The Technomancer

This analysis examines The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, running on an Intel Core i7-14700K processor and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card. The data includes measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality settings, CPU and GPU specifications, and relative ranking among thousands of other tested combinations. All performance numbers come from the FACT PACK provided.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep and consistent decline as resolution increases from 1920x1080 (1080p) to 3840x2160 (4K). At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 142 FPS at 1080p to 93 FPS at 2560x1440 (1440p) and then to 51 FPS at 4K. That is a total drop of 64.1% across the two resolution jumps. The Ultra preset shows an even more pronounced scaling curve: 73 FPS at 1080p, 48 FPS at 1440p, and 26 FPS at 4K, a reduction of 64.4% from 1080p to 4K. The High and Medium settings follow a similar pattern. The consistent halving of frame rate when tripling the pixel count strongly suggests the GPU—AMD's Radeon RX 6600 XT—becomes the dominant limiting factor as resolution grows.

What does this scaling imply about the system's balance? The i7-14700K is a high-end 14th generation CPU, rated at the 94th percentile among all processors. Yet the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is almost exactly the same (roughly 64%) for every quality preset, which would not happen if the CPU's cores and threads were the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. If the CPU were CPU-bound, the FPS at 1440p and 4K would be closer together because the CPU would saturate around a certain frame rate regardless of pixel count. Instead, the GPU is clearly the limiting element at these resolutions. Specifically, a 21 GB/s memory bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are the GPU components that fill the pixel shader workload. The CPU's extremely high Cinebench R23 multicore score of 33440.5 and a single-core score of 2160 indicate it has ample bandwidth to feed the GPU.

At 1080p, the highest setting of Ultra still yields 73 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1440p, only Low and Medium (61 and 71 FPS) maintain 60 FPS, while High and Ultra fall below (61 and 48 FPS respectively). At 4K, even Low only achieves 51 FPS, confirming that the scaler is essentially GPU-limited right from the ground. The scaling pattern in the data suggests that players wishing to maintain a smooth 60 FPS experience on this RX 6600 XT should stay at 1080p, where all presets exceed the target, or at 1440p with Medium or lower. At higher resolutions, the system transitions to a GPU-limited state.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 14th-generation desktop processor built on Raptor Lake architecture, featuring 20 cores and 28 threads. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, and it occupies a 12th-generation TDP of 125 watts. The processor's performance headroom is evident in its benchmark scores: it reaches 33440.5 in Cinebench R23 multicore, 2160 in single-core, 20767 in Geekbench multicore, and 52392 in Passmark multithread. Its average benchmark score of 69355 places it at the 94th percentile among all CPUs, meaning it outperforms 94% of the processors tested.

Given these numbers, the CPU is far from a bottleneck in The Technomancer. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 142 FPS. At 1440p Low the number drops to 93 FPS, and at 4K Low to 51 FPS. If the CPU were the limit, we would expect the 1080p frame rate to be much higher than 1440p and 4K, perhaps reaching the CPU’s ability to cap around 300 FPS or more. The fact that the average FPS scales so linearly with pixel count indicates the GPU is the primary limiting factor, while the CPU remains largely idle. The i7-14700K’s L3 cache is 33 MB, which should allow it to pre-fetch and manage game data with ease. The CPUs with near-identical average scores—such as the AMD EPYC 9115 and Ryzen 9 7950X, which differ by only 0.1% to -0.2%—confirm this level of processing power, but none of them would alter this game’s frame pacing because the game appears to be GPU-bound even with a relatively modest GPU such as this.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data allows for a direct comparison of the four quality presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—at each resolution. For this pairing, the goal of maintaining at least 60 FPS is achievable only at 1080p across all settings and at 1440p for Low and Medium. The table below shows the average FPS per setting and resolution:

• 1920x1080: Low 142, Medium 109, High 93, Ultra 73
• 2560x1440: Low 93, Medium 71, High 61, Ultra 48
• 3840x2160: Low 51, Medium 39, High 33, Ultra 26

At 1080p, the Ultra preset still delivers 73 FPS, which is 13 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold, while High delivers 93 FPS. Because visual quality generally scales with each preset, there is no reason to lower below High at 1080p unless a higher refresh rate beyond 60 FPS is desired—Low and Medium provide 142 and 109 FPS, respectively. At 1440p, only Medium (71 FPS) and Low (93) guarantee a 60+ FPS experience. Ultra drops to 48 FPS, which may stutter on standard 144Hz monitors, while High sits just at 61 FPS, but that is a marginal margin. At 4K, no preset reaches 60 FPS; even Low only results in 51 FPS. The acceptable preset at 4K is therefore Low, but it is still below the classic console 60 FPS target, so a reduction to the lowest setting is necessary for playability.

The relative difference between Low and Medium at 1080p is 142 vs 109 FPS, a 23% drop, while the difference between Medium and High is 109 vs 93 – a 15% drop, and High to Ultra is 93 to 73 – a 21% drop. The performance cost of Ulim suggests that if the monitor is limited to 60 Hz, the Medium preset provides a very stable 109 FPS, leaving room for the minimum FPS noted in the data, which is 93 FPS at the Medium setting and 1080p. For 1440p, using Medium gives 71 FPS, and the minimum 61 FPS, which is still above 60. For 4K, choosing Low at 51 FPS may be the only playable option; turning the settings to Medium or above reduces the frame count to 39 or below, which is too low for most LCD monitors.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate of this combination at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 73 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU perform in synthetic benchmarks?

A: In Cinebench R23, the i7-14700K scores 33440.5 points in multicore and 2160 points in single-core. Its Geekbench multicore score is 20767, and its Passmark multithread score is 52392.

Q: How much video memory does the RX 6600 XT have?

A: It has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 128-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth.

Q: What is the combo ranking of this i7-14700K + RX 6600 XT in The Technomancer?

A: It ranks 2643rd out of 3696 tested combinations, meaning it is below the median in this game's performance hierarchy.

Q: What is the boost clock of the CPU?

A: The CPU boost clock is 5.60 GHz, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz.

Q: What is the power draw of the GPU?

A: The GPU has a TDP of 160 W.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is a Radeon RX 6000 series card based on the Navi 23 die, manufactured on a 7 nm TSMC process. It has 11,060 million transistors and a die area of 237 mm². Its base clock is 1968 MHz, its boost clock is 2589 MHz, and its memory clock runs at 16 Gbps effective (4 Gbps? Actually 2000 MHz, but the effective is 16 Gbps). The card pairs an 8 GB GDDR6 memory with a 128-bit bus, offering 256.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. It features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, achieving a pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s. The FP32 output is 10.60 TFLOPS.

The GPU’s overall score in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 is 1804, a Geekbench Metal score of 88720, and a Passmark G3D of 16461. In percentiles among all GPUs, it sits at the 70th percentile, meaning it is better than 70% of GPUs. In nearest rival terms, it is only 0.7% more performant than a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630, -0.8% above an Intel Arc A350M, and 1.1% above a older RTX 2080 SUPER. These numbers indicate that while this is a comfortable-class GPU, it is not spectacular for modern titles. In The Technomancer, the RX 6600 XT only pulled an average of 33 FPS at 4K Ultra, and 51 FPS at 4K Low.

The GPU memory of 8 GB GDDR6 is typical for this level of card, and the virtual usage for a 2016Action RPG presumably is not overly heavy. The rendering at 4K with 256-bit bus and such a memory bandwidth is hardly sufficient to push many pixels, and the frame rates confirm the GPU is the element of the combination that holds back to higher resolution. The system name of the card, but its clock speed of 2589 MHz, demonstrates that the GPU’s only vice is the pixel fill rate when at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The simplest way to digest the performance data is to list each resolution and preset aggregated from the FACT PACK.

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Low: 142 avg FPS
• Medium: 109 avg FPS, min 93, max 126
• High: 93 avg FPS
• Ultra: 73 avg FPS

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Low: 93 avg FPS
• Medium: 71 avg FPS, min 61, max 82
• High: 61 avg FPS
• Ultra: 48 avg FPS

3840x2160 (4K)

• Low: 51 avg FPS
• Medium: 39 avg FPS, min 33, max 45
• High: 33 avg FPS
• Ultra: 26 avg FPS

These numbers are absolute measured values without any pressure or configuration. The minimum FPS appears only for Medium settings in the data, but the averages clearly show the trend. Notably, the average FPS of the Medium settings at 1440p is 71, which is 16% higher than the High settings of 61 FPS. At 4K, the Medium’s average of 39 FPS is lower than the High’s 33 – not sure, but the trend remains.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700K and Radeon RX 6600 XT combination occupies the 2643rd position out of 3696 – total combos tested in The Technomancer. That puts it in the processing in the lower 72% of tested combos, meaning about 72% of systems performed better. This is an expected outcome given the CPU’s strong percentile (94th) versus the GPU’s 70th percentile. The mismatch is striking — the CPU could easily handle a much more powerful GPU, but the RX 6600 XT is clocked to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630-level it. In comparison, the nearest rival GPUs (GTX 1630, Arc A350M, GTX 780 Ti, RTX 2080 SUPER) are all within ±1.1% of the RX 6600 XT’s average performance score, yet the rank in this game suggests that the GPU is the bottleneck for a satisfying slower experience at high settings. The rank suggests that to genuinely perform well, a GPU with a higher percentile is required.

Because the measured FPS at 1080p still guarantees 73 FPS and other as 142 FPS, the combo may be more suitable for 1080p gaming. But The Technomancer's rank alongside other combos the price is the GPU because the CPU is top-tier (94th percentile) while the GPU is only 70th, so the GPU limits the outcome significantly, explaining the low overall rank. In summary, the i7-14700K + 6600 XT comp considered a well-balanced system for 670p, but for the Technimancer's high-resolution view lacking the GPU capacity of a more pricey card.