The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting test for the Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER. This combination of a six-core Comet Lake processor and an Ada Lovelace GPU delivers a wide range of performance depending on how the game is configured. The benchmark data reveals a system capable of high refresh rate gaming at standard resolutions, but one that also shows clear limitations as pixel count and graphical fidelity increase.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and tells a clear story about the system's bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at Ultra settings reduces the average frame rate from 133.3 FPS to 85.5 FPS, a significant 36% decrease. The scaling continues at 4K, where the Ultra preset yields just 47.6 FPS. This pattern of diminishing returns as resolution climbs points directly to the GPU becoming the primary limiting factor.

At 1080p, the CPU is doing more of the heavy lifting. The gap between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 50.6 FPS (183.9 FPS vs 133.3 FPS), showing that the i5-10400F can push high frame rates but that the RTX 4070 SUPER is not fully saturated at lower settings. However, at 4K, the delta between Low and Ultra narrows to 45.5 FPS (93.1 FPS vs 47.6 FPS), yet the absolute numbers are much lower, indicating the GPU is now the constraining component. The 4K Ultra figure of 47.6 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold, while 4K High at 61.3 FPS barely crosses it, showing this combo is on the edge for 4K gaming.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and performance, the High preset is the clear winner. At 1920x1080, High delivers 156.2 FPS, which is only 6% slower than Low (183.9 FPS) but offers considerably better visuals than Medium (164.6 FPS) or Ultra (133.3 FPS). The data suggests that the jump from High to Ultra costs 22.9 FPS at 1080p, a 15% hit, which may not justify the marginal visual gains for most users.

At 2560x1440, High remains the sweet spot with 113.8 FPS, comfortably above the 100 FPS mark for smooth gameplay. Medium at 133.2 FPS is also viable for those prioritizing frame rate, but the difference between High and Medium is only 19.4 FPS. For 4K, the choice is more constrained. High at 61.3 FPS is the only preset that consistently clears the 60 FPS target; Ultra at 47.6 FPS is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The Low preset at 4K (93.1 FPS) is technically playable but severely compromises visual fidelity. The data indicates that High is the recommended setting across all resolutions, offering the best compromise between frame rate and image quality without the performance penalty of Ultra.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 SUPER is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications align with the observed scaling behavior. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The 5 nm Ada Lovelace chip, with 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, runs at a base clock of 1980 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz. These clocks are relatively high, and the pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s helps explain why the GPU can handle lower resolutions with ease.

The VRAM capacity of 12 GB is sufficient for this 2016 title, as the benchmark data does not suggest any memory-related stuttering or frame drops. The 4K High result of 61.3 FPS indicates that the GPU is not running out of memory, as the frame rate is consistent with compute-bound performance rather than memory capacity issues. The GPU's 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 42576, places it just ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (42653, delta -0.2%) and AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42723, delta -0.3%). This positioning confirms that the RTX 4070 SUPER is a high-end part, but the 4K results show it is not a 4K powerhouse for this specific title, since the Ultra preset cannot maintain 60 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system is exceptionally fast. Low settings produce 183.9 FPS, Medium yields 164.6 FPS, High reaches 156.2 FPS, and Ultra drops to 133.3 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 50.6 FPS, and even the lowest Ultra figure exceeds the refresh rate of most standard 144Hz monitors. The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU is likely the limiting factor at Low settings, but the GPU takes over as the preset increases, since the frame rate drops by 50 FPS from Low to Ultra.

Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers remain high but start to show the GPU's workload. Low hits 156.5 FPS, Medium achieves 133.2 FPS, High manages 113.8 FPS, and Ultra falls to 85.5 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 71 FPS, which is a larger absolute drop than at 1080p, highlighting the increased pixel shader workload. The i5-10400F, with a 3dmark max threads score of 4735 and a PassMark multithread score of 12115, is sufficient to keep up with the GPU at this resolution, as no CPU bottleneck is evident from the scaling.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low yields 93.1 FPS, Medium drops to 69.8 FPS, High is at 61.3 FPS, and Ultra just manages 47.6 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 45.5 FPS, which is smaller in absolute terms than at 1440p, but the relative drop is more severe. The RTX 4070 SUPER's 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is being fully utilized here, and the data indicates that 4K Ultra is beyond the comfortable range for this combo.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for The Technomancer, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER ranks 390th out of 1656 combos. This places it in the top 24% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The rank is likely boosted by the GPU's excellent performance at 1080p and 1440p, where the system delivers frame rates in excess of 100 FPS on the High preset.

The i5-10400F itself sits at the 73rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115, delta 0.4%), AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277, delta -0.8%), and Intel Core i5-8500 (14332, delta -1.1%). These rivals are all within 1.2% of the i5-10400F's score, showing that the CPU is in a tightly contested performance band. The combo rank of 390 suggests that while the CPU is not a top-tier part, it does not hold back the RTX 4070 SUPER enough to prevent a high overall ranking in this game. The data shows a balanced system that excels at mainstream resolutions but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra, which is consistent with the 390th rank in a field of 1656.