The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, shows itself to be remarkably scalable with modern hardware. The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a wide spectrum of performance, with frame rates ranging from a demanding 54 FPS at 4K Ultra to a blistering 296 FPS at 1080p Low. This data reveals a system that is equally capable of providing a smooth 4K experience and an exceptionally high-refresh-rate 1080p one, making it a versatile pairing for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of how the game responds to different graphical presets. For players targeting a standard 60 FPS experience at 4K, the "High" preset, averaging 70 FPS, is the optimal choice. It provides a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold and likely offers a significant visual improvement over the "Medium" preset, which averages 82 FPS but with a minimum of 69 FPS. While "Ultra" is technically playable at 54 FPS, the 16 FPS drop from High is substantial, and the visual gains are often less perceptible in a fast-paced action RPG. Therefore, High is the recommended setting for a 4K display.

At 1440p, the story shifts towards favoring higher fidelity. The "Ultra" preset, averaging 99 FPS, is perfectly playable and delivers the best visual experience. The "High" preset, at 127 FPS, is an excellent choice for gamers with 120Hz or 144Hz monitors who want to maximize smoothness without a major drop in quality. The "Medium" preset, at 149 FPS, is also viable for high refresh rate displays, but the jump from Medium to High is only a 22 FPS loss for what should be a more significant visual upgrade. For most users at 1440p, "High" offers the best balance, but "Ultra" is the clear choice for visual purists who can forgo some extra frame rate headroom.

At 1080p, the system is so powerful that the recommended setting is unequivocally "Ultra." The average of 152 FPS is more than sufficient for even the most demanding high-refresh-rate monitors, and the minimum frame rate, while not measured, is unlikely to dip below playable levels given the 193 FPS minimum at the "Medium" preset. Choosing anything less than Ultra would be leaving performance on the table, as the CPU and GPU combo has ample headroom to run the game at its highest visual quality. The data strongly suggests that 1080p is not a bottleneck for this hardware, and the game should be enjoyed with all settings maxed out.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the driving force behind the high frame rates observed at 1440p and 4K resolutions. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides a substantial 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for handling high-resolution textures and complex shaders in a game like The Technomancer. The GPU's architecture, Ada Lovelace, is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC and features 10,240 shading units. The high core count and the 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 performance provide the raw computational power needed to render the game's environments and effects.

The clock speeds are also a key factor. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2295 MHz and can boost up to 2550 MHz. This high boost clock allows the GPU to dynamically increase its performance when thermal and power headroom allow, which is evident in the consistent frame rates across the different settings. The GPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks, like its Passmark G3D score of 34245, places it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs, confirming its high-end status. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, scores nearly identically at 54247, with a deltaPct of -0.1%, indicating that the SUPER variant offers a marginal performance improvement in this game's context.

The RTX 4080 SUPER's role becomes more critical as resolution increases. At 1080p, the CPU is likely capable of feeding the GPU enough data to keep it busy, but at 4K, the GPU becomes the primary determinant of frame rate. The 4K results, ranging from 54 FPS on Ultra to 106 FPS on Low, show a 52 FPS swing purely based on GPU workload. This demonstrates that the GPU's fill rate, pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s, and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s, are the limiting factors at this resolution. The card is powerful, but The Technomancer at 4K Ultra is a significant challenge.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and RTX 4080 SUPER combination ranks at 250 out of 3696 tested combos for this game. This places it in the top 6.8% of all tested systems, a very strong result that underscores the high-end nature of both components. The ranking is a combined measure of how the CPU and GPU work together to produce frame rates, and this position indicates that the pairing is well-balanced for The Technomancer, with neither component acting as a severe bottleneck in the majority of tested scenarios.

This high ranking is consistent with the individual performance of the components. The CPU, with an average benchmark score of 75779, sits in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU, with an average score of 54209, is in the 86th percentile. The combination of a top-tier CPU and a high-end GPU results in a system that is more powerful than the vast majority of others tested. The fact that it is not ranked higher (i.e., in the top 100) suggests that there are still other combinations, likely featuring even more powerful GPUs or CPUs, that can achieve higher frame rates, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU's single-threaded performance or the GPU's raw rendering speed can be pushed further.

The system's position in the ranking also highlights the diminishing returns of pairing the very best CPU with a merely excellent GPU. While the 9950X3D is a powerhouse, its performance in games like The Technomancer is often sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GPU. The ranking suggests that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the component that ultimately sets the performance ceiling for this particular combo. The data shows a system that is exceptionally fast, but with a top-250 finish, it is clear that a few other hardware configurations can extract even more performance from this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at the system's performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptionally high frame rates. With the "Low" preset, it averages 296 FPS, which is incredibly high. The "Medium" preset averages 227 FPS, with a minimum of 193 FPS and a maximum of 262 FPS. Moving to "High" drops the average to 194 FPS, while "Ultra" still maintains a very smooth 152 FPS average. This shows that even at the highest settings, the system is capable of driving a 144Hz monitor without breaking a sweat.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain very high but begin to show a more pronounced scaling with settings. The "Low" preset averages 194 FPS, a significant drop from the 1080p result. "Medium" averages 149 FPS (min 126, max 171), "High" averages 127 FPS, and "Ultra" averages 99 FPS. This is a very playable range, with all presets capable of providing a smooth experience on most high-refresh-rate monitors. The 95 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at this resolution demonstrates the GPU's workload scaling.

At 3840x2160, the 4K resolution, the system's performance becomes more moderate. The "Low" preset averages 106 FPS, which is still very good for 4K. "Medium" averages 82 FPS (min 69, max 94), and "High" averages 70 FPS. The "Ultra" preset is the most demanding, with an average of just 54 FPS. This is the only resolution/setting combination that falls below the 60 FPS target, making it the only scenario where a gamer might need to adjust settings to achieve a smoother experience. The data shows a clear and consistent progression of frame rates as both resolution and graphical fidelity increase.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is significant and reveals a clear shift in the system's bottleneck. At 1080p "Low", the system produces 296 FPS. Moving to 1440p "Low" drops this to 194 FPS, a reduction of 102 FPS (or about 34%). At 4K "Low", the frame rate further drops to 106 FPS, a 190 FPS reduction from 1080p. This steep decline indicates that the system is heavily influenced by the GPU's rendering workload. As the number of pixels increases, the RTX 4080 SUPER's fill rate and memory bandwidth become the limiting factors, and the CPU's high performance is no longer the primary constraint.

This scaling pattern is consistent across all settings. For example, at "High" settings, the frame rates go from 194 FPS at 1080p, to 127 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 70 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is roughly 64% for both Low and High settings. This linear scaling strongly suggests that the game is highly GPU-bound at these higher resolutions. The CPU, with its 16 cores and 32 threads, is more than capable of handling the game's logic and physics at any resolution, but it is the GPU that must work progressively harder to fill the additional pixels.

The data implies that the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D has ample headroom at 1080p and even 1440p, where it can keep the RTX 4080 SUPER well-fed. However, at 4K, the GPU's performance ceiling is reached. The 54 FPS result at 4K Ultra is not a sign of a CPU bottleneck, but rather proof of the raw graphical demands of the game at that resolution. The system is well-balanced, but the resolution scaling shows that the GPU is the ultimate arbiter of performance in this title at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D plays a crucial, yet nuanced, role in The Technomancer. Its 16 cores and 32 threads, based on the Zen 5 architecture and codenamed Granite Ridge, provide a massive amount of processing power. The CPU's performance in multi-threaded benchmarks is exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42018 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 26736. This ensures that the game's background tasks, AI, and physics calculations are handled with ease, preventing any CPU-related stutters or frame hitches.

However, games like The Technomancer often rely more heavily on single-threaded performance. The 9950X3D's strong single-core capabilities, evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2259 and Geekbench single-core score of 3064, are equally important. The high boost clock of 5.70 GHz ensures that the game's main logic thread has access to the fastest possible processing speed. This is reflected in the high frame rates observed at 1080p, where the system achieves 296 FPS on Low settings, a result that is only possible with a CPU that can process draw calls and game state updates at an extremely rapid pace.

The CPU's role becomes less critical at higher resolutions. As the GPU's workload increases, the frame rate drops, and the CPU has more time to prepare each frame. The 4K results, which are lower than the 1080p results, show that the system is not CPU-limited at this resolution. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a top-tier processor, ranking in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rivals being the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755 and the Intel Core Ultra 9 285, all within 0.4% of its average score. This high level of performance ensures that it will not be a limiting factor in this game, allowing the RTX 4080 SUPER to perform to its full potential.