The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting stress profile for the Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination. The measured frame rates reveal a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited at higher resolutions but begins to expose the CPU's influence at 1080p. The data indicates this pairing delivers exceptional performance across the board, though the scaling behavior shows where the bottlenecks shift.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K demonstrates a classic GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the combo produces 171.6 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops this to 112.7 FPS, a reduction of 58.9 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 62.5 FPS, which is roughly one-third of the 1080p figure. This steep decline across resolutions confirms that the RTX 4090 is the primary performance limiter once the pixel count rises.

However, the scaling pattern shifts dramatically when examining lower settings. At Low settings, the system hits 290 FPS at 1080p but only 216.3 FPS at 1440p and 116.1 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop of 73.7 FPS is larger than the 1440p-to-4K drop of 100.2 FPS in percentage terms, suggesting that at Low settings the CPU starts to become a more significant factor at 1080p. The i7-12700K's 12 cores and 20 threads provide enough headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but the data shows diminishing returns as the resolution rises.

The High preset tells a similar story. From 217.5 FPS at 1080p to 140.6 FPS at 1440p and 77.2 FPS at 4K, the scaling is nearly linear. This consistency indicates that the game's rendering workload scales predictably with pixel count, and the GPU's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are sufficient to avoid any memory-related stutters or throttling.

How This Combo Ranks

In The Technomancer, this specific combination ranks 31st out of 1656 tested combos. This places it in the top 1.9% of all configurations, which is an impressive standing for a game released in 2016. The rank reflects the raw power of the RTX 4090, which holds an average benchmark score of 66473 and sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs. The i7-12700K contributes with an average score of 35684 and an 89th percentile ranking among CPUs.

The ranking is particularly noteworthy because The Technomancer is not a modern title with advanced graphics features. Yet the data shows that this hardware combination still outpaces nearly all other tested configurations. The nearest GPU rivals—the NVIDIA Tesla T4, Tesla P40, AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56, and NVIDIA Quadro P6000—all have average scores within 1.3% of the RTX 4090, but none of them are paired with a CPU as strong as the i7-12700K in this game's testing environment.

The CPU's nearest rivals also show close benchmark scores. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 trails by 0.3%, while the Intel Core i7-13700T and Core i5-14500HX are ahead by 0.6% and behind by 0.7%, respectively. This tight clustering suggests that the CPU choice has a minor impact on the overall combo ranking, with the GPU doing most of the heavy lifting.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured results. The GPU features a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, which are high for a 450 W card. The 24 GB of GDDR6X memory operates at 21 Gbps effective, delivering a memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. These specs allow the card to handle The Technomancer's texture-heavy scenes without any memory capacity constraints.

The RTX 4090's 16384 shading units and 128 RT cores provide massive compute throughput, with an FP32 performance of 82.58 TFLOPS. This raw power is reflected in the GPU's benchmark scores: 38194 in Passmark G3D and 9223 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. The GPU's 91st percentile ranking among all GPUs is directly supported by these scores, and its average benchmark score of 66473 is only slightly below the Tesla T4's 66733.

In the context of The Technomancer, the GPU's role is clear from the resolution scaling. At 4K Ultra, the system delivers 62.5 FPS, which is playable but not high-refresh territory. At 4K Low, the frame rate jumps to 116.1 FPS, showing that the GPU has significant headroom when settings are reduced. The data indicates that the RTX 4090 is not the limiting factor at lower resolutions, where the CPU takes over.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Starting at 1920x1080, the system delivers 290 FPS on Low settings, 251.7 FPS on Medium, 217.5 FPS on High, and 171.6 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 118.4 FPS, which is substantial. The Medium-to-High gap of 34.2 FPS is the largest single-step drop, while the High-to-Ultra drop of 45.9 FPS is even more pronounced. This suggests that the Ultra preset imposes a significant additional rendering load.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 216.3 FPS on Low, 169.1 FPS on Medium, 140.6 FPS on High, and 112.7 FPS on Ultra. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p reduces performance by roughly 25% across all settings. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 1440p is 103.6 FPS, slightly smaller than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is beginning to become the bottleneck.

At 3840x2160, the system produces 116.1 FPS on Low, 91 FPS on Medium, 77.2 FPS on High, and 62.5 FPS on Ultra. The 4K results show a much tighter spread of 53.6 FPS between Low and Ultra. This compression of frame rates at 4K confirms that the GPU is fully saturated, and the settings have a smaller relative impact. The 4K Ultra figure of 62.5 FPS is the only measurement below 60 FPS, making it the single demanding configuration in this data set.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p gaming, the Ultra preset delivers 171.6 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate that many monitors support. Even the most demanding setting at this resolution provides a smooth experience, so users can max out visuals without concern. The High preset at 217.5 FPS offers a 46 FPS improvement over Ultra, but the visual difference may not justify the extra frame rate for most players.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset produces 112.7 FPS, which is still excellent for high-refresh displays. The High preset at 140.6 FPS provides a 28 FPS uplift, which could be preferable for competitive play. The Medium preset at 169.1 FPS is the sweet spot for those prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity, as it offers a 56 FPS improvement over Ultra.

At 4K, the Ultra preset's 62.5 FPS is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The High preset at 77.2 FPS provides a 15 FPS improvement and is the recommended choice for a balance of visuals and performance. The Medium preset at 91 FPS is a strong option for those who want higher frame rates, while the Low preset at 116.1 FPS is best for maximum smoothness.

The data suggests that the High preset across all resolutions offers the most balanced experience. It maintains 77.2 FPS at 4K, 140.6 FPS at 1440p, and 217.5 FPS at 1080p, ensuring playable frame rates at every resolution while preserving visual quality. For users with 144 Hz monitors at 1080p, the Ultra preset is also a viable choice, as it still exceeds the refresh rate. At 4K, the Ultra preset should be avoided unless the user is comfortable with frame rates in the low 60s.