The Technomancer

# The Technomancer with Intel Core i7-12700KF + AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting stress profile for this modern CPU-GPU pairing. The measured FPS data across three resolutions and four quality presets reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution but shows some unusual behavior at the settings extremes. This combination places 408th out of 1656 tested combos in this game, which is a solid mid-to-upper tier result given the hardware's age relative to the title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives in this pairing. At Low settings, the system delivers 233.2 FPS at 1920x1080, drops to 150.8 FPS at 2560x1440, and falls to 83.2 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 35.4% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, then a further 44.8% reduction from 1440p to 4K — a compounding effect that strongly indicates the GPU becomes progressively more limiting as pixel count rises.

At Ultra settings, the pattern intensifies. The system produces 121 FPS at 1080p, 79.2 FPS at 1440p, and 42.7 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 34.5%, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 46.1%. This widening percentage gap at higher resolutions suggests that the RX 9070 XT's raw compute is the primary constraint at 4K Ultra, whereas at 1080p the CPU still has headroom to push higher frame rates. The fact that 1080p Low hits 233.2 FPS while 1080p Ultra only reaches 121 FPS — a 48.1% difference — further confirms that the GPU's workload scaling dominates the performance curve.

Interestingly, the High preset at 4K produces 55.1 FPS, which is close to the 60 FPS target many players consider playable. The Medium preset at 4K yields 63.8 FPS, just crossing that threshold. This suggests that for 4K gaming, the user must make deliberate settings choices to maintain smooth gameplay, as the GPU cannot sustain high frame rates at maximum quality.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that Medium settings offer the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 178.9 FPS, which is 23.2% higher than High (154.2 FPS) and 47.8% higher than Ultra (121 FPS). At 1440p, Medium hits 115.8 FPS versus 100.4 FPS on High and 79.2 FPS on Ultra. At 4K, Medium achieves 63.8 FPS, which is the only preset that clears the 60 FPS mark at that resolution.

The jump from Medium to High costs 15.6% performance at 1080p (178.9 to 154.2 FPS), 13.3% at 1440p (115.8 to 100.4 FPS), and 13.6% at 4K (63.8 to 55.1 FPS). Meanwhile, the jump from High to Ultra costs another 21.5% at 1080p (154.2 to 121 FPS), 21.1% at 1440p (100.4 to 79.2 FPS), and 22.5% at 4K (55.1 to 42.7 FPS). The diminishing returns of Ultra are consistent across resolutions, making it the least efficient preset choice.

For players prioritizing smoothness, Low at 4K provides 83.2 FPS, which is substantially higher than Medium's 63.8 FPS. However, the visual quality trade-off may not be worth the 30.4% performance gain. The data suggests Medium is the sweet spot, with High as a viable alternative for those who can tolerate slightly lower frame rates at 4K or who are playing at lower resolutions where the performance penalty is less noticeable.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT brings 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 644.6 GB/s bandwidth. This memory configuration appears well-suited to The Technomancer's demands, as the game's FPS scaling with resolution follows a pattern typical of memory-bandwidth-sensitive titles. The GPU's boost clock of 2970 MHz and game clock of 2400 MHz provide substantial compute headroom, with the card rated at 48.66 TFLOPS FP32 performance.

The GPU's 4096 shading units and 128 ROPs are configured with a pixel rate of 380.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 760.3 GTexel/s. These specifications translate into the measured performance where the card maintains above 100 FPS at 1440p on all presets except Ultra, which still manages 79.2 FPS. At 4K, the card struggles to exceed 60 FPS on anything above Medium, which aligns with the pixel throughput demands of 3840x2160 resolution.

The RX 9070 XT's 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39647, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 575, scores 39703 (a 0.1% delta), while the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile scores 39568 (0.2% delta). These extremely close benchmark scores suggest the RX 9070 XT is performing as expected in synthetic tests, but the game-specific FPS data shows it has particular strengths in this title's rendering workload.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i7-12700KF and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT ranks 408th out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places the pairing in the top 24.6% of all configurations tested, which is a respectable position for a CPU released in 2021 paired with a GPU released in 2025.

The CPU itself ranks in the 89th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 35355. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14400 (35336, 0.1% delta), Intel Core i7-13800H (35416, -0.2% delta), Intel Core i9-12900HX (35289, 0.2% delta), and Intel Core i5-13600T (35256, 0.3% delta). This clustering within 0.3% of several alternatives indicates that the i7-12700KF is well-positioned in the CPU hierarchy, though not an outlier in either direction.

The combo rank of 408 suggests that while both components are individually strong, there may be other pairings that extract more performance in this specific game. The GPU's 82nd percentile ranking is lower than the CPU's 89th percentile, which hints that the GPU might be the limiting factor in this pairing for The Technomancer. This is consistent with the resolution scaling analysis that showed increasing GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF features 12 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 5.00 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture processor on Intel's 10 nm process node includes 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 cache per core. The CPU's memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5, with dual-channel configuration, provides flexibility that may influence game performance depending on the system memory chosen.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i7-12700KF demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28979 and single-core score of 4091. The Geekbench results show 13596 multicore and 2526 single-core. These scores, combined with the CPU's 89th percentile ranking, suggest the processor has ample headroom for gaming workloads that don't scale perfectly with thread count.

The 3DMark results show scaling from 1043 single-thread to 9983 max-threads, with intermediate scores of 2065 at 2 threads, 4011 at 4 threads, 7211 at 8 threads, and 9282 at 16 threads. This scaling pattern indicates good thread utilization up to 8 threads, with diminishing returns beyond that point. For The Technomancer, which likely doesn't heavily utilize more than a few threads, the CPU's strong single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread score of 3984) may matter more than its multi-thread capabilities.

The fact that 1080p Low reaches 233.2 FPS shows the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates, but the drop to 121 FPS at 1080p Ultra suggests that the game's draw calls or physics calculations at higher settings begin to tax the CPU more heavily. This is consistent with the CPU's benchmark profile showing strong but not exceptional single-thread performance relative to its multi-thread capabilities.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Technomancer?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 provides the best balance, with 115.8 FPS at Medium settings and 100.4 FPS at High, both comfortably above smoothness thresholds. At 4K, only Medium (63.8 FPS) and Low (83.2 FPS) exceed 60 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost from 1080p to 4K?

A: At Medium settings, the drop is from 178.9 FPS at 1080p to 63.8 FPS at 4K, a 64.3% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 121 FPS to 42.7 FPS, a 64.7% reduction. The consistency of this percentage loss indicates the GPU is the primary scaling factor.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game?

A: The resolution scaling data suggests the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU has enough headroom to drive high frame rates at 1080p Low (233.2 FPS). The CPU's 89th percentile ranking versus the GPU's 82nd percentile further supports this interpretation.

Q: How does the RX 9070 XT compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 9070 XT's average benchmark score of 39647 is within 0.1% of the AMD Radeon Pro 575 (39703) and within 0.2% of the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (39568). The AMD Radeon Pro 575X scores 39836 (0.5% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 scores 39879 (0.6% higher).

Q: What settings preset gives the highest frame rate at 4K?

A: Low settings at 3840x2160 produce 83.2 FPS, which is the highest measured FPS at that resolution. Medium settings reach 63.8 FPS, while High drops to 55.1 FPS and Ultra to 42.7 FPS.

Q: How does the i7-12700KF compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i7-12700KF's average benchmark score of 35355 is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i5-14400 (35336), 0.2% lower than the Intel Core i7-13800H (35416), and 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i9-12900HX (35289). The Intel Core i5-13600T scores 35256, which is 0.3% lower.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160 resolution, the measured average FPS values are: Low 83.2, Medium 63.8, High 55.1, and Ultra 42.7. The spread from Low to Ultra is 40.5 FPS, representing a 48.7% performance difference between the lowest and highest quality presets.

At 2560x1440 resolution, the measured average FPS values are: Low 150.8, Medium 115.8, High 100.4, and Ultra 79.2. The spread here is 71.6 FPS, with a 47.5% difference between Low and Ultra.

At 1920x1080 resolution, the measured average FPS values are: Low 233.2, Medium 178.9, High 154.2, and Ultra 121. The spread is 112.2 FPS, with a 48.1% difference between Low and Ultra.

The consistency of the percentage difference between Low and Ultra across all three resolutions (48.7%, 47.5%, and 48.1%) indicates that the settings presets scale uniformly regardless of resolution. This suggests the game's quality settings affect GPU workload proportionally, without any resolution-dependent bottlenecks altering the relative performance between presets.