The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload for modern hardware, particularly at higher resolutions. This analysis examines the measured performance of the Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the Intel Arc B570, using benchmark data to interpret how this combination handles the game across various settings and resolutions. The data indicates a configuration that is capable at 1080p but becomes increasingly constrained as resolution scales, with specific implications for settings optimization.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this setup in The Technomancer?

A: The data shows that the 1920x1080 High preset delivers an average of 80 FPS, making it the optimal balance of visual fidelity and performance. For a higher frame rate, the Low preset at 1080p achieves 121 FPS, while the Medium preset at 1080p offers 93 FPS.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 perform relative to its closest rivals in general benchmarks?

A: The Arc B570's average benchmark score is 20556, placing it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, has an average score of 20534, representing a negligible 0.1% difference. The Intel Arc A750 scores 20582, which is a -0.1% delta from the B570.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset yields an average of 79 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 41 FPS. This represents a significant 48% decrease in average frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

Q: Is the frame rate consistent at the Medium settings?

A: The data provides minimum and maximum FPS for the Medium preset. At 1080p, the average is 93 FPS with a range of 79 to 107 FPS. At 1440p, the average is 61 FPS with a range of 52 to 70 FPS, and at 4K, the average is 33 FPS with a range of 28 to 39 FPS.

Q: How does the Intel Core i3-12100F compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The i3-12100F has an average benchmark score of 13494, placing it in the 68th percentile. Its closest rival, the Intel Core 3 N355, has an average score of 13492, a 0% delta. The Intel Core i5-9500 scores 13452, which is a 0.3% delta.

Q: What is the overall ranking of this CPU and GPU combo for The Technomancer?

A: The combo ranks 2256 out of 2825 tested combinations for this game. This places it in the lower half of all tested systems, indicating that while it can run the game, many other configurations will deliver higher performance.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is the primary driver for rendering The Technomancer's visuals. Its memory configuration is a key factor in how it handles the game's demands. The GPU comes equipped with 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. This memory capacity is sufficient for the game's textures and assets, but the bandwidth becomes a critical factor at higher resolutions where the demand for data throughput increases.

The GPU's clock speeds are fixed at 2500 MHz for both base and boost. This consistent clock rate means the GPU's performance is not subject to boost clock variability but is instead reliant on its core architecture and memory subsystem. With 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 render output units, the B570 has the raw compute power to process complex scenes. Its pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s, which are theoretical maximums that indicate its processing capacity.

In The Technomancer, the GPU's role is evident in the scaling of frame rates with resolution. At 1080p Low, the GPU achieves 121 FPS, but by 4K Ultra, it falls to 22 FPS. This sharp decline is a clear sign that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings. The data suggests that at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom to push high frame rates, but as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, the render output units and memory bandwidth become saturated, leading to the observed performance drop.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how each preset affects performance, allowing for informed settings recommendations. At 1920x1080, all presets are playable, with Low at 121 FPS, Medium at 93 FPS, High at 80 FPS, and Ultra at 62 FPS. For users with a 60Hz display, the High preset is the best choice, as it provides a significant visual upgrade over Medium while maintaining an 80 FPS average, well above the refresh rate. The Ultra preset, while playable, offers diminishing returns for the 23% performance cost compared to High.

At 2560x1440, the choice becomes more critical. The Low preset delivers 79 FPS, which is smooth, but Medium drops to 61 FPS and High to 52 FPS. To maintain a stable 60 FPS experience, the Medium preset is the highest setting that achieves this target. The High and Ultra presets, at 52 and 41 FPS respectively, would require a compromise on frame rate for visual quality.

For 3840x2160, the data shows that this configuration struggles. Even the Low preset only achieves 44 FPS, and the High preset falls to 29 FPS. Given these results, playing at 4K is not recommended. If a user insists on 4K, the Low preset is the only option that approaches playability, but it still fails to reach a consistent 60 FPS. The best experience according to the data is at 1080p, where the High preset offers a superior balance of visual fidelity and performance. The Medium preset is the optimal choice for 1440p if a 60 FPS target is desired.

How This Combo Ranks

The combined performance of the Intel Core i3-12100F and Intel Arc B570 in The Technomancer is ranked 2256 out of 2825 tested combinations. This ranking places the system in the 20th percentile of all tested combos, meaning roughly 80% of tested systems perform better. This is a low ranking, reflecting the pair's limitations in this specific game.

This ranking is particularly telling when considering the individual components' benchmark percentiles. The CPU is in the 68th percentile of all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. Both are mid-range performers, yet their combined rank in this game is significantly lower. This suggests that The Technomancer may have specific performance characteristics that this combination handles poorly, such as a heavy reliance on single-threaded CPU performance or a particular GPU workload that the Arc B570's architecture does not excel at.

The data implies that while the components are individually average, their synergy in this title is suboptimal. The low combo rank indicates that users with this setup will experience performance that is worse than what the individual component benchmarks might suggest. This is an important consideration for anyone looking to play The Technomancer with this hardware, as the experience will be below the average of the broader hardware ecosystem.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly demonstrates the system's bottleneck. At 1080p High, the average FPS is 80. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 52 FPS, a 35% decrease. At 4K High, the average falls to 29 FPS, a 64% decrease from the 1440p figure and a 64% decrease from 1080p. This pattern is consistent across all settings, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting component.

This scaling behavior is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario. When the resolution is increased, the number of pixels the GPU must render grows exponentially. The data shows that the frame rate drops almost linearly with the increase in pixel count. For instance, 1080p has roughly 2 million pixels, while 4K has roughly 8 million. The 64% drop in FPS from 1080p to 4K aligns with this fourfold increase in pixel workload, confirming that the Arc B570's rendering capabilities are the limiting factor.

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the frame rate to remain relatively flat as resolution increases, since the CPU workload (game logic, draw calls) stays the same. Instead, the frame rate drops dramatically, proving that the GPU is unable to keep up with the increased rendering demands. The data points to a system where 1080p is the sweet spot, 1440p is playable with reduced settings, and 4K is beyond the capabilities of this GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at performance across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: the Low preset averages 121 FPS, the Medium preset averages 93 FPS with a range of 79 to 107 FPS, the High preset averages 80 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 62 FPS. This shows a clear and consistent performance hierarchy, with each step up in quality costing a measurable amount of frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. The Low preset averages 79 FPS, the Medium preset averages 61 FPS with a range of 52 to 70 FPS, the High preset averages 52 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 41 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 38 FPS, which is a substantial difference in playability. The Medium preset's minimum of 52 FPS indicates occasional dips below the 60 FPS target.

At 3840x2160, the performance is the most constrained. The Low preset averages 44 FPS, the Medium preset averages 33 FPS with a range of 28 to 39 FPS, the High preset averages 29 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 22 FPS. The frame rates at this resolution are all below the 60 FPS threshold, making for a less smooth experience. The data shows a clear trend: as resolution increases, the average FPS drops, and the impact of settings becomes more pronounced.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. It has 12 MB of shared L3 cache. In general benchmarks, it scores 11860 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 1674 in single-core. Its average benchmark score is 13494, placing it in the 68th percentile.

In The Technomancer, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU, as indicated by the resolution scaling analysis. However, its performance is still a factor. The game is from 2016, and its engine may not be optimized for many threads. The i3-12100F's 4 cores and 8 threads are sufficient for the game's logic, but its single-thread performance is crucial for games that rely on a single main thread. The single-core score of 1674 in Cinebench R23 suggests it has strong single-thread capability.

The data does not show a CPU bottleneck in this game at the tested resolutions. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would see a smaller FPS difference between resolutions. Since the FPS drops significantly with resolution, it confirms that the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU's role is to feed the GPU with data, and at 1080p, it seems to do so adequately, allowing the GPU to reach 121 FPS on Low. At higher resolutions, the GPU's rendering time increases, giving the CPU more time to prepare frames, so the CPU is likely not a limiting factor in this configuration.