The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, pushes hardware in a specific way that becomes clear when examining the measured frame rates of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination. The data shows a system that transitions from a CPU-bound state at lower resolutions to a GPU-bound state at 4K, with the scaling patterns providing a clear picture of where the bottleneck lies for this pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent, revealing a classic GPU-limited scenario at higher resolutions. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 170.8 at 1920x1080 to 113.2 at 2560x1440, a 33.7% reduction, and then to 58.7 at 3840x2160, a further 48.1% drop from the 1440p figure. This pattern indicates that the rendering load on the RTX 4070 SUPER is scaling almost linearly with pixel count, while the CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU at the lower resolutions.

The most telling data point is the scaling from 1080p to 1440p. At High settings, the drop from 170.8 to 113.2 FPS represents a performance reduction that is proportional to the increase in pixel count (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels, roughly a 1.78x increase). This near-linear scaling suggests that at 1080p, the system is not yet fully GPU-bound, and the Core i5-14600K is still able to maintain high frame delivery without becoming the limiting factor.

However, the jump from 1440p to 4K changes the analysis. The 113.2 FPS at 2560x1440 drops to 58.7 FPS at 3840x2160, which is a 48.1% reduction. This is a larger relative drop than the pixel count increase (from 3.69 million to 8.29 million pixels, a 2.25x increase), indicating that the GPU is now the primary constraint. The RTX 4070 SUPER is working near its limits at 4K, and the CPU's role diminishes as the GPU's render time dominates the frame budget.

The Low settings data confirms this interpretation. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 257.7 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that likely approaches the CPU's maximum throughput for this game. At 2560x1440 Low, the FPS drops to 166.6, a 35.3% reduction, and at 3840x2160 Low, it falls to 93.7, a 43.8% reduction from the 1440p figure. The fact that even at Low settings the 4K frame rate is less than half of the 1080p rate underscores that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions, regardless of the graphical load.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 SUPER’s specifications provide context for these results. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, the GPU delivers 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The card’s boost clock of 2475 MHz and base clock of 1980 MHz are relatively high, and its 7168 shading units are substantial for a 40-series card. In The Technomancer, a title from 2016 that is not known for extreme VRAM demands, the 12 GB capacity is likely sufficient even at 4K Ultra, as the game’s texture assets are not as large as those in more modern titles.

The GPU's performance profile is further illuminated by its passmark_g3d score of 29995, which places it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs. This is a strong score, but the measured FPS data shows that the card still struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra, achieving only 44.8 FPS. This suggests that The Technomancer has particular rendering paths that are not fully optimized for the Ada Lovelace architecture, or that the game’s engine is heavily dependent on raw shader throughput rather than newer features like ray tracing cores or tensor cores.

The clock speeds and memory bandwidth are more relevant at 4K. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is a critical factor for high-resolution textures and post-processing effects. At 4K High, the card achieves 58.7 FPS, which is above the 44.8 FPS seen at Ultra but still below the 60 FPS target. The difference between High and Ultra settings (58.7 vs 44.8 FPS) is a 23.7% drop, indicating that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are particularly demanding on the GPU’s compute units. The 80 ROPs on this card are also a potential constraint at 4K, as pixel fill rate (198.0 GPixel/s) becomes more critical at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 133.2. This is a high frame rate that should provide a smooth experience on a 144Hz monitor, though it is notably lower than the 170.8 FPS seen at High settings.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: At 4K with High settings, the average FPS is 58.7, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold. At Medium settings, the average is 71.6 FPS, which exceeds 60 FPS. However, at Ultra settings, the average drops to 44.8 FPS, which is not sufficient for a consistent 60 FPS experience.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 49166, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49062) and 1% higher than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698). It trails the Intel Core i5-14600KF by 0.4% (49367) and the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.9% (49595).

Q: What is the difference in FPS between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset yields 166.6 FPS, while Ultra yields 87.9 FPS. This represents a 47.2% reduction in frame rate when moving from Low to Ultra, showing the significant impact of the Ultra preset on GPU load.

Q: Is the system more CPU-bound or GPU-bound at 1080p?

A: The data suggests that at 1080p, the system is approaching a CPU-bound state. The FPS at Low settings (257.7) is extremely high, and the scaling from Low to High (257.7 to 170.8) is a 33.7% drop, which is less than the drop from High to Ultra (170.8 to 133.2, a 22% drop). This indicates that the CPU is likely limiting the maximum achievable frame rate at this resolution.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested GPUs?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER is in the 84th percentile of all GPUs based on its average benchmark score. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A6000, scores only 0.2% higher, making the 4070 SUPER an extremely strong performer for its class.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 257.7 at Low to 133.2 at Ultra. The Medium preset achieves 200.3 FPS, while High sits at 170.8. This gives a clear progression where each step up in settings costs a significant number of frames, with the largest single drop occurring from Low to Medium (257.7 to 200.3, a 22.3% reduction).

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are lower but remain highly playable. Low delivers 166.6 FPS, Medium drops to 127.9, High to 113.2, and Ultra to 87.9. The scaling from Medium to High is a 11.5% reduction, while High to Ultra is a 22.4% reduction, showing that the Ultra preset is the most demanding step at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the system begins to struggle. Low achieves 93.7 FPS, which is still smooth, but Medium falls to 71.6, High to 58.7, and Ultra to 44.8. The gap between Medium and High at 4K is 18.0%, which is similar to the relative drop at 1440p, but the absolute numbers are much lower. The key takeaway is that for 4K gaming, High settings are the practical limit for a 60 FPS target, while Ultra requires a significant compromise in frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER ranks 278th out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places it in the top 16.8% of all tested systems, which is a strong result for a mid-to-high-end pairing. The rank reflects the overall performance across all measured resolutions and settings, and it shows that this combo is well-suited for this game.

The CPU’s synthetic benchmark scores support this high ranking. The Core i5-14600K achieves a percentileVsAllCpus of 93, meaning it outperforms 93% of all CPUs in the database. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 32881 is particularly strong, indicating that the 14 cores and 20 threads provide ample processing power for any game engine. The GPU, with its percentileVsAllGpus of 84, is also above average, but it is the CPU that stands out as the stronger component relative to its peers.

The combination’s rank is likely helped by the fact that The Technomancer is not a particularly demanding game by modern standards, allowing the RTX 4070 SUPER to deliver high frame rates at most settings. The data shows that the system excels at 1080p and 1440p, with frame rates well above 100 FPS at High settings. At 4K, the system is still capable of playable frame rates, but the Ultra preset is too demanding for a consistent 60 FPS. The overall rank of 278 out of 1656 confirms that this is a well-balanced combo that delivers strong performance across the board, with the CPU providing a solid foundation and the GPU handling the graphical load effectively up to 1440p.