The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting challenge for modern hardware. The pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti creates a significant generational gap, and the measured data reveals how this 2018 CPU and 2025 GPU interact under the game's specific engine demands. The benchmark results show a system capable of high frame rates, yet the scaling patterns suggest the CPU is the primary constraint at lower resolutions, while the GPU takes over as the workload increases at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies in this configuration. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 173 FPS, but this only rises to 151.8 FPS at 2560x1440 and drops to 100 FPS at 3840x2160. The relatively modest frame rate increase from 1080p to 1440p, just 21.2 FPS, indicates that the Intel Core i5-9400 is already limiting performance at the lower resolution. When moving to 4K, the frame rate drops by 51.8 FPS from the 1440p result, which suggests the RTX 5070 Ti is now becoming the limiting factor.

The scaling pattern becomes even more telling when examining the High preset. At 1080p High, the system produces 148.2 FPS, dropping to 124.2 FPS at 1440p and then to 65.5 FPS at 4K. The 1440p to 4K transition shows a 58.7 FPS loss, which is a much steeper drop than the 24 FPS loss from 1080p to 1440p. This non-linear scaling strongly indicates that the CPU is the primary constraint at 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU becomes the dominant limiter at 4K. The data implies that players using this combo for 1080p or 1440p gaming would see minimal gains from a stronger GPU, but would benefit significantly from a faster processor.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this combination?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 173, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the i5-9400 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Core i3-1125G4, and 0.4% higher than the Intel Xeon E-2134. It trails the Intel Core i7-8809G by 0.6%.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 151.8 FPS, while Ultra drops to 94.9 FPS, a difference of 56.9 FPS between the two extreme settings.

Q: Does the RTX 5070 Ti outperform its nearest rival in average benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 52086, which is essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 at 52085 (0% delta). It is 0.8% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7700S and 2.5% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A1000.

Q: What is the 4K Ultra frame rate for this system?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 52.2, which is the lowest measured result across all tested configurations.

Q: How does the CPU's single-core performance compare to its multi-core performance?

A: In Cinebench R23, the i5-9400 scores 1125 in single-core and 7969 in multi-core. The multi-core score is roughly 7.1 times higher, reflecting the 6-core, 6-thread design.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its cache structure includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 9 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-9400 achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125, placing it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs. This mid-range positioning is reflected in its nearest rivals, which include the Intel Core i3-10305 and Intel Core i3-1125G4, both scoring within 0.2% of the i5-9400.

The benchmark results in The Technomancer show that the CPU's 6 cores and 6 threads are sufficient to drive high frame rates, but the lack of hyper-threading may become a factor in more demanding scenes. The boost clock of 4.10 GHz provides adequate single-thread performance for the game's logic, yet the data suggests that the CPU reaches its limit around 173 FPS at 1080p Low. The percentile ranking of 50 indicates this is an average processor by today's standards, which aligns with the observed performance ceiling. The 14 nm process node and 65 W TDP are consistent with a mid-range desktop part from 2018, and the DDR4 memory support with dual-channel configuration and 42.7 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for this game, though not exceptional.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ranks 380 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer, placing it in the top 23% of all configurations. This ranking is notably high given the age of the CPU, which suggests that the RTX 5070 Ti's raw power compensates for the older processor's limitations in many scenarios. The combo rank of 380 indicates that while the CPU may bottleneck at lower resolutions, the overall system still outperforms the vast majority of tested hardware pairs.

The ranking becomes more impressive when considering that the i5-9400 sits at the 50th percentile for all CPUs, while the RTX 5070 Ti sits at the 87th percentile for all GPUs. The disparity in these percentile rankings explains why the combo performs better than its CPU would suggest. The data implies that for a game like The Technomancer, which appears to be GPU-intensive at higher settings, the RTX 5070 Ti's dominance (with a Passmark G3D score of 32974) can boost the overall system performance despite the CPU's mid-range standing. However, the 173 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low shows that the CPU does impose a hard limit that no amount of GPU power can overcome.

Settings Recommendations

Analyzing the measured FPS data, the most balanced experience appears to be the High preset at 2560x1440, which delivers 124.2 FPS. This setting provides a significant improvement over the 94.9 FPS of Ultra at the same resolution, while still maintaining a high level of visual fidelity. The data shows that the jump from High to Ultra at 1440p costs 29.3 FPS, which is a substantial penalty for what is typically a marginal visual improvement in most games.

For 4K gaming, the Medium preset at 75.8 FPS offers the best compromise between visual quality and playable frame rates. The Low preset at 4K hits 100 FPS, but the visual trade-off may be too severe for most players. The High preset at 4K drops to 65.5 FPS, which is still playable but approaches the lower bound of what most gamers consider smooth. At 1080p, the High preset at 148.2 FPS is recommended over Ultra at 137.1 FPS, as the 11.1 FPS difference is unlikely to be noticeable while the performance headroom provides more stability. The Ultra preset at 1080p is the only configuration that stays above 137 FPS, but the diminishing returns make High the more sensible choice.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 173 FPS, Medium reaches 161.2 FPS, High hits 148.2 FPS, and Ultra dips to 137.1 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 35.9 FPS, showing that the CPU is the limiting factor here since even the lowest settings cannot push beyond 173 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show more differentiation between settings. Low achieves 151.8 FPS, Medium reaches 138.9 FPS, High delivers 124.2 FPS, and Ultra drops to 94.9 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 56.9 FPS at this resolution, indicating that the GPU is starting to take on more of the workload.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. Low settings produce 100 FPS, Medium reaches 75.8 FPS, High delivers 65.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 52.2 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is 47.8 FPS, which is smaller than at 1440p, suggesting that both the CPU and GPU are now contributing to the performance limits. The progression from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent drop in frame rates across all settings, but the rate of decline accelerates at higher resolutions, confirming the GPU-bound nature of 4K gaming.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm process, featuring 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die. It operates at a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2452 MHz, with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's 8960 shading units and 96 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5070 Ti scores 32974 in Passmark G3D and 231226 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it at the 87th percentile for all GPUs.

In The Technomancer, the GPU's role becomes apparent through the resolution scaling. At 4K, the frame rates drop significantly, with Ultra settings falling to 52.2 FPS, which is the only tested configuration below 60 FPS. The GPU's 16 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for this game, and the 28 Gbps effective memory speed ensures bandwidth is not a limiting factor. The data shows that the RTX 5070 Ti is capable of delivering 4K gaming performance, but the CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions means the GPU's full potential is only realized at higher resolutions where the workload shifts to the graphics card. The average benchmark score of 52086 places it in a dead heat with the RTX 4080, confirming its position as a high-end GPU that can handle demanding titles, though the CPU pairing in this test limits its overall effectiveness.