The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, demonstrates an extreme performance mismatch when paired with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and the Intel Arc B390. The CPU ranks at the 91st percentile overall with an average benchmark score of 54762, while the integrated GPU lands at the 9th percentile with a single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482. In this benchmark, that pairing yields at most 79 average frames per second at 1920×1080 with Low settings, and only 15 average frames per second at 3840×2160 on Ultra. The measured data across three resolutions and four quality tiers makes the laptop clear: this combo is heavily GPU-bound, and every meaningful performance target depends solely on the total chip.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal settings profile for this combination is 1920×1080 at Medium quality, because it delivers 61 average FPS with a minimum of 52 and a maximum of 70. That 61 average is the first of only two resolution/setting pairs in the measured dataset that reach a 60 FPS threshold; the other is 1920×1080 Low at 79 average FPS. On the same screen size, High gives 52 average FPS, and Ultra drops to 40 average FPS. Since the game is a 2016 Action RPG, the visual difference between Medium and High is incremental, whereas the 52→61 average FPS gain is significant.

The 2560×1440 tier is still playable when set to Low, with an average of 52 FPS. Elegant Medium at 1440p yields just 40 average FPS, so there is a hard fall off beyond that. After scaling down to 1080p, Medium offers 61 average FPS as listed above; accordingly, the recommended compromise between fluidity and detail is 1920×1080 Medium.

For 3840×2160 native output, the experience is not enjoyable. The best case at that resolution is Low quality, returning 28 average FPS, and Ultra falls to 15 average FPS. Therefore, no 4K setting qualifies as a smooth gaming experience in the data. The maximum achievable FPS on this combo, 79 average, occurs only at 1080p Low, but a 79 average with Low-quality geometry and shadows is a less balanced experience than the 61 average with Medium quality.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D belongs to the 9000 series, implements Zen 5 on the "Granite Ridge" architecture, and runs on the AMD Socket AM5. The CPU has 12 physical cores and 24 threads, with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. It is manufactured on a 4 nm TSMC process node, integrating 16,630 million transistors. Each core contains 80 KB of L1 cache, 1 MB of L2 cache, and the chip carries a total of 128 MB of L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 through a dual-channel interface, with an associated bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and ECC memory is enabled. The CPU also includes Radeon Graphics, and it uses the AM5 socket with PCIe Gen5 providing 24 lanes.

Benchmark data for the CPU shows a strong multi-threaded and single-threaded profile: the 3DMark 2-thread score is 2512, the 4-thread score is 4885, the 8-thread score is 9002, the 16-thread score is 12490, and the max-thread score is 13795. Cinebench R20 lists 2830 for single-core and 20049 for multi-core, while Cinebench R23 records 6739 single-core and 47737 multi-core. The Geekbench multi-core score is 22884, and the passmark multi-thread score is 56154. The single-thread scores are also solid: passmark single-thread 4646, and Geekbench single-core 3041.

The data shows CPU performance is not the bottleneck for The Technomancer because the game is from 2016 and does not require large core counts. The 9900X3D’s single-thread 1269 in 3DMark 2-thread (actually 2512) is more than enough to handle the bus solving. Comparing against its nearest rivals, the CPU trails only the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF by 0.6% in score, while it beats the Core Ultra 5 245K by 1.3%, the Intel Xeon 6505P by 2.0%, and the Core i7-14700F by 2.1%. That pattern shows that the 9900X3D sits right at the top of the performance band for the 1‑socket market.

The measured FPS scale across many resolution tiers indicates a CPU headroom that is unobtainable by the GPU. In fact, at 1080p the average FPS changes from 79 for Low to 52 for High, showing that the rendering engine is not limiting computation, because the AI and physics tasks are not bound by the core count. The data reveals that all of the FPS differences are due to the GPU, not the CPU.

There is also no chip-level defect for "The Technomancer". Notably, in the measured FPS range, the minimum FPS are reported only for the Medium presets: 52 at 1920×1080, 34 at 1440p, and 19 at 4K. These minima directly align with GPU memory distribution rather than CPU scheduling. The CPU has 24 threads that simply feed the GPU as fast as it can render, and that feed is never saturated according to the dataset. The CPU's 128 MB L3 cache and 96 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR5) are amplified enough to satisfy a 2016-era game.

Thus, the CPU role in this pairing is essentially a supply-side provider: it provides high single-thread latency for AI and UI, but the output is bound by the GPU's frame rate. If a test environment had a discrete GPU, the 9900X3D would comfortably sustain very high frame rates, but with the integrated Intel Arc B390, the CPU mostly idles while the GPU struggles.

GPU Role

The GPU in this combination is an Intel Arc B390, part of the Arc Graphics-M (Panther Lake) family, built on a 3nm Intel process. It has a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, with shading units of 1536, TMUs of 48, ROPs of 24, and 12 dedicated ray tracing cores. The pixel and texture output rates are 60.00 GP/s and 120.0 GT/s respectively, and the FP32 compute rate is 7.680 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). The bus interface is classified as IGP and the power connectors are listed as "None," indicating that this is an integrated graphics processor, not a discrete card. The DK is 80W, with a slot width of "IGP" and display outputs dependent on the mobile device.

The GPU lacks its own video memory – the memory size, type, bus width, and bandwidth are all specified as "System Shared" or "System Dependent." This means it draws on the system DRAM rather than dedicated VRAM. The benchmark for this GPU is a single score: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 average of 1482, which places it at the 9th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M (1463, 1.3% deltaPct), the GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5%), the GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5%), and the GT 710 (1443, 2.7%) – in other words, the B390 is a little faster than those four in the synthetic DX12 test, still in the absolute bottom fraction of the GPU pool.

The impact on actual gameplay is obvious in the FPS data. At 1920×1080 Low, the combo reaches 79 average FPS, but that falls to 40 average at Ultra, meaning the GPU’s limits reduce performance by about half. At 2560×1440, Low gives 52 average FPS, while Ultra goes down to 26. At 4K, the best setting is Low at 28 average FPS, and the graphics card even hits 15 average on Ultra settings. This across-the-board scaling illustrates that the integrated GPU is the principal limiter in the blend.

The fact that the GPU has no dedicated VRAM is also evident in the measured performance: at higher graphical quality, memory bandwidth (system dynamic) and latency produce a heavy performance penalty, not just a compute penalty. The dataset does not include a "VRAM size" number, but the "System Shared" designation explains why the FPS minima (only recorded for Medium setting at each RP) are so low: 19, 34, and 52 respectively. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 510MX (the closest rival) is similarly an entry-level integrated chip, and the B400’s relative position at the 9th percentile confirms the floor.

Ultimately, the GPU serves as a severe throughput bottleneck. Even a ten-year-old game like The Technomancer cannot maintain fluidity, and the game's measurable performance is almost entirely a function of the GPU’s level 0 efforts.

How This Combo Ranks

The combined performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and the Intel Arc B390 ranks 3285th out of 3696 tested combos, as placed in the database's measured combos. This rank is far down the ladder—the bottom quartile of all combos. Using the raw number, the rank is 3285, the total is 3696, so the combo rank is worse than roughly 411, which is the difference from the total count.

On its own, the CPU is a top-tier part: both its score and breadth of its 91 percentile, and its nearest rivals are all mainstream processors with the same score area (55093, 54053, 53701, 53620). The GPU, in contrast, is at the 9th percentile, so the combo's rank is not driven by CPU strengths. As a result, the pairing sits in the bottom 11-12% of all combinations.

The high CPU percentile (91) combined with the low GPU percentile (9) produces a huge spread, which classically yields a suboptimal gaming solution; the CPU could easily handle a much more powerful dedicated GPU. The measured FPS map confirms this judgment – the CPU is long from being the constraint. If the data sheet shows only one 1080p bottle result in the 1920×1080 row, the CPU is not yielding anything.

So, in this list of 3696 combos, the CPU is wasted in this particular GPU context. In the database, many computers with the same CPU and a mid-range discrete card are ranked in the top 1000. The 3285th rank indicates a bottleneck that is strictly GPU-bound.

FAQ

Q: What is the best FPS I can expect from this connection at any setting?

A: The highest average FPS in the test set is 79, achieved at 1920×1080 with Low settings.

Q: Which resolution allows 4k-level play with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Intel Arc B390?

A: No resolution delivers more than 28 average FPS at 4K. The best 3840×2160 result is Low quality, with 28 average FPS; Ultra at 4K drops to 15.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the root of the bottlenecks?

A: The GPU is the clear limiter. The CPU sits at the 91st percentile with an average score of 54762, while the GPU is at the 9th percentile with a score of 1482. The FPS figures vary with settings and resolution, linked to GPU memory bandwidth, not to CPU core workload.

Q: Does the Intel Arc B390 have dedicated video memory?

A: No. The memory size, type (System Shared), bus width (System Shared) and bandwidth are all “System Shared” / “System Dependent”, meaning it draws on the system RAM alongside the CPU.

Q: How does the combo's rank compare to other tested components?

A: The combo ranks at position 3285 out of a set of 3696, placing it in the very low percentile of all tested combos for The Technomancer.

**Q: Is it viable to run the game at 2560×144