The Technomancer

The Technomancer is a 2016 Action RPG that, on paper, should be trivial for a modern flagship pairing like the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. The benchmark data confirms this is a case where raw GPU horsepower runs into the game's engine limitations and settings scaling. At 1080p, the combination produces frame rates well beyond what any display can reasonably use, while at 4K, the Ultra preset finally brings the system to its knees. The measured results show a clear hierarchy of performance across resolutions and presets, revealing that this title is far more sensitive to specific settings than to the underlying hardware's generational leaps.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 304.1 at 1920x1080 to 223.2 at 2560x1440, and then to 119.8 at 3840x2160. This represents a 60.6% reduction from 1080p to 4K, which is substantial but not unexpected for a game that scales pixel count directly. The drop from 1440p to 4K is a 46.3% loss, indicating that the RTX 5090 is still the primary driver at these resolutions but is being increasingly constrained by the pixel fill rate demands of 4K.

The scaling behavior changes dramatically with the Ultra preset. At Ultra, the average FPS at 1080p is 172.7, which drops to 117 at 1440p (a 32.2% reduction) and then plummets to 62.2 at 4K (a 46.8% reduction from 1440p). The fact that Ultra at 1080p is already 43.2% slower than High at 1080p suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive at higher resolutions. The data indicates that the RTX 5090 is never the limiting factor at 1080p or 1440p on any preset except Ultra at 4K, where the combination of high pixel count and intensive settings finally saturates the GPU's capabilities.

Interestingly, the gap between Low and Medium settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, Low produces 304.1 FPS and Medium produces 261 FPS, a 16.5% difference. At 4K, Low produces 119.8 FPS and Medium produces 93.1 FPS, a 22.3% difference. This suggests that Medium settings include effects that scale more aggressively with resolution, such as higher-quality shadows or post-processing, which become more taxing as the number of pixels increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and the data shows its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient for The Technomancer. The GPU's base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz, combined with 21,760 shading units, provide the raw compute needed to push high frame rates. The benchmark results indicate that at 4K Ultra, the GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the limiting factor, as the game engine can no longer hide the rendering costs behind CPU headroom.

The GPU's 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,306, places it in the top tier, though it sits close to rivals like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D (score 84,241, deltaPct 0.1) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile (score 84,171, deltaPct 0.2). This proximity in synthetic scores does not translate to gaming performance, as the measured FPS shows the RTX 5090 delivering playable frame rates at 4K on High settings (79.8 FPS) but struggling on Ultra (62.2 FPS). The GPU's 176 ROPs and 680 TMUs are likely the architectural features that determine how well it handles the pixel-heavy workload at 4K, as the texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s are pushed to their limits by the Ultra preset's effects.

The memory clock of 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) provides the bandwidth headroom needed for 4K textures, but the data suggests that the game's Ultra preset uses effects that are not purely bandwidth-bound. The transition from High to Ultra at 4K results in a 22.1% performance drop (from 79.8 to 62.2 FPS), which is a significant penalty for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in a 2016 title.

FAQ

Q: Can the RTX 5090 handle The Technomancer at 4K?

A: Yes, at High settings the average FPS is 79.8, which is smooth for most displays. However, Ultra settings drop this to 62.2 FPS, so High is the recommended ceiling for 4K play.

Q: Why is the frame rate so high at 1080p?

A: The RTX 5090 delivers 304.1 FPS at Low and 225.3 FPS at High settings at 1920x1080. This indicates the game is heavily GPU-bound at this resolution, and the CPU is not a limiting factor.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth the performance cost?

A: The data shows Ultra is 43.2% slower than High at 1080p (172.7 vs 225.3 FPS) and 22.1% slower at 4K (62.2 vs 79.8 FPS). Given the age of the game, High likely offers most of the visual benefits without the steep penalty.

Q: How does the i5-14600K perform in this game?

A: The CPU's benchmark scores, including 32,881 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4,642 in single-core, indicate it has ample headroom. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 304.1 FPS, suggesting the CPU is not a bottleneck at any resolution tested.

Q: What is the best resolution for this pairing?

A: At 2560x1440, High settings produce 147.2 FPS, which is an excellent balance of visual quality and performance. 4K High is also viable at 79.8 FPS if you prefer higher pixel density.

Q: Does the game benefit from the RTX 5090's 32 GB of VRAM?

A: The measured results do not indicate any VRAM limitations at any resolution or preset. The 32 GB capacity and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are far beyond what this game requires, meaning the performance differences are driven by compute and rasterization, not memory capacity.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of presets and their performance impact. For the best experience, High settings are the sweet spot across all resolutions. At 1080p, High delivers 225.3 FPS, which is more than enough for any high-refresh monitor. At 1440p, High produces 147.2 FPS, still comfortably above 144 Hz. At 4K, High yields 79.8 FPS, which is playable on a 60 Hz or 120 Hz display with VRR.

The Medium preset offers a marginal performance increase over High, with 261 FPS at 1080p and 171.1 FPS at 1440p, but the visual difference is likely minimal. The Low preset provides the highest frame rates (304.1 FPS at 1080p, 223.2 FPS at 1440p, 119.8 FPS at 4K) but sacrifices visual fidelity for marginal gains. Ultra is the only preset that causes significant performance issues, particularly at 4K where it drops to 62.2 FPS, and it is not recommended given the steep cost.

For players targeting 4K, High is the clear choice, as it maintains an average FPS above 60. At 1440p, High is ideal for high-refresh displays, while Medium is a viable alternative if you prefer extra headroom. At 1080p, any preset except Ultra will provide a smooth experience, but High offers the best balance of visual quality and performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS varies significantly by preset. Low settings produce 304.1 FPS, Medium produces 261 FPS, High produces 225.3 FPS, and Ultra produces 172.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 43.2%, indicating that the Ultra preset includes expensive effects that are not justified by the frame rate cost.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS drops across all presets. Low produces 223.2 FPS, Medium produces 171.1 FPS, High produces 147.2 FPS, and Ultra produces 117 FPS. The relative performance gap between Low and Ultra is 47.6%, which is slightly wider than at 1080p, suggesting that some effects in the Ultra preset scale poorly with resolution.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS is substantially lower. Low produces 119.8 FPS, Medium produces 93.1 FPS, High produces 79.8 FPS, and Ultra produces 62.2 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is most pronounced at Low settings (46.3% reduction), while the Ultra preset shows a 46.8% reduction. This indicates that the RTX 5090 is being pushed to its limits at 4K, particularly with the Ultra preset, where the average FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, built on Raptor Lake architecture. Its benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,881 and a single-core score of 4,642. The CPU's 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49,166, places it slightly behind the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (score 49,062, deltaPct 0.2) and the Intel Core i5-14600KF (score 49,367, deltaPct -0.4).

In The Technomancer, the CPU role is minimal, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 304.1 FPS, which is far beyond what the game engine's single-threaded performance can typically handle. The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample bandwidth for game logic, and the 5.30 GHz boost clock ensures that any single-threaded tasks are handled quickly. The data shows that increasing resolution from 1080p to 4K reduces frame rates by up to 60.6%, confirming that the GPU is the limiting component at all settings and resolutions tested.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are not taxed by this game, as the measured FPS at 1080p Low (304.1) and 1440p Low (223.2) are both well above what would indicate a CPU bottleneck. Even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is clearly the constraint at 62.2 FPS, the CPU likely has significant headroom remaining. For this pairing, the i5-14600K provides more than sufficient processing power, and players should focus their settings adjustments on the GPU side to achieve the desired frame rates.