The Technomancer

The Technomancer is an action RPG that tends to be unforgiving on older hardware, and this specific pairing — an Intel Core i5-14400F with a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti — demonstrates exactly where the limits are. Measured frame rates come from a real test run, not estimation, and they show a combination that ranks 3636 out of 3696 tested combos. That puts it within 60 slots of the slowest tested rigs. The GPU, in particular, is the load-bearing constraint; the CPU, meanwhile, is a recent 14th-generation part that pulls far more than its weight. The result is a system where the CPU is thoroughly over-qualified for the work, and the GPU drags the entire pairing down to a mostly unplayable ceiling at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across resolutions is unambiguous: the drop off from 1080p to 1440p to 4K is severe, and the pattern is consistent at every visual preset. Take the Low preset as a benchmark. At 1920x1080, the average frame rate is 55. Step up to 2560x1440, and it falls to 36. At 3840x2160, it drops further to 20. That's a cut of 17 FPS and then another 16 FPS—a clear, stepwise lowering of performance that tracks the pixel count almost linearly. The same logic applies to Medium: 42 FPS at 1080p, 28 at 1440p, and 15 at 4K. High follows suit—36 FPS at 1080p, 24 at 1440p, 13 at 4K. Even the Ultra preset—the most demanding—exhibits the same behaviour: 28 FPS at 1080p, 18 at 1440p, and 10 at 4K.

This uniform scaling is the signature of a GPU that is wholly loaded by resolution. There is no sign of the CPU taking over the bottleneck role at lower resolutions; if the i5-14400F were the limiting factor, we would expect the FPS gap between 1080p and 1440p to be much smaller. Instead, the differences are consistently large, suggesting that the GPU’s rendering pipeline is the dominant constraint. A quick scan of the numbers tells you why: at 4K, even the Low preset can only manage an average of 20 FPS, which is below the traditional 30 FPS playable threshold, and the Ultra preset sits at just 10 FPS—a slideshow.

When the resolution is increased, the frame rate is cut nearly in half at each step for most presets. For instance, moving from 1080p Low to 1440p Low gives a 55 → 36 FPS change (approx -35%), and then to 4K Low gives 36 → 20 FPS (a -44%). The absolute FPS values drop to levels where even responsiveness, let alone smoothness, is jeopardised. Clearly, the GTX 1050 Ti is not built for high-resolution play in this game; 1080p is the absolute maximum resolution for any tangible degree of comfort, and even there the user must be ready to sacrifice visual quality.

GPU Role

The GPU in this combination is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, a Pascal-era card with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory spread across a 128-bit bus. The memory bandwidth sits at 112.1 GB/s, and the core clocks are a modest 1291 MHz base and 1392 MHz boost. It has 768 pixel processors, 32 ROPs, and 48 TMUs, and the whole chip is build on a 14 nm process with a TDP of 75 W. Its average benchmark score is 4193, which puts it at the 25th percentile of all GPUs—a meaning that a quarter of all GPUs tested score lower. It sits in the lower end of the stack; indeed, its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon R5 M330 (4170, +0.6%) and the Quadro K2100M (4151, +1.0%), while slower laggards include the Radeon Vega 3 (4268, -1.8%) and the Quadro K3000M (4241, -1.1%).

Given that the GPU is a direct relevance to the frame-rate results, the 4 GB VRAM becomes a notable limitation. In a 2016-era game like The Technomancer, 4 GB is generally sufficient for 1080p at medium-to-high detail, but once you move to 1440p or 4K, the memory capacity quickly becomes a bottleneck. The measured FPS at 1440p and 4K are so low that even a small VRAM boost would be meaningless; compute throughput is the true wall. The GPU’s raw compute is 2.138 TFLOPS, which is a mid-range figure from a bygone era. For reference, its DirectX 12 performance is a paltry 26 in the Passmark DirectX 12 benchmark (number from the pack), and its overall G2D score is 651. The card also supports only four display outputs (1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.4a), indicating that it is aimed at a basic single-monitor setup.

The role of the GPU becomes clearer when looking at the resolution stress tests. At 1080p Medium, the average FPS is 42; at High, 36; at Ultra, 28. But as the resolution climbs, those numbers collapse; Ultra at 4K manages only 10 FPS. The GTX 1050 Ti is clearly overwhelmed by the workload beyond 1080p, even at the lowest sample of settings. The data suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and pixel through-put (44.54 GPixel/s, 66.82 GTexel/s) are simply too low for 4K rendering. In fact, the 4K Low preset produces 20 FPS, which is exactly the same value as the 1440p Low—no improvement, which indicates that the GPU is memory or compute-bound, not latency-bound.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F, on the other hand, is a much more modern and capable part. It is a Raptor Lake, with 10 cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost of 4.70 GHz. It has 20 MB of L3 cache, and its popular metrics are something else: In Cinebench R23, it scores 30,725, and in single-thread it scores 3,055. Its Geekbench multi-core score is 11,268, single 2,058. In passmark, it hits 86 for single-thread, 25470 for multithread, 3701 for a synthetic score. It’s total.

The i5-14400F sits at the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, meaning it outperforms the majority of other desktop processors. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U (score 32233, +0.1% delta), the Ryzen 7 6800HS (score 32354, -0.2%), the Core i9-11900 (32226, -0.1%) and the Core i7-12800H (32121, +0.5%). These are all capable chips, and the i5-14400F is in their company. The CPU has a TDP of 16, so it stays cool and is primarily a mid-range desktop chip.

In this particular game, the CPU is not the bottleneck. The measured FPS at 1080p Low reach 55, which, while not high, is far above the 20 FPS seen at 4K. The CPU is capable of push much, much more; the passmark multi-thread score of 25,470 suggests in a CPU-bound test it could deliver far higher frame rates. The evidence is that the CPU is - capable. Its L3 cache of 20 MB, dual-channel memory, and 10 cores. For.

The game itself, being an action RPG, likely uses physics and AI, but the CPU matters less than the GPU for what you see. The fact that the FPS barely moves between 1440p and 1080p for the lower settings (36 vs 55) shows the CPU is not saturating; the GPU simply becomes the wall. Also, the CPU’s performance percentile is 83, while the GPU’s is 25; that’s a consonant gap. So, the CPU provides a reserve of power that the GPU cannot draw upon. Upgrading the GPU would be the only way to get a meaningful performance increase.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of measured combinations, this i5-14400F + GTX 1050 Ti pair sits at rank 3636 out of 3696. That means 3696 - 3636 = 60 combos are slower, so it sits 60 from the very bottom. In percentage terms, that’s less than the last 2 percent of all test combos (60/3696 ≈ 0.016, or 1.6%). The rank is low but not the very bottom, which shows that some even weaker CPUs or GPUs exist. However, compared to the near-83 percentile of the CPU, the GPU’s 25th percentile clarifies the bottleneck.

The combo rank is heavily influenced by the GPU, because a quad-core i5-14400F is objectively a strong CPU, while the GTX 1050 Ti is a low-end GPU from a previous era. When paired together, the GPU drags the entire system down. In a game like The Technomancer, the many calculations are done by the GPU, so the CPU’s high score (83rd percentile) is wasted in terms of frame rate. The 4K performance is particularly poor – the Ultra preset achieved 10 FPS, meaning the combo cannot handle any resolution above 1080p even in Medium.

What the data does show is that the platform is coherent – no memory or PCIe issues appear; the CPU supports DDR4/DDR5, and the GPU uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, which is fine for a 9th/14th-gen. The low rank stems from the GPU. It is not that the CPU brings an incidental problem; the percentage increases are minimal. But the game’s demands align perfectly with what the GTX 1050 Ti cannot do.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal experience for this system is at 1080p, and the best choice is the Low preset. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 55—a full 15 frames ahead of Medium’s 42, 19 ahead of High’s 36, and 27 ahead of Ultra’s 28. That 55 FPS allows for a playable, stable frame rate appropriate for an action RPG. The difference between Low and Medium is noticeable in visuals but not so large that the game becomes unplayable; however, for a responsive feel, 55 FPS is far above the 30: you want to play fast.

If you are willing to drop to 30 FPS, you can play at 1080p Medium, which yields 42 FPS, or even 1080p High at 36. However, note that High at 1080p only manages 30+ by 6 FPS, and it may be prone to dips below 30 in combat. The 1% lows aren’t given, but the minimum in Medium is 36 (as given in the pack), while High has no min listed. So Medium is a safer bet if the visual quality is important.

Going to 1440p is a questionable choice. At 1440p, the best you can get is Low at 36 FPS. That’s playable, but the visual quality is toned down. Medium at 28 is borderline, and High at 24 is stuttery. Ultra at 18 is hardly playable. It is not recommended to go beyond 1080p unless you severely limit the graphics. And 4K, every preset matches less than 20 FPS (Low 20, Medium 15, High 13, Ultra 10) — that is not usable for any but the most static scenes.

Thus, the recommendation is: set the resolution to 1920x1080 and the quality preset to Low. That is the only combination in the measured dataset that crosses 50 FPS; all other settings fall below the 50 FPS threshold. For those who prioritize visual clarity over speed, switching to Medium at 1080 will give 42 FPS, which is acceptable, but accept to lose about a third of the framerate compared to Low.

FAQ

Q: What is the average framerate at 1080p Low with this combination?

A: The measured average is 55 FPS.

Q: What settings does it take to achieve 30 FPS at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, the only preset that reaches 30 FPS is Low, which averages 36 FPS. Medium peaks at 28, High at 24, and Ultra at 18.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory with a 128-bit interface, giving a bandwidth of 112.1 GB/s.

Q: How is the CPU to the performance?

A: The i5-14400F has 10 cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost of 4.70 GHz, with a 20 MB shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 21,645.

Q: What is the overall ranking of this combo?

A: It ranks 3636th out of 3696 tested combinations, meaning only 60 tested combos are slower.

Q: What should I set for a good balance between visual and performance?

A: The data recommends 1080p Low for the smoothest experience (55 FPS), but 1080p Medium remains playable at 42 FPS if quality is preferred.