The Technomancer

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal a GPU-bound scenario that becomes progressively more demanding as pixel count rises. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 141.2 FPS, but stepping up to 1440p drops that to 91.6 FPS — a 35.1% reduction. Moving to 4K Low yields 50.3 FPS, which is another 45.1% drop from 1440p. This scaling pattern is consistent with a graphics card that has ample headroom at lower resolutions but begins to hit its compute ceiling as fill-rate requirements multiply.

The High settings curve tells a similar story with different magnitudes. From 91.2 FPS at 1080p, the framerate falls to 60.8 FPS at 1440p (a 33.3% decline), then to 34.5 FPS at 4K (a 43.3% decline from 1440p). The Ultra preset amplifies this effect: 72.5 FPS at 1080p, 46.3 FPS at 1440p, and just 25.2 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1440p and 4K consistently widens as settings increase, indicating that the RTX 2060 SUPER's shading units and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors at higher resolutions.

The data suggests that 1080p is the sweet spot for this pairing, where even Ultra settings maintain playable frame rates. At 1440p, High settings remain viable at 60.8 FPS, but Ultra dips below 50 FPS. At 4K, every preset except Low falls below the 40 FPS threshold, making the resolution impractical for smooth gameplay regardless of quality adjustments. The scaling behavior shows no signs of CPU bottlenecking — the frame rate drops are proportional to pixel count increases, which is the hallmark of GPU saturation.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700KF with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER combination ranks 1260 out of 1656 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places it in the lower tercile of the database, which is notable given the individual components' benchmark standings. The CPU holds the 89th percentile among all processors, while the GPU sits at the 63rd percentile among all graphics cards. The combo ranking being substantially lower than either component's individual percentile suggests that the game's engine does not fully utilize the CPU's capabilities, leaving the GPU as the primary determinant of overall performance.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU's average score of 35355 places it within 0.1% of the Intel Core i5-14400 and 0.2% of the Intel Core i9-12900HX. The GPU's average score of 19774 sits 0.3% above the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN and 0.5% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070. These narrow margins indicate that both components are competitive within their respective tiers, yet the in-game ranking shows the pairing underperforms relative to what component-level scores might predict. This discrepancy points to a game that is heavily GPU-bound, where the CPU's multi-threading advantages do not translate into meaningful frame rate gains.

The combination's rank of 1260 out of 1656 means approximately 76% of tested combos deliver higher frame rates in this title. This is a significant finding for users considering this pairing for Action RPGs, as The Technomancer's engine appears to favor graphics throughput over processing power. The data suggests that pairing this CPU with a stronger GPU would yield more substantial gains than upgrading the processor while keeping the RTX 2060 SUPER.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip manufactured on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It features 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units. The card operates at a base clock of 1470 MHz with a boost clock of 1650 MHz, delivering 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. Memory consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth — a configuration that proves adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming but constrained at 4K.

The GPU's benchmark results show a PassMark G3D score of 16462 and a PassMark GPU Compute score of 6721. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it achieves 2011 points. The card ranks in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19774. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, scores 19680 — a 0.5% difference that places the 2060 SUPER slightly behind but within the same performance envelope. The GTX TITAN trails by 0.3% at 19706, making these three cards effectively interchangeable in most workloads.

In The Technomancer, the GPU's role is decisive. The measured frame rates show that dropping from Ultra to Low settings at 1080p yields a 94.8% improvement (from 72.5 to 141.2 FPS), which is a far larger swing than resolution changes alone. This indicates that the game's quality presets heavily tax the GPU's shading and texture units. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not the limiting factor here — even at 4K Ultra, the card delivers 25.2 FPS without hitting memory-related stutters, suggesting the compute throughput, not capacity, is the bottleneck.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1080p as the most viable resolution, with High settings producing 91.2 FPS and Ultra producing 72.5 FPS. At 1440p, High drops to 60.8 FPS, and at 4K, even Low settings only reach 50.3 FPS, making 1080p the only resolution where all presets remain playable.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER compare to its closest rival, the RTX 2070?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 19774, which is 0.5% lower than the RTX 2070's score of 19680. This negligible difference means the two cards perform nearly identically in most scenarios, including this game.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this title?

A: No. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is proportional to pixel count increases, which indicates GPU saturation rather than CPU limitation. The i7-12700KF's 89th percentile ranking among CPUs further supports that processing power is not the constraining factor.

Q: What frame rate can users expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 60.8 FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings. This is the highest 1440p preset that maintains a frame rate above 60 FPS, making it the recommended configuration for that resolution.

Q: How does the combo's in-game rank compare to its component rankings?

A: The combo ranks 1260 out of 1656 tested configurations, which is lower than both the CPU's 89th percentile and the GPU's 63rd percentile. This suggests the game does not fully leverage the CPU's strengths, pulling the overall ranking down.

Q: Is the 8 GB VRAM sufficient for 4K gaming in this title?

A: Yes. At 4K Ultra, the card produces 25.2 FPS without evidence of memory-related performance drops. The bottleneck is compute throughput rather than VRAM capacity, as evidenced by the gradual frame rate declines across resolution steps.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 141.2 FPS average, Medium reaches 110 FPS, High achieves 91.2 FPS, and Ultra comes in at 72.5 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra represents a 94.8% performance delta, showing that quality presets have a substantial impact on this GPU at 1080p.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down predictably. Low settings average 91.6 FPS, Medium produces 71.5 FPS, High delivers 60.8 FPS, and Ultra drops to 46.3 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 97.8%, slightly larger than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU's resource demands grow disproportionately with quality at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, performance becomes marginal. Low settings average 50.3 FPS, Medium reaches 37 FPS, High produces 34.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 25.2 FPS. The delta from Low to Ultra is 99.6%, meaning that the highest preset nearly halves the frame rate compared to the lowest. None of the 4K presets reach 60 FPS, and only Low exceeds 50 FPS, making 4K impractical for smooth gameplay.

The pattern across all three resolutions shows that Medium and High settings cluster closer together than Low and Medium. For example, at 1080p, the gap between Medium and High is 20.6%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 25.8%. This suggests diminishing returns beyond Medium settings, with Ultra providing the steepest performance penalty.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from the Alder Lake-S family, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration and connects via PCIe Gen 4 with 20 lanes.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance. Cinebench R23 multicore scores 28979, while single-core reaches 4091. Geekbench multicore scores 13596, and PassMark multithread reaches 34092. The CPU's average benchmark score of 35355 places it in the 89th percentile of all processors, with rivals including the Intel Core i5-14400 (0.1% higher), Intel Core i7-13800H (0.2% lower), and Intel Core i9-12900HX (0.2% higher).

Despite these robust CPU scores, the in-game data shows that the processor is not the performance limiter in The Technomancer. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a pattern consistent with GPU-bound rendering — halving the pixel count approximately doubles the frame rate at equivalent settings. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would plateau at higher resolutions, which they do not. The CPU's 12 cores and 20 threads provide ample headroom for this 2016-era Action RPG, which likely uses fewer threads than the processor can supply. The combination's low in-game rank relative to component percentiles reinforces that the CPU's capabilities are underutilized in this title, and that users seeking higher frame rates should prioritize GPU upgrades over processor changes.