The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload for the Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER combination. The measured data reveals a system that is capable of smooth gameplay at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K. This analysis examines the benchmark results to determine optimal settings, the balance between CPU and GPU loads, and the overall ranking of this hardware pairing.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific hardware combination, the benchmark data clearly indicates that the Low preset provides the most consistently playable experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 108.3 FPS, which is more than double the 57.2 FPS seen at Ultra settings. This substantial gap suggests that the game's higher presets place a significant load on the GPU, and the GTX 1660 SUPER's resources are better allocated to maintaining frame rate rather than visual fidelity.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 72.4 FPS, which remains comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset at this resolution yields 56.5 FPS, which is playable but begins to show signs of strain. The High preset drops to 49.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 39.5 FPS, both of which may introduce noticeable stuttering in action-heavy scenes typical of the genre.

At 4K (3840x2160), no preset achieves a fully playable frame rate. The Low preset manages 36.8 FPS, while Medium drops to 27.8 FPS, High to 27.1 FPS, and Ultra to a mere 18.7 FPS. These numbers indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER is simply not equipped for 4K gaming in this title, regardless of the quality settings selected. For users prioritizing a smooth experience, the Low preset at 1080p or 1440p is the only viable option, with Medium at 1080p (86.4 FPS) serving as a reasonable compromise for those seeking better visual quality without sacrificing too much performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER combination ranks 1464 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places the pairing in the bottom 12% of all configurations, indicating that it is a relatively low-performing setup for this specific game. The ranking reflects the combined capabilities of both components, with the GPU likely being the primary limiting factor given the game's release year and graphical demands.

This low ranking is somewhat surprising given the CPU's strong synthetic benchmark scores. The i5-12400 achieves an average benchmark score of 19850, placing it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. However, the GPU's average score of 14286 places it in only the 55th percentile of all GPUs. The disparity between these two components suggests that the GTX 1660 SUPER is holding back the i5-12400 in this gaming workload, preventing the combination from achieving a higher rank.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, which scores 14389 (0.7% higher), and the AMD Radeon Vega 11, which scores 14352 (0.5% higher). These marginal differences in synthetic tests do not translate to meaningful performance variations in The Technomancer, as the game's optimization and specific rendering techniques likely favor one architecture over another. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-9700 with a 0.1% higher score, are similarly close in raw compute but may exhibit different behaviors under gaming loads.

GPU Role

The GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the 12nm Turing architecture with the TU116 chip, featuring 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. Its memory subsystem consists of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card operates at a base clock of 1530 MHz with a boost clock of 1785 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specifications yield a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s.

In The Technomancer, the GPU's role is clearly dominant, as evidenced by the dramatic frame rate drops when increasing resolution. At 1080p Low, the card produces 108.3 FPS, but this falls to 72.4 FPS at 1440p Low (a 33.2% decrease) and further to 36.8 FPS at 4K Low (a 66.0% decrease from 1080p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering resolution directly impacts the number of pixels the card must process.

The GTX 1660 SUPER's 6 GB of VRAM appears sufficient for this game, as the data does not indicate any memory-related stuttering or crashes. However, the card's raw compute power, rated at 5.027 TFLOPS FP32, is the limiting factor. The measured FPS figures suggest that the game's Ultra preset at 1080p (57.2 FPS) demands more from the GPU than it can consistently deliver, while the Low preset allows the card to operate within its comfortable performance envelope.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear progression of performance across settings. The Low preset delivers an average of 108.3 FPS, which is the highest measured in this configuration. Medium achieves 86.4 FPS, representing a 20.2% drop from Low. High reaches 70.6 FPS, a further 18.3% decrease from Medium. Ultra bottoms out at 57.2 FPS, which is 47.2% lower than Low. This pattern indicates that each step up in settings imposes a significant computational cost on the GPU.

At 2560x1440, the same settings hierarchy is preserved but with reduced absolute values. Low averages 72.4 FPS, Medium 56.5 FPS, High 49.2 FPS, and Ultra 39.5 FPS. The relative differences between settings are similar to 1080p, suggesting that the GPU handles the increased pixel count uniformly across quality levels. The 1440p Low figure remains above 60 FPS, making it the only 1440p setting that offers a consistently smooth experience.

At 3840x2160, all presets fall below playable thresholds. Low averages 36.8 FPS, Medium 27.8 FPS, High 27.1 FPS, and Ultra 18.7 FPS. The difference between Medium and High at this resolution is negligible (only 0.7 FPS), indicating that the GPU is so heavily constrained that the additional visual features of High over Medium have minimal impact on performance. The Ultra preset at 18.7 FPS is essentially unplayable, as the frame rate drops below the threshold where even basic interaction feels responsive.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a steep performance decline as resolution increases, which is a hallmark of GPU-limited rendering. From 1080p Low (108.3 FPS) to 1440p Low (72.4 FPS), the frame rate drops by 33.2%. From 1440p Low to 4K Low (36.8 FPS), the drop is an additional 49.2%. The cumulative decrease from 1080p to 4K is 66.0%, meaning the card retains only about one-third of its 1080p performance at 4K.

This scaling behavior indicates that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary bottleneck in this system. The i5-12400, with its 6 cores and 12 threads running at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz, is more than capable of feeding the GPU at lower resolutions. However, as resolution increases, the GPU's fill rate and pixel processing capabilities become the limiting factor. The 66.0% drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is consistent with a card that struggles with the sheer number of pixels at 4K, rather than a CPU that cannot keep up with game logic.

The relatively small difference between 4K Low (36.8 FPS) and 4K Medium (27.8 FPS) further confirms GPU limitation. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see less variation between settings at the same resolution. Instead, the 24.5% drop from Low to Medium at 4K shows that the GPU is processing additional visual effects, further reducing its already limited capacity.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 features 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It has 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a single-thread score of 910 in 3DMark and 2249 in Cinebench R23, while multi-thread scores reach 5890 in 3DMark and 15935 in Cinebench R23. These figures place the CPU in the 77th percentile of all processors, indicating strong overall performance.

In The Technomancer, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU, as the frame rate scaling with resolution demonstrates. However, the i5-12400's performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GTX 1660 SUPER at any resolution. The 1080p Low result of 108.3 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU with enough data to achieve high frame rates, and the consistent scaling across settings indicates the CPU is not introducing frame pacing issues.

The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-9700 (0.1% higher average score) and Intel Core i5-11600K (0.4% higher), show that the i5-12400 is competitive with previous-generation processors. For The Technomancer, a game released in 2016, the i5-12400's modern architecture and high single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 910) are more than adequate. The game likely relies on a few primary threads for core game logic, and the i5-12400's 12 threads provide ample headroom even if the game is not perfectly optimized for multi-core processors. The data shows no evidence of CPU-related frame rate drops or stuttering, confirming that the processor is not a limiting factor in this configuration.