The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, remains a demanding title for modern hardware, particularly at higher resolutions. This analysis examines the measured performance of the Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580, a combination that produces a wide spectrum of frame rates across different settings. The data reveals a system that is versatile at 1080p but quickly becomes constrained as resolution increases, making it a configuration best suited for specific scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is severe, indicating a hard limit imposed by the graphics card. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 47.7 FPS at 1080p to 35.4 FPS at 1440p, a 25.8% reduction. Moving to 4K at the same High preset yields just 20.7 FPS, a further 41.5% decline from the 1440p figure. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario where the RX 580’s compute and memory bandwidth are being saturated.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (76.2 FPS) and Ultra (37.4 FPS) is a substantial 38.8 FPS. However, at 4K, the spread is only 14.7 FPS, ranging from 26.1 FPS on Low to 11.4 FPS on Ultra. This compression of the performance envelope at 4K suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting component; even reducing the graphical load to its minimum cannot overcome the sheer pixel count required by 4K resolution.

The i7-14700F, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, is not the bottleneck in this equation. The CPU’s benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35443, place it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, indicating immense headroom for gaming workloads. The data shows that the frame rate is almost entirely dictated by the resolution and settings applied to the RX 580, a clear sign that the GPU is the decisive factor in this pairing.

Settings Recommendations

For a playable experience at 1920x1080, the Medium preset is the optimal choice. It delivers an average of 59.1 FPS, which is a 23.9% improvement over the High preset’s 47.7 FPS. While the Low preset offers a higher 76.2 FPS, the jump to Medium provides a more substantial visual upgrade for a smaller performance cost than the leap from Medium to High. The Ultra preset, at 37.4 FPS, is too demanding for consistent smoothness, making it a poor trade-off.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more challenging. The Low preset is the only option that approaches acceptable fluidity, achieving 52.8 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 37.9 FPS, which may be tolerable for some, but the High and Ultra presets at 35.4 FPS and 26.5 FPS respectively are not recommended for action-oriented gameplay. The data suggests that 1440p users should stick to Low settings to maintain a stable frame rate.

The 3840x2160 resolution is effectively out of reach for this combination. Even the Low preset, with an average of 26.1 FPS, falls below the threshold for a smooth experience. The High and Medium presets hover in the low-20s, and the Ultra preset is unplayable at 11.4 FPS. The benchmark results indicate that this GPU-CPU combo is not suited for 4K gaming in The Technomancer, regardless of the settings used.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for The Technomancer, this pairing ranks 1540 out of 1656 total combos. This places it in the bottom 7% of all configurations, a rank that reflects the RX 580’s age and performance class rather than any deficiency in the i7-14700F. The CPU itself is a top-tier performer, but the system’s overall gaming capability is tethered to the graphics card.

The GPU’s average benchmark score of 13559 places it in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals being the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (deltaPct 0) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 (deltaPct 0.1). This indicates that the RX 580 is performing exactly as expected for its class, but that class is far from the top. The ranking suggests that for this specific game, the combo is significantly underpowered relative to more modern pairings, which is consistent with the low frame rates observed at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are as follows: Low yields 76.2 FPS, Medium yields 59.1 FPS, High yields 47.7 FPS, and Ultra yields 37.4 FPS. The progression shows a clear and predictable decline as settings increase, with the largest single drop occurring between Low and Medium (a 17.1 FPS difference). The data indicates a playable experience on Low through High presets, with Ultra pushing into less desirable territory.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low provides 52.8 FPS, Medium provides 37.9 FPS, High provides 35.4 FPS, and Ultra provides 26.5 FPS. The difference between Medium and High is minimal (2.5 FPS), suggesting that High offers no significant benefit over Medium at this resolution. The performance is acceptable only on Low, with all other presets falling below the 40 FPS mark.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 26.1 FPS, Medium at 21.1 FPS, High at 20.7 FPS, and Ultra at 11.4 FPS. The performance is uniformly poor, with no preset achieving a playable frame rate. The data shows a 54.8% drop from the best 4K result (Low) to the worst (Ultra), highlighting the GPU’s inability to handle the 4K pixel workload even at minimum settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the definitive constraint in this configuration. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s, which is insufficient for the demands of 4K textures and geometry in The Technomancer. The GPU’s boost clock of 1340 MHz and base clock of 1257 MHz are not high enough to compensate for the architectural limitations of the GCN 4.0 design when pushed to higher resolutions.

The GPU’s compute capabilities, measured at 6.175 TFLOPS FP32, are modest by modern standards. This is reflected in its benchmark scores, such as a Passmark G3D score of 8813 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 37453. These numbers, while placing the GPU in a mid-range percentile (53rd), are simply not competitive for a demanding 2016 title at high resolutions. The data confirms that the RX 580 is the component that dictates the system’s performance ceiling, and its end-of-life production status suggests that driver optimizations are unlikely to yield significant future gains.