The Technomancer

The Technomancer pairs a six-core Intel Core i5-9400 with the flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, a combination that produces a wide spread of frame rates depending on resolution and quality preset. The data reveals a system where the CPU anchors performance at lower resolutions, while the GPU’s immense resources dominate at 4K, creating a distinct scaling pattern that highlights the generational gap between the 2018 processor and the 2022 graphics card.

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

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake Refresh part with six physical cores and six threads, lacking Hyper-Threading. Its base clock is 2.90 GHz, and it boosts to 4.10 GHz. This 14 nm processor has a 65 W TDP and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 803 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 3346 in Cinebench R20 multi-core, and 7969 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. Its single-core scores are 113, 472, and 1125 across those same tests. These figures place the i5-9400 at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2305. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305, which scores 2300 (a 0.2% delta), and the Intel Core i7-8809G, which scores 2319 (a -0.6% delta), indicating the i5-9400 sits in a tightly contested mid-range tier.

In the context of The Technomancer, the CPU’s role becomes evident when examining frame rates at 1080p. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 173.6 FPS, which drops to 147.3 FPS at High settings. These numbers suggest that the six-core/ six-thread configuration is sufficient to feed the RTX 4090 at lower resolutions, where the GPU is not fully taxed. However, the lack of extra threads is a potential bottleneck in scenes with heavy physics or AI, though the measured data shows no catastrophic dips. The 4.10 GHz boost clock helps maintain responsiveness, but the processor’s age relative to the GPU is clear when comparing the 1080p Low result to the 4K Low result of 117.9 FPS; the CPU is less of a limiting factor as resolution climbs.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It packs 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, along with 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores. The GPU has a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivers 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4090 scores 9223 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 317684 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 38194 in Passmark G3D. Its average benchmark score is 66473, placing it at the 91st percentile among all GPUs. The nearest rivals are professional workstation cards: the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66733, -0.4% delta), the Tesla P40 (66127, 0.5% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67097, -0.9% delta), showing the RTX 4090 is competitive with—but not categorically ahead of—these compute-focused alternatives.

In The Technomancer, the GPU’s dominance is most visible at 4K. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers 58.8 FPS, which rises to 77 FPS at High settings and 92.7 FPS at Medium. The jump from Low to Ultra at 4K is significant: 117.9 FPS down to 58.8 FPS, a 59.1 FPS drop that demonstrates the RTX 4090 is being pushed hard by the game’s graphical load at that resolution. The 24 GB VRAM is likely not a constraint here, as the game’s 2016 release predates modern VRAM-heavy textures. The GPU’s raw compute, rated at 82.58 TFLOPS FP32, drives these results, but the frame rates at 4K Ultra suggest that even this flagship cannot fully brute-force the game’s highest settings without dipping below 60 FPS.

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

The scaling pattern across resolutions reveals a classic CPU-bound to GPU-bound transition. At 1080p, the average FPS across settings ranges from 136.5 FPS (Ultra) to 173.6 FPS (Low). Moving to 1440p, the range tightens slightly: 108.3 FPS at Ultra to 150.5 FPS at Low. At 4K, the range compresses further: 58.8 FPS at Ultra to 117.9 FPS at Low. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is steepest at Ultra settings, where 136.5 FPS falls to 58.8 FPS, a 56.9% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 173.6 FPS to 117.9 FPS, a 32.1% reduction.

This asymmetry points to the RTX 4090 as the primary limiter at 4K Ultra, since the CPU’s workload does not increase with resolution. At 1080p, the i5-9400 is more likely the bottleneck, as evidenced by the relatively small gap between Low (173.6 FPS) and Ultra (136.5 FPS) at that resolution; the GPU has headroom, but the CPU cannot push frames much higher. At 4K, the GPU becomes the constraint, with the gap between Low and Ultra widening to 59.1 FPS, showing that the RTX 4090 is fully engaged. The data suggests that for competitive play at high refresh rates, 1080p or 1440p with lower settings is optimal, while 4K Ultra is reserved for visual fidelity over frame rate.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in The Technomancer?

A: The highest average FPS is 173.6, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: Does the RTX 4090 maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra in this game?

A: No, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 58.8, which falls just below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i3-10305’s 2300, and 0.6% lower than the Intel Core i7-8809G’s 2319.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 150.5 FPS, while High settings produce 131.5 FPS, a difference of 19 FPS.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU more likely to limit performance at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the CPU is more likely the limiting factor, as the FPS difference between Low (173.6) and Ultra (136.5) is only 37.1 FPS, indicating the GPU has spare capacity that the processor cannot utilize.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested combinations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 305th out of 1656 tested combinations, placing it in the top 18.4% of all combos.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 305th out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the upper quintile of all configurations. This ranking reflects the GPU’s strength, as the RTX 4090 sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU is only at the 50th percentile. The disparity is evident in the frame rates: the combo delivers playable performance at 4K High (77 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (108.3 FPS), but it cannot reach the heights of combos pairing the RTX 4090 with newer, higher-core-count CPUs. The rank of 305 suggests that while the GPU carries most of the load, the i5-9400’s six-thread limit prevents the system from achieving top-tier results, especially at 1080p where the CPU bottleneck is most pronounced. In the context of all tested combos, this pairing is a strong performer for 1440p and 4K gaming, but it leaves performance on the table at lower resolutions compared to what the RTX 4090 could deliver with a more capable processor.