The Technomancer

The pairing of the Intel Core i3-12100F and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT delivers a broad performance envelope in The Technomancer, a 2016 title. In the 12 measured frame-rate rows, the combination spans from a 149 FPS average at 1080p Low to 27 FPS at 4K Ultra. The data reveals that resolution and preset choice are decisive: the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck as pixel counts climb, while the quad-core CPU still manages to saturate the frame rate at the lower resolution and quality levels. This write-up walks through the full set of results, step by step.

Resolution Scaling

The drop in average FPS from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is almost perfectly uniform across all four graphics presets. At Low settings, the averages are 149 FPS at 1080p, 98 FPS at 1440p, and 54 FPS at 4K. That is a 51 FPS decline from 1080p to 1440p, and a 44 FPS decline from 1440p to 4K. The relative scaling is telling: the 1440p result is 65.8% of the 1080p number (98 divided by 149), while the 4K result is just 36.2% of 1080p (54 divided by 149). Because the pixel count of 4K is about four times that of 1080p, this fraction of forty percent aligns with what a GPU‑limited workload would do.

The pattern repeats at the Medium preset. Here the averages are 115 FPS at 1080p, 75 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. The 1440p frame rate is 65.2% of 1080p (75/115), and the 4K frame rate drops to 35.7% (41/115). Even at High, the same scaling exists: 98 FPS at 1080p, 64 FPS at 1440p, and 35 FPS at 4K, with 64/98 = 65.3% and 35/98 = 35.7%. The Ultra preset shows 77 FPS at 1080p, 49 FPS at 1440p, and 27 FPS at 4K, again with 49/77 = 63.6% and 27/77 = 35.1%. The percentage differences across the four presets are small, indicating that the rasterization load grows almost exactly with the pixel density, regardless of the quality level. The conclusion is that the 1080p to 1440p transition cuts the frame rate to roughly two-thirds, while 1080p to 4K drops it to around one-third. That is classic GPU‑bound scaling, with the CPU not intervening.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7600 XT brings a substantial memory pool of 16 GB of GDDR6 over a 128‑bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. In practice, this bandwidth is enough to keep the shading units busy at all measured settings; the deficits arise from raw compute. The GPU's three clocks are given: a base of 1980 MHz, a game clock of 2470 MHz, and a boost of 2755 MHz. The 2048 shading units, 128 texture units, and 64 ROPs are the workhorses that execute the shader work. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly saturated, producing 27 FPS average. Even at 4K High it only reaches 35 FPS. Only by stepping down all the way to 4K Low does the system pass a 54 FPS average, which is a usable frame rate for a 4K panel.

In the PassMark G3D benchmark, the GPU scores 17132, putting it in the 60th percentile of all tested GPUs in that particular vault. Its nearest rivals in that benchmark are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 with a score of 17037 (a 0.3% gap up), the AMD Radeon HD 7970M at 17019 (0.4% lower), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 at 17208 (0.7% lower), and the NVIDIA Tesla M4 at 16932 (0.9% lower). The gap to the much more powerful RTX 3070 is only 0.7% in that strong synthetic test, which is qualitatively consistent with the observed 4K performance in the game — the RX 7600 XT is a middle‑to‑upper‑midrange part, not a top‑tier one. its 60th percentile status tells us that, across all AMD and NVIDIA cards, it sits above average but not in the elite cohort.

The 16 GB VRAM may offer some headroom for high‑resolution textures in a 2016 title, but the actual measurements show that even without memory pressure, the core itself is the limiter at 4K. Halving the pixel load by dropping from 4K to 1440p raises the frame rate by roughly one‑and‑half in every preset, a clear signal that the GPU's compute capacity is the controlling factor at the top resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a modest quad‑core processor that still has hyper‑threading, giving it 4 cores and 8 threads. Its base clock is 3.30 GHz, with boost going to 4.30 GHz. With a TDP of 58W, it is a low‑power part that nonetheless performs well in older games. It has an L3 cache of 12 MB shared and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, but these detailed parameters do not appear in the game results. The CPU's individual benchmarks show a Cinebench R23 multi‑core score of 11860 and single‑core of 1674, while the GeekBench multi‑core is 7252 and single‑core 1932. Its percentile vs. all CPUs is 68, meaning it exceeds 68% of the desktop processors tested in its vault.

In the frame rate results, the quad‑core never becomes the bottleneck. Even at 1080p Low, which is the fastest output (149 FPS), the engine is ‑above a frame rate that casual comparison would need. The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark average are the Intel Core 3 N355 (avg score 13492, delta 0), the Intel Core i5‑9500 (13452, 0.3% delta), the Intel Core 5 120UL (13594, -0.7% delta), and the i7‑1250U (13351, 1.1% delta). The i3‑12100F's average score is 13494, putting it right next to these — a hair above the N355 and within 0.3% of the i5‑9500. This places it in the mainstream range. For a game like The Technomancer, a larger CPU would not buy much extra FPS; the resolutions that dislocate the frame counter are far more often the GPU.

The CPU's lack of bottleneck is visible in the measured data. For instance, at 1480p High, the average is 64 FPS. At 1080p High, it is 98 FPS. The rise to 1080p Low reaches 149 FPS. Both CPU and GPU have headroom at those. The only place the CPU might be a factor is at 1080p Low, where a quad‑core can still drive 149 FPS; but the performance there is mostly unscaling the number of pixels the GPU can handle.

How This Combo Ranks

In the total benchmark database of 3696 tested CPU + GPU combinations, this specific pairing ranks 2335th across the entire sample. That places it in the lower 37% of combos (since 2335 out of 3696 corresponds to a percentile position of roughly 63.3% of combos are better). The combo's rank is better than 1361 combos and worse than 2334 others. The motherboard as a discrete measure does not exceed the 60th percentile of GPUs or the 68th percentile of CPUs, but the combination rank is significantly lower than either of those two percentiles. This is expected because the game itself has an uneven balance — it is GPU‑heavy at 4K, and the combo's CPU sits only at the 68th percentile, so the total rank is pulled down by the high‑dependency on the GPU surface. A stronger GPU would lifted the combo dramatically, while upgrading the CPU would give a lesser net improvement.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS for the 2560x1440 and Ultra preset?

A: The measured average frame rate is 50 FPS. The minimum is not supplied, but the average is 50.

Q: Which preset at 4K grants a 60+ FPS experience?

A: No preset at 3840x2160 reaches 60 FPS. The best is Low with 54 FPS; Medium and High are 41 and 35 respectively, and Ultra drops to 27.

Q: At 1080p, how many FPS does the Low preset give?

A: The Low preset delivers 149 FPS average. That is the highest measured number in the table.

Q: Does the i3-12100F show a CPU limitation at 1440p?

A: No. The frames from 1080p to 1440p scale inversely with pixel count, which indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's single‑thread benchmarks also place it above the vast majority of CPUs, but the game does not push its multi‑core performance.

Q: How many combinations is the RX 7600 XT's performance compared to?

A: The RX 7600 XT's default benchmark score is 17083, and its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 with a delta of -0.7%, indicating the RX 7600 XT is slightly faster by 0.7% in that particular comparison.

Q: What benchmark percentiles do the CPU and GPU hold?

A: The CPU is at the 68th percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU at the 60th percentile of all GPUs in their respective totals.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured results, the optimal experience depends on the resolution target:

• 1920x1080: All four presets produce a playable frame rate. Ultra (77 FPS) is the highest visual quality that still retains comfortable 75‑plus FPS. If the player prefers a higher margin for positional motion, Medium (115 FPS) offers noticeably more speed with modest graphical loss.
• 2560x1440: The High preset runs at 64 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold; Medium is 75 FPS for a safety margin, while Ultra drops to 50. For a well‑balanced experience, High or Medium are the best choices.
• 4K UHD: The only preset that clears 50 FPS is Low, at 54 FPS. Medium at 41 FPS and High at 35 FPS are still visually acceptable on a 4K panel, but if the user prioritizes smoothness, Low is the only preset that avoids dipping below 45 FPS. Ultra (27 FPS) is not recommended for interactive play.
• The general rule from this data: the GPU is the main limiting factor; lowering the preset is the most effective way to raise the frame rate, causing the frame counter to rise by about 63% when stepping from Ultra down to Low at 4K (from 27 to 54 FPS).

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Low: 149 FPS average
• Medium: 115 FPS average (min 98, max 132)
• High: 98 FPS average
• Ultra: 77 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Low: 98 FPS average
• Medium: 75 FPS average (min 64, max 86)
• High: 64 FPS average
• Ultra: 50 FPS average

3840x2160 (4K)

• Low: 54 FPS average
• Medium: 41 FPS average (min 35, max 47)
• High: 35 FPS average
• Ultra: 27 FPS average

The medium presets also report min ‑ max ranges, where 1080p spans 98–132 FPS, 1440p 64–86 FPS, and 4K 35–47 FPS, indicating frame pacing stability is within about 15-25% of the average across resolutions. None of the non‑medium rows include min/max data, but the overall trend of these numbers is sufficient to show the loss from 1080p to 4K.