to Ultra is more costly, with a 21 FPS drop at 1080p and a 14 FPS drop at 1440p, making Ultra less attractive for this GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 ranks 1721 out of 2825 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the 39th percentile of all tested systems. This ranking indicates that the combo performs below the median, primarily due to the GPU’s mid-range positioning rather than the CPU’s high-end capabilities. The CPU alone ranks in the 92nd percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 66th percentile, so the combo’s overall rank is dragged down by the GPU’s relative weakness in this game.

The combo’s rank of 1721 suggests that many other CPU-GPU pairings deliver higher frame rates in The Technomancer, likely those with more powerful GPUs. The data shows that the RTX 5050’s performance is similar to older GPUs like the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, which is 1.6% slower in average benchmark score, so combos using those GPUs would rank similarly. The 4K results, in particular, highlight the combo’s limitations, as the 28 FPS Ultra average is below the 30 FPS minimum for playability, and the 54 FPS Low average is still short of 60 FPS.

The ranking also reflects the game’s age and optimization. The Technomancer, released in 2016, may not fully utilize the Ryzen 9 9900X’s 12 cores, so the CPU’s high benchmark scores do not translate into proportional frame rate gains. The combo’s rank is therefore more indicative of the GPU’s performance class than the CPU’s, with the CPU providing a stable platform that does not bottleneck the GPU at any resolution. In the context of all tested combos, this pairing is positioned for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K being a stretch that requires the lowest settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates are as follows: Low settings produce an average of 150 FPS, Medium produces an average of 115 FPS with a minimum of 98 FPS and a maximum of 132 FPS, High produces an average of 98 FPS, and Ultra produces an average of 77 FPS. The 1080p results show a clear progression where each preset step reduces performance, with the largest drop occurring between Low and Medium (35 FPS) and between High and Ultra (21 FPS). The Medium preset’s minimum of 98 FPS indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays above 90 FPS, making 1080p Medium a very smooth experience.

At 2560x1440, the measured frame rates are: Low averages 98 FPS, Medium averages 75 FPS with a minimum of 64 FPS and a maximum of 87 FPS, High averages 64 FPS, and Ultra averages 50 FPS. The 1440p results show a similar pattern to 1080p but with reduced headroom. The Medium preset’s minimum of 64 FPS is just above the 60 FPS target, while the High preset’s 64 FPS average is exactly at the target, suggesting that frame drops could occur in more intensive areas. The Ultra preset, at 50 FPS, falls below the 60 FPS threshold and is not recommended for smooth play.

At 3840x2160, the measured frame rates are: Low averages 54 FPS, Medium averages 41 FPS with a minimum of 35 FPS and a maximum of 48 FPS, High averages 35 FPS, and Ultra averages 28 FPS. The 4K results show that all presets fall below the 60 FPS target, with the Low preset being the only one that approaches playable levels. The Medium preset’s minimum of 35 FPS indicates significant frame time spikes, which could cause noticeable stuttering. The High and Ultra presets, with averages of 35 FPS and 28 FPS respectively, are not suitable for smooth gameplay and should be avoided at 4K.

The data also reveals that the RTX 5050 performs best at 1080p, where it can deliver over 100 FPS on Medium and High settings, and over 70 FPS on Ultra. At 1440p, the card is capable of 60 FPS or higher only on Low, Medium, and High presets, with Ultra falling short. At 4K, the card is limited to Low settings for playable frame rates, and even then, the 54 FPS average is below the ideal 60 FPS. These measurements provide a clear picture of the combo’s strengths and weaknesses, with the GPU being the primary determinant of performance across all resolutions.