The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting case study for the Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the Intel Arc B580. The measured data reveals a configuration that is heavily influenced by the game's age and the GPU's driver maturity, with performance scaling that tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. This analysis breaks down the benchmark results across resolutions and settings to understand the character of this specific hardware combination.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor built on the Alder Lake architecture. It operates with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, which provides a solid foundation for modern gaming. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 18 MB L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded capability with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16518, while its single-core performance is equally respectable at 2332 in the same test. The 3DMark results further illustrate its scaling, with a single-thread score of 909 and a 16-thread score of 5895, showing that the processor can effectively utilize its 12 threads when the workload demands it.

For The Technomancer, a title released in 2016, the CPU’s role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and manage the game's physics and AI. The data from the measured FPS suggests that the i5-12400F is more than capable of handling this load. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 138 FPS, which is the highest frame rate in the entire measured set. This high frame rate at a CPU-intensive, low-GPU-load scenario indicates that the processor is not the limiting factor at lower resolutions. The CPU sits in the 77th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19221, placing it slightly ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K by 0.1% and marginally behind the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.7%. This context suggests the i5-12400F provides ample processing power for a game of this era, ensuring that performance will be dictated by the graphics card across most settings.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Analyzing the measured FPS across the four settings presets reveals a clear pattern in performance scaling. At 1920x1080, the jump from Low to Medium is a decrease from 138 FPS to 104.4 FPS, and then to 91.8 FPS on High. The most demanding Ultra preset still maintains a playable 69.2 FPS. The data shows that the most significant performance hit occurs when moving from Low to Medium, which is a 33.6 FPS reduction, while the step from Medium to High is a 12.6 FPS drop, and from High to Ultra is a 22.6 FPS drop. This suggests that the visual fidelity gains from Medium to High may not justify the performance cost, but the jump to Ultra is disproportionately expensive.

For the best experience, the High preset at 1080p appears to be the sweet spot. It delivers 91.8 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while offering significantly better visual quality than Medium. The Ultra preset, while providing the highest fidelity, drops to 69.2 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. At 1440p, the High preset delivers 58.9 FPS, which is close to the 60 FPS target, making it a viable option for players with 1440p monitors who prioritize visual quality. However, for a locked 60 FPS experience at this resolution, the Medium preset at 67.2 FPS is the safer choice. The data indicates that High is the optimal balance between performance and visual fidelity for most users, with Medium serving as a robust fallback for higher resolutions or those seeking more headroom.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured data across resolutions provides a clear narrative about the system's bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the High preset, the average FPS drops from 91.8 to 58.9, a 35.8% reduction. Scaling further to 3840x2160, the FPS plummets to 34.5, which is a 62.4% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline with increasing resolution is a classic indicator of a GPU-bound scenario. As the pixel count increases, the GPU must work exponentially harder to fill those pixels, and the Intel Arc B580 begins to struggle.

The pattern is consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 138 at 1080p to 87.2 at 1440p and then to 46.8 at 4K. Even at the lowest graphical fidelity, the 4K resolution proves to be a significant challenge, resulting in a sub-60 FPS experience. This confirms that the Intel Arc B580 is the primary limiting component at higher resolutions. The CPU, with its strong single-thread and multi-thread scores, is clearly capable of keeping up, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p. The data implies that for 4K gaming, this combination is not suitable for maintaining smooth frame rates, even on Low settings. The performance scaling suggests that the B580 is best utilized at 1080p or 1440p, where it can deliver playable frame rates with higher visual settings.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

In the comprehensive database of tested hardware combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-12400F and Intel Arc B580 achieves a rank of 1311 out of 1656 total combos for The Technomancer. This places the configuration in the bottom 20% of all tested systems, indicating that while it is functional, it does not deliver top-tier performance for this specific title. The rank is a holistic measure that considers the average FPS across all tested resolutions and settings, and it reflects the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions.

The GPU itself, the Intel Arc B580, holds a 66th percentile ranking against all GPUs based on its average benchmark score of 23021. Its nearest rivals in the synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Radeon 760M, which it edges out by 0.1%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, which is 0.7% faster. Despite this middling position in the GPU hierarchy, the combo's rank in-game is lower than the GPU's percentile would suggest. This discrepancy is likely due to The Technomancer's specific rendering requirements and potential driver overhead for the Arc series on a 2016 title. The data shows that in synthetic tests, the B580 is competitive, but in this particular game, the combination of hardware does not translate to a high ranking, suggesting that game-specific optimization or driver maturity is a factor in the overall performance.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the best resolution to play The Technomancer with this hardware for a consistent 60+ FPS experience?

A: The benchmark data shows that at 1920x1080, all settings presets except Ultra deliver an average FPS above 90. For a 60+ FPS experience, 2560x1440 on Medium settings is the highest resolution that meets this criterion, achieving an average of 67.2 FPS. The 4K resolution fails to reach 60 FPS even on Low settings.

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-12400F's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221. This is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-8700K, 0.3% higher than the Intel Core i5-1335U, and 0.7% lower than the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS. It also trails the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%, but the i5-12400F is a desktop consumer part while the EPYC is a server processor.

Q: What is the most demanding settings preset for the GPU at 1440p?

A: The Ultra preset is the most demanding. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset yields an average FPS of 44.6, which is the lowest of all settings at that resolution. This is a significant drop from the High preset, which averages 58.9 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance at 1080p with Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 138 FPS, the highest of any test. This high frame rate with a low graphical load indicates that the CPU is capable of driving the game well beyond typical refresh rates, and the GPU is not yet a bottleneck at this resolution and settings combination.

Q: How much faster is the High preset compared to the Ultra preset at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the High preset averages 34.5 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 25.7 FPS. This means the High preset is 8.8 FPS faster than Ultra, representing a 34.2% performance improvement.

Q: What are the specifications of the Intel Arc B580's memory?

A: The Intel Arc B580 features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. Its memory clock is listed as 2375 MHz, which translates to 19 Gbps effective.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The following is the complete set of measured average FPS data for The Technomancer with the Intel Core i5-12400F and Intel Arc B580.

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows:

• Low: 138.0 FPS
• Medium: 104.4 FPS
• High: 91.8 FPS
• Ultra: 69.2 FPS

At 2560x1440, the results are as follows:

• Low: 87.2 FPS
• Medium: 67.2 FPS
• High: 58.9 FPS
• Ultra: 44.6 FPS

At 3840x2160, the results are as follows:

• Low: 46.8 FPS
• Medium: 34.9 FPS
• High: 34.5 FPS
• Ultra: 25.7 FPS

The data shows a consistent performance hierarchy across all resolutions, with Low being the fastest and Ultra being the slowest. The most dramatic scaling occurs between 1440p and 4K, where the GPU's limitations become starkly apparent, with even the Low preset failing to maintain 60 FPS.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Arc B580, based on the Xe2-HPG architecture and the BMG-G21 chip, is a 5 nm part from TSMC. It operates at a base and boost clock of 2670 MHz and is equipped with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a substantial 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory capacity and bandwidth are crucial for modern games, but for a 2016 title like The Technomancer, the demands are lower. The GPU’s raw compute is rated at 13.67 TFLOPS for FP32, and it has 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs.

Despite these specifications, the measured FPS data reveals that the B580 is the primary factor limiting performance at higher resolutions. While the GPU is capable of providing high frame rates at 1080p, with a peak of 138 FPS on Low settings, its performance degrades significantly as resolution increases. The 4K results are particularly telling, with the Ultra preset dropping to 25.7 FPS. This suggests that the B580's architecture, while modern and feature-rich with DirectX 12 Ultimate support, is not fully optimized for this older game engine. The GPU's 66th percentile ranking against all GPUs, with an average score of 23021, places it slightly ahead of the AMD Radeon 760M by 0.1%, but 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. This synthetic performance does not fully translate to The Technomancer, where the game-specific results are less favorable, indicating that driver optimization for legacy titles remains a challenge for the Arc series.