The Technomancer

The Technomancer is a 2016 Action RPG that stresses GPU performance heavily, and the pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 produces a clear bottleneck at higher resolutions. The GTX 1070, a Pascal-generation card from 2016, is the limiting factor in this combination, as the i7-14700K provides far more computational headroom than the GPU can utilize in this title. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings show a predictable pattern of GPU-bound scaling, with the CPU’s 20 cores and 28 threads remaining largely underutilized.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a steep performance drop as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, which is the classic signature of a GPU-limited scenario. At 1080p with High settings, the combo averages 77.8 FPS, but this falls to 53.2 FPS at 1440p and further to 26.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop between 1080p and 1440p is roughly 32%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is nearly 50%, indicating that the GTX 1070’s pixel throughput is being saturated as the render target grows.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern becomes even more pronounced. The 1080p Low preset delivers 115.7 FPS, which is excellent for a 2016 GPU, but 1440p Low drops to 77.6 FPS, and 4K Low falls to 42.1 FPS. This steep decline despite minimal graphical load confirms that the GTX 1070’s 256-bit memory bus and 256.3 GB/s bandwidth are the primary constraints. The card’s 8 GB of GDDR5 memory is sufficient for this game, but the raw fill rate and shader throughput cannot keep pace with the pixel count at 4K.

The Ultra preset at 4K is nearly unplayable, with an average of just 18.7 FPS. This is a 76% reduction from the 1080p Ultra score of 59.6 FPS, showing that the most demanding settings overwhelm the GPU completely. The i7-14700K’s boost clock of 5.60 GHz and 33 MB of shared L3 cache do not mitigate this issue, as the bottleneck is purely on the graphics side. For practical play, 1080p is the only resolution where this combo consistently exceeds 60 FPS, and even then only on Low or Medium presets.

How This Combo Ranks

Among all 1,656 tested combos in this database, this configuration ranks 1,405th in The Technomancer. That places it in the bottom 15% of all combinations, which reflects the age of the GTX 1070 more than the strength of the i7-14700K. The CPU itself is a top-tier part, with a percentile rank of 96 against all CPUs and an average benchmark score of 70,074, but the GPU’s percentile rank of 51 against all GPUs shows it sits right at the median. This mismatch is why the combo ranks so low — the CPU is doing very little work while the GPU struggles.

The GTX 1070’s nearest rivals in the GPU benchmarks include the NVIDIA Quadro K4200, which scores 12,241 on average and is 0.7% slower, and the GeForce GTX 880M, which scores 12,490 and is 1.3% faster. The GTX 1650 SUPER also appears, scoring 12,504 and running 1.4% faster. These are all older or lower-tier cards, which shows that the GTX 1070 is firmly in the mid-range segment of 2016-era hardware. The i7-14700K, by contrast, is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and 0.3% of the AMD EPYC 9115 in average CPU score, confirming it is not the weak link.

In game-specific terms, this combo’s rank of 1,405 out of 1,656 means that most other CPU-GPU pairings deliver better frame rates in The Technomancer. The data indicates that the GTX 1070’s 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 64 ROPs are simply insufficient for high-resolution gaming in this title. Users with this combo should not expect to compete with modern hardware, and the ranking reflects that reality.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows suggest that the best experience comes from using Medium settings at 1080p, which delivers 87.7 FPS. This is a 13% improvement over High at 77.8 FPS and a 47% improvement over Ultra at 59.6 FPS, while still looking noticeably better than Low at 115.7 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is only 10 FPS, but the visual quality difference is substantial, making Medium the sweet spot for this hardware.

At 1440p, the options are more limited. High settings yield 53.2 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target but playable for a slower-paced RPG. Dropping to Medium gives 58 FPS, which is only a 9% gain, while Low jumps to 77.6 FPS. For a playable experience at 1440p, Medium is the recommended preset, as it stays above 55 FPS and avoids the visual degradation of Low. Ultra at 36.7 FPS is too choppy for comfortable play.

At 4K, no setting is truly playable. High averages 26.8 FPS, Medium drops to 33.3 FPS, and Low reaches 42.1 FPS, which is still below the 60 FPS threshold. Even Low at 4K is only 42.1 FPS, so users should avoid 4K entirely with this combo. The GTX 1070’s 150 W TDP and 267 mm length suggest it was designed for 1080p gaming, and the data confirms this. Stick to 1080p Medium or High, and use 1440p Medium only if you can tolerate frame rates in the 50s.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the full range of settings was tested. Low delivers 115.7 FPS, which is a strong result for a 2016 GPU. Medium drops to 87.7 FPS, a 24% reduction, and High falls further to 77.8 FPS. Ultra is the most demanding, averaging 59.6 FPS, which is just shy of a smooth 60 FPS experience. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 49% performance loss, indicating that the game’s Ultra preset adds significant shader and texture load that the GTX 1070 cannot fully absorb.

At 1440p, the numbers are lower across the board. Low averages 77.6 FPS, which is a 33% drop from the 1080p Low score. Medium produces 58 FPS, High gives 53.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 36.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 53%, slightly worse than at 1080p, which suggests the GPU’s memory bandwidth is a limiting factor at higher resolutions.

At 4K, the performance collapses. Low averages 42.1 FPS, Medium drops to 33.3 FPS, High falls to 26.8 FPS, and Ultra is unplayable at 18.7 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 56%, showing that the GTX 1070’s 107.7 GPixel/s pixel rate is overwhelmed when pushing over 8 million pixels. The 4K Low score of 42.1 FPS is actually lower than the 1080p Ultra score of 59.6 FPS, which highlights how much resolution impacts this card.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is the dominant component in this game’s performance, and its specifications explain why. The card uses the GP104 chip with 1,920 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, which is a solid mid-range configuration for 2016. Its base clock of 1506 MHz and boost clock of 1683 MHz are respectable, but the 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus with 256.3 GB/s bandwidth is the key constraint. The Technomancer appears to be memory-bandwidth sensitive, as the frame rate drops disproportionately at higher resolutions.

The GPU’s FP32 throughput of 6.463 TFLOPS is modest by modern standards, and the 202.0 GTexel/s texture rate means that high-detail textures at 4K will cause significant stalls. The card’s average benchmark score of 12,331 and percentile rank of 51 place it exactly at the median of all GPUs, which is consistent with its 1080p-focused design. The nearest rival comparisons show only 0.7% to 1.7% differences in average score, indicating that the GTX 1070 is a stable, predictable performer that does not exceed its class.

In practical terms, the GTX 1070 is a capable air-cooled card for 1080p gaming, but The Technomancer’s Ultra preset at 1440p or higher will exceed its capabilities. The 150 W TDP and single 8-pin power connector suggest it was designed for mainstream systems, and the data shows it delivers exactly that: playable frame rates at 1080p Medium or High, but not much more. The 16 nm process node from TSMC keeps thermals reasonable, but the 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die are working hard at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is vastly overqualified for this game, and the benchmark results show it has minimal impact on the measured frame rates. With 20 cores, 28 threads, a base clock of 3.40 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, this CPU is built for heavy multi-threaded workloads. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,534 and single-core score of 6,287 place it in the top 4% of all CPUs, and its PassMark multi-thread score of 52,392 confirms its strength. However, The Technomancer is not CPU-bound at any resolution tested.

The i7-14700K’s 33 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample fast memory for game logic, but the GTX 1070 simply cannot feed frames fast enough to engage the CPU fully. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 70,074 is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, which is a far newer and more expensive part, but this advantage is irrelevant when the GPU is the bottleneck. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU could theoretically matter, the frame rate of 115.7 FPS is still limited by the GPU’s draw call processing.

The CPU’s 125 W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 platform are overkill for a 2016 Action RPG, but this is not a criticism — it simply means that users with this CPU have massive headroom for other tasks. The 10 nm process node and Raptor Lake architecture are far more advanced than the GTX 1070’s Pascal, and the benchmark results confirm that the CPU sits at the 96th percentile while the GPU sits at the 51st. For users considering an upgrade, the data clearly indicates that replacing the GTX 1070 would yield far better results in The Technomancer than any CPU change.