The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that clearly separates hardware capabilities. When pairing the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, the benchmark data shows that the 1080p Medium preset is the optimal target for a consistently smooth experience, delivering 111.1 FPS. This configuration achieves a near-perfect balance between visual fidelity and performance, avoiding the 30% performance penalty of High settings while still maintaining fluid motion far above the 60 FPS threshold.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly identifies 1080p Medium as the best experience. At this setting, the combo produces 111.1 FPS, which is a 16% improvement over High settings (95.6 FPS) and a 56% improvement over Ultra (71.1 FPS). The jump from Low to Medium is only 21% (from 140.5 to 111.1 FPS), but the visual quality gain is substantial, making Medium the sweet spot.

At 1440p, the Medium preset is the most viable option, yielding 71.2 FPS. This maintains a playable frame rate while High settings drop to 63.3 FPS and Ultra falls below the 60 FPS threshold at 46.4 FPS. For 4K gaming, the data suggests that even Low settings (53.5 FPS) cannot maintain a locked 60 FPS experience, making this resolution impractical for this hardware combo. The 4K High (30.7 FPS) and Ultra (26.4 FPS) presets are effectively unplayable for smooth action. Therefore, the recommendation hierarchy is: 1080p Medium for the overall best experience, 1440p Medium for higher resolution with acceptable performance, and 1080p High if visual richness is prioritized over maximum frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the primary bottleneck in this pairing for The Technomancer. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, is sufficient for the game’s demands at 1080p and 1440p but becomes strained at 4K. The GPU’s core clock dynamics, with a base of 1470 MHz and a boost of 1650 MHz, dictate the performance ceiling across all settings.

The 4K results illustrate this limitation clearly. At 4K Ultra, the GPU delivers only 26.4 FPS, while dropping to Low settings recovers performance to 53.5 FPS. This 103% performance swing (from 26.4 to 53.5 FPS) is far more dramatic than the 98% swing seen at 1080p (from 71.1 to 140.5 FPS), indicating that the GPU’s compute resources are exhausted at higher resolutions. The RTX 2060 SUPER’s FP32 throughput of 7.181 TFLOPS and its 64 ROPs are the limiting factors when pushing pixels at 4K. The card’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2011 and Passmark G3D score of 16462 place it in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, confirming its mid-range standing. It sits just 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN in average benchmark score, yet it is the GPU that governs the frame rates in this analysis.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo in The Technomancer?

A: 1080p is the most effective resolution. The data shows 111.1 FPS at Medium settings, which is a smooth experience. At 1440p, Medium settings drop to 71.2 FPS, and at 4K, even Low settings only manage 53.5 FPS, making 1080p the only resolution where all presets remain playable.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER perform relative to its closest rivals?

A: The GPU has an average benchmark score of 19774, placing it in the 63rd percentile. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, scores 19706, a delta of only 0.3%. It is also 0.5% ahead of the RTX 2070, which scores 19680, indicating a very tight performance cluster at this tier.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D, with 16 cores and 32 threads, is not the limiting factor. The 4K Ultra result of 26.4 FPS compared to the 1080p Ultra result of 71.1 FPS shows a 63% drop in performance as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The CPU’s performance headroom is significant.

Q: Is it worth using the Ultra preset?

A: Only at 1080p, where it achieves 71.1 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 46.4 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 26.4 FPS. The performance cost of Ultra over Medium is a 36% reduction in FPS at 1080p, making Medium a more sensible choice for higher frame rates.

Q: What kind of frame rate can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured data shows 63.3 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS baseline but leaves little headroom. If you prefer higher resolutions, 1440p Medium, with 71.2 FPS, provides a more comfortable margin above that baseline.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this hardware?

A: Marginal, at best. The best 4K result is 53.5 FPS on Low settings, which is below the 60 FPS target. All other 4K presets (High, Medium, Ultra) produce frame rates between 26.4 and 38.2 FPS, which are not suitable for a smooth action RPG experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete data set for this combo in The Technomancer is as follows:

• 1080p Low: 140.5 FPS
• 1080p Medium: 111.1 FPS
• 1080p High: 95.6 FPS
• 1080p Ultra: 71.1 FPS
• 1440p Low: 95.4 FPS
• 1440p Medium: 71.2 FPS
• 1440p High: 63.3 FPS
• 1440p Ultra: 46.4 FPS
• 4K Low: 53.5 FPS
• 4K Medium: 38.2 FPS
• 4K High: 30.7 FPS
• 4K Ultra: 26.4 FPS

The progression from Low to Ultra at each resolution shows consistent scaling. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 69.4 FPS, a 49% reduction. At 1440p, this difference shrinks to 49 FPS, and at 4K, it shrinks to 27.1 FPS. This compression of the settings range at higher resolutions reinforces that the GPU is hitting its architectural limits.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER ranks 1192 out of 1656 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places it in the bottom 28% of all configurations, which is a direct consequence of the GPU’s mid-range performance profile. While the CPU is a top-tier product, ranked in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, the GPU’s 63rd percentile standing pulls the overall combo ranking down significantly.

The ranking indicates that although this setup is fully capable of playing the game at 1080p and 1440p with adjusted settings, it is not a high-performance combination for this title. The data suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor, and the CPU’s substantial power is largely untapped. The combo’s rank is a reflection of the GPU’s inability to keep pace with the CPU’s potential at higher resolutions, a fact made clear by the 4K Ultra result of 26.4 FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, with a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz. Its 128 MB of shared L3 cache is a defining feature. In The Technomancer, this CPU provides a massive performance cushion. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 59712 and single-core score of 8430 indicate that it is not the bottleneck at any tested resolution.

The evidence for this is the performance scaling. If the CPU were the limiting factor, frame rates would remain static across resolutions. Instead, the data shows a clear and consistent decline as resolution increases: from 140.5 FPS at 1080p Low to 53.5 FPS at 4K Low. This is the signature of a GPU-bound workload. The CPU’s 3DMark 16-thread score of 16374 and Passmark multi-thread score of 70255 further confirm its immense processing power, which is more than sufficient to feed the RTX 2060 SUPER. The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270, is only 0.9% behind in average score, but this difference is irrelevant here, as the game’s performance is dictated entirely by the GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data reveals a clear and predictable scaling pattern. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings reduces performance from 111.1 FPS to 71.2 FPS, a 36% decrease. Moving from 1440p to 4K at the same settings further reduces performance to 38.2 FPS, a 46% decrease. The cumulative drop from 1080p Medium to 4K Medium is 66%.

This scaling pattern is the definitive indicator of a GPU bottleneck. The RTX 2060 SUPER’s pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are being overwhelmed by the increasing pixel count. The 4K results, in particular, show a severe collapse in performance, with all presets failing to reach 60 FPS. The fact that the CPU can maintain high frame rates at 1080p but the GPU cannot sustain them at 4K isolates the limiting component. If the CPU were the constraint, the 1080p results would be lower, and the delta between resolutions would be smaller. The data shows the opposite, confirming that the GPU’s 8 GB of VRAM and 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth are the ceiling for this combination. The 4K High result of 30.7 FPS, compared to the 1080p High result of 95.6 FPS, represents a 68% performance loss, a figure that underscores the GPU’s inability to handle the resolution’s demands.