The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting test for the Intel Core i5-12600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700. The measured data reveals a combination that is capable of high refresh-rate play at 1080p but struggles to maintain smooth performance at 4K. This analysis breaks down the benchmark results, examining how the CPU and GPU each contribute to the overall experience across different settings and resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data for this combination provides a clear hierarchy of performance across the four tested presets. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 92 FPS, which is highly playable for an Action RPG. However, the step down to High yields a substantial increase to 117 FPS, a 27% improvement that makes High the more attractive option for competitive or fast-paced action. The Medium preset pushes further to 137 FPS, and Low reaches 179 FPS, but these come with diminishing visual returns.

Moving to 2560x1440, the situation becomes more nuanced. The Ultra preset falls to exactly 60 FPS on average, which is the bare minimum for smooth gameplay but leaves no headroom for demanding scenes. The High preset, at 77 FPS, provides a much more comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold while still offering strong visual fidelity. This makes High the optimal choice for 1440p, as it balances the visual quality of the Ultra preset with a significant 28% performance boost.

At 3840x2160, the data strongly suggests avoiding the highest settings. The Ultra preset averages only 33 FPS, which is below the threshold for acceptable playability. The High preset improves this to 42 FPS, but this remains a stutter-prone experience. The Medium preset, with an average of 49 FPS and a minimum of 42 FPS, is the only 4K option that approaches a playable range, yet it still falls short of a solid 60 FPS. Therefore, the best experience per the measured rows is to use High settings at 1080p or 1440p, while 4K users should stick to Medium or Low, with Low hitting 64 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is the primary driver of frame rates in The Technomancer, and its specifications explain the performance ceiling observed. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. This generous memory allocation ensures that even at 4K resolution, the card is unlikely to be bottlenecked by VRAM capacity, allowing the focus to remain on raw compute throughput.

The GPU’s clock speeds, with a base of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost of 2459 MHz, are relatively high, but the data shows that these are insufficient for demanding 4K Ultra settings. The card’s compute capability is rated at 25.18 TFLOPS for FP32 operations, which is a substantial amount of power. Yet, the benchmark results show a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, indicating that the GPU’s processing units are saturated by the pixel workload at higher resolutions.

The GPU’s percentile rank of 58 among all GPUs, while its average benchmark score is 15852, positions it as a mid-range performer. This is corroborated by the measured FPS, where it excels at 1080p but cannot maintain high frame rates at 4K. The card's nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with a score of 16129 (1.7% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX 9060 with 16014 (1% higher), suggest it is competitive with the previous generation's upper-midrange. In this game, the RX 7700’s role is to deliver high refresh rate 1080p and solid 1440p performance, but it lacks the raw power for a definitive 4K experience.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a classic pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 117. Moving to 2560x1440, the average drops to 77, a 34% decrease. This is a significant drop, but it is expected as the number of pixels rendered increases by roughly 78%. The scaling continues to 3840x2160, where the average falls to 42, a further 45% decrease from the 1440p figure.

This pattern indicates that the limiting component is the GPU. The CPU, an Intel Core i5-12600KF, has ample processing power to feed frames at lower resolutions, but as the resolution increases, the GPU’s rendering time per frame becomes the dominant factor. The fact that the 1080p to 1440p drop is less severe than the 1440p to 4K drop suggests that the GPU is being pushed into a less efficient operating range at 4K.

Looking at the Low settings across resolutions reveals a similar trend. At 1080p Low, the average is 179 FPS, which drops to 117 at 1440p and 64 at 4K. This shows that even when the graphical load is minimized, the GPU's performance scales consistently with resolution. The CPU, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, is clearly not the bottleneck here, as the frame rates at 1080p are exceptionally high, indicating that the CPU can process game logic and draw calls much faster than the GPU can render frames at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across all settings and resolutions.

At 1920x1080, the framerates are consistently high. The Low preset achieves an average of 179 FPS. The Medium preset averages 137 FPS, with a minimum of 117 and a maximum of 158. The High preset averages 117 FPS. The Ultra preset, while the most demanding, still averages a very playable 92 FPS. This resolution is clearly where this combo shines, providing a high-refresh-rate experience even on the highest settings.

At 2560x1440, the performance is still good but requires more consideration. The Low preset averages 117 FPS. The Medium preset averages 90 FPS, with a minimum of 76 and a maximum of 103. The High preset averages 77 FPS, which is a comfortable level for most players. The Ultra preset falls to an average of 60 FPS, which is exactly playable but leaves little headroom for intense combat scenarios.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly. The Low preset averages 64 FPS, making it the only 4K setting that approaches a smooth experience. The Medium preset averages 49 FPS, with a minimum of 42 and a maximum of 57, which will result in noticeable stuttering. The High preset averages 42 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages only 33 FPS, both of which are not recommended for a playable experience. The data shows that 4K is only viable with Low settings for this hardware combination.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12600KF and AMD Radeon RX 7700 combination holds a rank of 1275 out of 2825 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places it in the 45th percentile of all tested systems, indicating that it performs better than a majority of configurations but is not in the top tier. This ranking is consistent with the GPU's mid-range positioning, as the CPU is a high-end part from its generation.

The CPU’s performance is notable. Its average benchmark score is 27799, and it sits in the 79th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i9-10900K, which scores 27872 (0.3% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which scores 27896 (0.3% higher). This suggests the i5-12600KF is a very capable processor that is not holding back the GPU in this game.

The GPU, however, anchors the combo’s overall rank. Its average benchmark score is 15852, placing it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs. The combo's rank of 1275 reflects that while the CPU is strong, the GPU's mid-range performance limits the system's overall capability in a graphically intensive game like The Technomancer. This is a balanced pairing, but the data implies that to move up significantly in the rankings, a more powerful GPU would be the necessary upgrade.

FAQ

Q: What is the best setting to use for a smooth 60 FPS experience at 2560x1440?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 77 FPS, providing a comfortable buffer above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset averages exactly 60 FPS, but the High setting offers more headroom for demanding scenes.

Q: Can this hardware combination handle 4K gaming in The Technomancer?

A: The data shows that 4K gaming is only viable at the Low preset, which averages 64 FPS. The Medium preset averages 49 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets fall below 42 FPS, which is not a playable experience.

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-12600KF compare to its closest rivals?

A: The i5-12600KF has an average benchmark score of 27799. It is 0.3% slower than the Intel Core i9-10900K and 0.3% faster than the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE, showing it is highly competitive in its performance class.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the main bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The GPU is the primary bottleneck. This is evident from the resolution scaling, where frame rates drop significantly as resolution increases, indicating the GPU is reaching its limits. The CPU's high benchmark scores suggest it has ample headroom.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1920x1080?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 179 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 92 FPS. This represents a 94% performance increase for the Low preset, but the Ultra setting still provides a highly playable experience.

Q: What is the memory configuration of the AMD Radeon RX 7700?

A: The GPU is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s. This generous memory size helps prevent VRAM limitations at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a powerful processor that provides a solid foundation for the RX 7700. It features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. This configuration, based on the Alder Lake architecture, is more than sufficient to handle the game logic and physics of The Technomancer.

The CPU’s benchmark results confirm its strength. In Cinebench R23, it scores 23391 in multi-core and 3302 in single-core tests. Its performance in synthetic benchmarks is high, with a Passmark multithread score of 27575 and a single-thread score of 3925. These scores, combined with its 79th percentile ranking, indicate that the CPU is not a limiting factor in this system.

The data shows that at 1080p, where the GPU has less work to do per frame, the CPU is able to feed it enough data to achieve an average of 179 FPS on Low settings. This high frame rate demonstrates that the CPU can handle the game's single-threaded and multi-threaded demands effectively. The L3 cache of 20 MB (shared) and the support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory help ensure low latency and high bandwidth for data-intensive tasks. While the GPU is the performance bottleneck in most scenarios, the i5-12600KF ensures that the system never suffers from CPU-related stutters, allowing the GPU to perform to its full potential.