The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload for modern hardware. This analysis examines the performance of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 processor paired with the Intel Arc B570 graphics card, using measured frame rate data across multiple resolutions and settings. The combination ranks 2256th out of 2825 tested combos for this game, indicating a mid-to-lower tier pairing for this specific title. The data shows a system that can handle the game at 1080p with high settings comfortably, but struggles to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for playing The Technomancer with this CPU and GPU combination?

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 1920x1080 is the optimal resolution. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset achieves an average of 62 FPS, while High settings reach 80 FPS and Low settings hit 121 FPS. At 2560x1440, only the Low preset (79 FPS) and High preset (52 FPS) provide playable averages, while 3840x2160 falls below 45 FPS on all tested settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 41 FPS, which is 11 FPS lower than the High preset's 52 FPS average. The Medium preset at the same resolution averages 61 FPS, showing a clear performance hierarchy where each step down in settings yields a significant frame rate improvement.

Q: Is the Intel Arc B570 capable of running The Technomancer at 4K?

A: The data indicates it is not well-suited for 4K in this title. At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS recorded is 44 on Low settings. The High preset averages only 29 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 22 FPS. These figures suggest 4K is only viable if you accept the Low preset, and even then, the average is below the typical 60 FPS target.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and High settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Medium preset averages 93 FPS with a minimum of 79 FPS and a maximum of 107 FPS. The High preset averages 80 FPS. This represents a 13 FPS difference in favor of Medium settings, which is a noticeable gap for a single step in the settings ladder.

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core Ultra 5 225 has an average benchmark score of 36938. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, scores 36945, which is a 0% delta. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D scores 37018, a -0.2% delta, meaning the Ultra 5 225 is slightly behind. These differences are negligible in real-world gaming performance.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The Intel Arc B570 sits in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, indicating it outperforms the majority of graphics cards in the database. Its average benchmark score is 20556, placing it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, which scores 20534, a 0.1% delta.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, codenamed Battlemage, and fabricated on a 5 nm process by TSMC. The chip, designated BMG-G21, contains 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die. The GPU operates with a base and boost clock of 2500 MHz, and its memory runs at 2375 MHz, translating to 19 Gbps effective. It is equipped with 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is a key factor in how the card handles the demands of The Technomancer at higher resolutions.

The GPU's shading units, 2304 in total, along with 144 texture mapping units and 80 render output units, determine its raw pixel and texture processing capabilities. The card achieves a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, with a FP32 performance of 11.52 TFLOPS. For compute tasks, it scores 7281 in Passmark GPU compute and 83514 in Geekbench OpenCL. The 18 RT cores provide hardware ray tracing support, though this game from 2016 does not utilize such features. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support is present, but the game's engine predates many of these modern APIs.

In the context of The Technomancer, the GPU's performance is the dominant factor at higher resolutions. The measured FPS data shows a steep decline as resolution increases. At 1080p High, the average is 80 FPS, dropping to 52 FPS at 1440p High, and further to 29 FPS at 4K High. This pattern indicates that the Arc B570's 10 GB VRAM and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient to maintain high frame rates when pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The card's 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20556, places it in the mid-range tier, which aligns with the observed performance in this demanding title.

The GPU's nearest rival, the Intel Arc A750, scores 20582, a -0.1% delta, meaning the B570 is essentially on par with its predecessor. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile scores 20534, a 0.1% delta, again showing near-identical performance. This suggests that the Arc B570's capabilities are well understood within this performance bracket. The Passmark scores for DirectX 11 (118) and DirectX 12 (72) indicate that the card's driver overhead may impact older APIs, but the game's performance is more directly tied to the raw fill rate and memory bandwidth at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, part of the Core Ultra Series 2. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU is built on a 3 nm process by TSMC, containing 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, offering a memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. The processor's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 20 MB L3 cache.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Core Ultra 5 225 shows strong single-thread and multi-thread performance. It scores 3655 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 25891 in multi-core. The Passmark single-thread score is 4412, and the multithread score is 30459. These results place the CPU in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, scores 36945, a 0% delta, indicating they are statistical equals. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D scores 37018, a -0.2% delta, meaning the Ultra 5 225 is marginally slower but within error margins.

For The Technomancer, the CPU's role is less critical than the GPU at high resolutions, but it becomes more relevant at 1080p. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 121 FPS, which is a high frame rate that requires sufficient CPU processing power to feed the GPU. The CPU's 10 cores and 10 threads, combined with a 4.90 GHz boost clock, provide adequate single-thread performance for the game's logic and physics. The Passmark physics score of 2342 and find prime numbers score of 358 indicate solid computational throughput for game tasks.

The processor's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s may become a limiting factor when the GPU is not the bottleneck. However, the measured FPS at 1080p Low (121 FPS) suggests the CPU can handle the game's demands without becoming a major constraint. The data shows that at 1080p, the frame rate scales predictably with settings, from 62 FPS on Ultra to 121 FPS on Low, which implies the CPU maintains a consistent performance ceiling. At higher resolutions, the frame rate drops more sharply, indicating the GPU becomes the primary limiting component, while the CPU has headroom to spare.

The Core Ultra 5 225's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with a score of 36938, positions it well above average for gaming workloads. Its single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 score of 3655, is strong enough to avoid bottlenecking the Arc B570 in most scenarios. The CPU's 20 MB L3 cache and 3 MB L2 per core provide ample cache for game data, reducing memory latency. Overall, the processor is a capable partner for the GPU in this game, with its influence on FPS diminishing as resolution increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates for The Technomancer with the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and Intel Arc B570 were recorded across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 121 FPS, which is the highest recorded value in the entire dataset. The Medium preset at this resolution averages 93 FPS, with a minimum of 79 FPS and a maximum of 107 FPS. High settings produce an average of 80 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 62 FPS. This progression shows a clear 59 FPS spread between the lowest and highest settings at 1080p.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. The Low preset averages 79 FPS, which is a 42 FPS reduction compared to the same settings at 1080p. Medium settings at 1440p average 61 FPS, with a minimum of 52 FPS and a maximum of 70 FPS. The High preset averages 52 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 41 FPS. At this resolution, only the Low and Medium presets maintain averages above 60 FPS, with High and Ultra requiring a tolerance for lower frame rates.

At 3840x2160, the GPU struggles to maintain playable frame rates. The Low preset averages 44 FPS, which is the best result at this resolution. Medium settings average 33 FPS, with a minimum of 28 FPS and a maximum of 39 FPS. The High preset averages 29 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 22 FPS. None of these averages reach the 60 FPS target, and even the Low preset falls below 45 FPS, indicating that 4K gaming is not a viable option for this combination in this title.

The data reveals that the performance scaling is not linear across settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Medium is 28 FPS, between Medium and High is 13 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 18 FPS. At 1440p, the gaps are 18 FPS, 9 FPS, and 11 FPS respectively. At 4K, the gaps narrow to 11 FPS, 4 FPS, and 7 FPS. This pattern suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and changing settings has a smaller impact on frame rates because the GPU is already saturated with pixel work.

The measured data also includes minimum and maximum FPS for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p, the frame time variance is 28 FPS (79 to 107), at 1440p it is 18 FPS (52 to 70), and at 4K it is 11 FPS (28 to 39). This indicates that at lower resolutions, the frame rate is less stable, likely due to CPU involvement, while at 4K, the GPU's consistent workload results in a narrower frame range.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is a clear indicator of where the bottleneck lies in this system. Starting with the High preset, the average FPS drops from 80 at 1920x1080 to 52 at 2560x1440, a 35% reduction. From 1440p to 4K, it drops from 52 to 29 FPS, a 44% reduction. This steep decline as resolution increases points to the GPU being the limiting factor, as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K, requiring four times the fill rate and memory bandwidth.

The Low preset shows a similar trend. At 1080p, the average is 121 FPS, which drops to 79 FPS at 1440p (a 35% reduction) and then to 44 FPS at 4K (a 44% reduction from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across different presets indicates that the GPU's performance scales in a predictable manner with resolution, regardless of the graphical load. This is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the CPU has enough headroom to feed frames, but the GPU cannot keep up with the increasing pixel count.

The Medium preset at 1080p averages 93 FPS, which falls to 61 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 33 FPS at 4K (a 46% reduction). The Ultra preset shows 62 FPS at 1080p, 41 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction), and 22 FPS at 4K (a 46% reduction). The pattern of roughly 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and 45% from 1440p to 4K is consistent across all settings. This suggests that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the primary constraint, and the CPU's performance is sufficient to maintain frame delivery at all resolutions.

The data also shows that the absolute FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is larger at lower settings. For Low, the drop is 77 FPS (121 to 44), while for Ultra, it is 40 FPS (62 to 22). This is because at lower settings, the GPU is less utilized at 1080p, allowing higher frame rates, but the same GPU workload at 4K becomes the hard limit. At Ultra settings, the GPU is already stressed at 1080p, so the additional resolution has a relatively smaller absolute impact, though the percentage reduction remains similar.

The scaling behavior confirms that the Intel Arc B570 is the limiting component in this pairing. The CPU, with 10 cores and a 4.90 GHz boost clock, is capable of handling the game's CPU-bound tasks at all tested resolutions. The GPU's 10 GB VRAM and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth, while sufficient for 1080p and playable at 1440p, are not enough for 4K. The 65th percentile ranking of the GPU further supports this, as it is a mid-range card that is not designed for 4K gaming in demanding titles.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this CPU and GPU combination depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. For a smooth 60 FPS experience at 1920x1080, the High preset is the highest setting that achieves this target, with an average of 80 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 62 FPS, which is above 60 FPS but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes. The Medium preset averages 93 FPS, providing a comfortable buffer above 60 FPS with a minimum of 79 FPS, making it the safest choice for consistent performance.

At 2560x1440, the options are more limited. The Low preset averages 79 FPS, which is above 60 FPS and provides a playable experience. The Medium preset averages 61 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS target, but its minimum of 52 FPS indicates that frame drops below 60 FPS will occur in demanding moments. The High preset at 52 FPS and Ultra at 41 FPS are below the 60 FPS threshold and may feel less smooth. For a balance of visual quality and performance at 1440p, the Medium preset is the highest recommended, with the understanding that some frame drops are possible.

At 3840x2160, the data shows that no preset provides a consistently playable experience. The Low preset averages 44 FPS, which is below 60 FPS but may be acceptable for a 2016 game with slower pacing. The Medium preset averages 33 FPS, and High and Ultra average 29 and 22 FPS respectively. Given the measured numbers, 4K gaming is not recommended for this pairing unless the user is willing to accept frame rates in the 30-45 FPS range with the Low preset.

The measured data indicates that the best overall experience is achieved at 1080p with the High preset. This configuration delivers an average of 80 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS target, while providing better visual fidelity than the Medium or Low presets. The Ultra preset at 1080p offers a 62 FPS average, which is still above 60 FPS, but the 18 FPS drop from High to Ultra suggests that the visual gains may not justify the performance cost. For users who prioritize frame rate stability, the Medium preset at 1080p, with its 93 FPS average and 79 FPS minimum, is the most reliable option.

The settings recommendations should also consider the GPU's 10 GB VRAM. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset is unlikely to exceed this capacity, but at 1440p and 4K, the higher resolution textures may approach the limit. The measured data shows that the frame rate drops are consistent with memory bandwidth limitations, so users with 1440p or 4K displays should stick to Medium or Low presets to avoid potential stuttering from VRAM pressure. The Medium preset at 1440p, with a 61 FPS average, is the best compromise for higher resolution displays, while the Low preset at 4K offers the only playable option at that resolution.