The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, shows surprisingly demanding performance characteristics when paired with the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. The data reveals a configuration that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but begins to expose CPU limitations at 1080p, making it a nuanced pairing for this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable decline as resolution increases, but the rate of that decline varies significantly by settings preset. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops from 143 FPS at 1920x1080 to 91.6 FPS at 2560x1440, a 35.9% reduction, and then further down to 48.1 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 66.4% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep scaling curve at Ultra indicates that the RTX 4070 Ti is being pushed to its absolute limits at 4K, where the rendering load becomes the dominant factor.

The scaling pattern at Low settings tells a different story. The 1920x1080 result is 184.5 FPS, which drops to 155.7 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 15.6% decrease) and then to 100.2 FPS at 3840x2160 (a 45.7% decrease from 1080p). The relatively modest drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, compared to the larger drop at Ultra settings, suggests that at lower graphical fidelity, the CPU begins to play a more significant role in limiting performance at 1080p and 1440p. The 184.5 FPS at 1080p Low is likely near the ceiling of what the i5-10400F can feed to the GPU, meaning the GPU is not fully utilized at that resolution and preset combination.

At High settings, the progression is 158.4 FPS at 1080p, 119.3 FPS at 1440p, and 67 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is 57.7% lower than the 1080p result, which is a steeper drop than the 24.7% decrease seen when moving from 1080p to 1440p. This indicates that while the GPU handles 1440p High with relative ease, the transition to 4K High represents a massive increase in pixel count that the GPU cannot sustain at the same frame rate. The data strongly suggests that for 4K gaming, the RTX 4070 Ti is the limiting component across all presets, while at 1080p, the CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration becomes a more apparent bottleneck, particularly at lower settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the clear workhorse of this configuration, and its specifications directly explain the 4K performance ceiling. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, the card provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is substantial but not unlimited. The measured 4K Ultra result of 48.1 FPS shows that the card's 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 7680 shading units are insufficient to maintain high frame rates at maximum settings in this title. The GPU's boost clock of 2610 MHz, based on a 2310 MHz base, helps the card reach the 67 FPS average at 4K High, but the jump to Ultra adds enough rendering complexity to drop performance by 28.2% relative to High.

The GPU's memory capacity is a critical factor. At 4K with Ultra settings, the game is likely approaching or exceeding the 12 GB VRAM allocation, as evidenced by the significant performance penalty compared to High settings. The card's 80 ROPs and 240 TMUs provide solid texture and pixel throughput, contributing to the 626.4 GTexel/s texture rate, but the data shows that the 4K Ultra preset is simply too heavy. The GPU's percentile ranking of 85 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44900, places it in the upper tier, but The Technomancer's specific engine appears to be particularly punishing at high resolutions. In contrast, the 1080p Ultra result of 143 FPS demonstrates that the card has ample headroom at lower pixel counts, where its raw compute power can be fully leveraged without memory bandwidth constraints becoming the primary bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides a solid foundation for this GPU, but its role becomes more complex as resolution drops. With 6 cores and 12 threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, the processor delivers adequate performance for modern gaming. The CPU's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth are standard for its generation. In the measured data, the CPU's influence is most visible in the 1080p Low result of 184.5 FPS. This is the highest frame rate recorded across all configurations, but it is only 15.9% higher than the 1080p High result of 158.4 FPS, suggesting that the CPU is nearing its limit for feeding frames to the GPU.

The i5-10400F's single-thread performance, as indicated by its 3dmark_single_thread score of 688 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1453, is adequate but not exceptional. The gap between the 1080p Low and 1080p Medium results (184.5 vs 164.5 FPS, a 12.2% difference) narrows further at 1440p, where the Low and Medium results are 155.7 and 139.9 FPS respectively. This pattern indicates that as resolution increases, the GPU's rendering workload masks the CPU's limitations. The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10297 and a Passmark multithread score of 12115, are sufficient for this game's engine, which likely uses fewer than 12 threads effectively. The 3dmark_8_threads score of 3929, compared to the max_threads score of 4735, shows that scaling beyond 8 threads provides diminishing returns, meaning the 6-core configuration is not a significant liability in this title.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the High preset at 2560x1440 offers the most balanced experience for this hardware combination. The 119.3 FPS average at this setting provides smooth gameplay while maintaining a reasonable visual quality ceiling. Moving up to Ultra at 1440p yields 91.6 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 23.2% performance hit for visual improvements that may be subtle on most monitors. At 4K, the High preset is the only viable option if you want to stay above 60 FPS, delivering 67 FPS, while Medium drops to 76.5 FPS and Ultra falls to 48.1 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth action gameplay.

For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p provides 184.5 FPS, but this is only 16.5% higher than the High preset at the same resolution (158.4 FPS). This small difference suggests that the CPU is limiting performance at Low settings, so there is little benefit to dropping below High at 1080p. The Medium preset at 1080p (164.5 FPS) sits between High and Low, but the incremental gains over High are minimal. The data clearly shows that High settings provide the best performance-per-visual-fidelity tradeoff across all resolutions, as the gap between High and Ultra is consistently larger than the gap between High and Medium. At 4K, High is the recommended choice to maintain a 67 FPS average, while at 1440p, High at 119.3 FPS is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 372 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the top 22.5% of all configurations. This ranking is stronger than the CPU's individual percentile rank of 73, which indicates that the GPU is doing most of the heavy lifting to boost the overall gaming performance. The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.4% higher average score), AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.8% lower), Intel Core i5-8500 (1.1% lower), and AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 (1.2% lower), showing that the i5-10400F is closely matched with these processors in general compute tasks.

The GPU's individual ranking is more impressive, with a percentile of 85 and an average benchmark score of 44900. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (0.6% higher), Intel Arc A730M (1.5% higher), AMD Radeon Pro 580 (1.6% lower), and AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (1.6% higher). The fact that the combo ranks 372nd in a game-specific test, while the GPU ranks in the 85th percentile overall, suggests that The Technomancer's engine is not fully utilizing the GPU's capabilities, possibly due to the CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions. The rank of 372 out of 1656 is respectable, but it does not place this combo in the top 10% of all tested pairs, indicating that there are many configurations with better balance for this particular game.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play The Technomancer with this hardware?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with High settings provides the best overall experience at 119.3 FPS. At 4K, the High preset delivers 67 FPS, which is playable but leaves less headroom, while 1080p High achieves 158.4 FPS but offers no meaningful advantage over 1440p High.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 158.4 FPS at 1080p to 119.3 FPS at 1440p, a 24.7% reduction, and then to 67 FPS at 4K, a 57.7% reduction from the 1080p baseline. The Ultra preset sees an even steeper decline, going from 143 FPS at 1080p to 48.1 FPS at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: At 4K, the GPU is clearly the primary bottleneck across all presets. At 1080p with Low settings, the CPU becomes more limiting, as evidenced by the small performance gap between Low (184.5 FPS) and High (158.4 FPS) settings, which is only a 16.5% difference.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 Ti's 12 GB of VRAM sufficient for 4K gaming?

A: The benchmark data suggests that 12 GB is adequate but tight for 4K Ultra, which drops to 48.1 FPS. The High preset at 4K maintains 67 FPS, indicating that the VRAM capacity is not a hard failure point but does limit how much texture detail can be loaded at higher resolutions.

Q: How does the i5-10400F compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-10400F has an average benchmark score of 14168, which is 0.4% lower than the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115) and 0.8% higher than the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277). It also sits 1.1% higher than the Intel Core i5-8500 (14332) and 1.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 (14336).

Q: What is the ranking of this combo among all tested configurations in The Technomancer?

A: This combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 372 out of 1656 total tested combos, placing it in the top 22.5% of all pairs tested in this game.