The Technomancer

The Technomancer’s engine responds predictably to the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti pairing, but the measured frame rates reveal a component relationship worth closer inspection. The dataset shows a clear progression from exceptional 1080p performance to merely playable 4K, with the Ultra preset acting as the breaking point for fluid motion. This analysis breaks down the measured rows to determine the optimal settings, the division of labor between CPU and GPU, and how this specific combination stacks against the 2,825 other tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a decisive answer for the best experience: the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the strongest balance of visual fidelity and performance headroom. At this resolution, the Medium preset delivers 137 FPS average, with a minimum of 116 FPS and a maximum of 158 FPS. This is the only settings tier that provides a fully documented frame time range, indicating stable performance without dips into stutter territory. The 116 FPS minimum is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the 137 FPS average leaves ample room for demanding combat sequences.

At 1920x1080, the Medium preset pushes even higher, reaching 210 FPS average with a minimum of 178 FPS and maximum of 241 FPS. This is exceptional for competitive play, though the 1440p Medium setting provides a better pixel density upgrade for only a 73 FPS average cost. The High preset at 1440p, at 117 FPS average, is also viable, but it sacrifices 20 FPS compared to Medium without a proportional visual jump in the data.

The Ultra preset is the clear outlier across all resolutions. At 4K, Ultra drops to 50 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS standard for fluid action RPG combat. At 1440p, Ultra maintains 91 FPS, but the 46 FPS gap between Ultra and Medium at this resolution suggests diminishing returns. The Low preset, while offering the highest frame rates (273 FPS at 1080p, 178 FPS at 1440p, 98 FPS at 4K), strips away the visual polish that defines The Technomancer’s dystopian atmosphere. The data points to Medium as the sweet spot, especially when considering the 4K Medium result of 75 FPS average, which remains playable while maintaining moderate visual quality.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 brings 14 cores and 14 threads to the table, a configuration that favors raw multi-threaded throughput over hyper-threading flexibility. The base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.00 GHz provide substantial single-thread headroom, which is critical for game logic and physics calculations. The processor’s benchmark scores reinforce this capability: Cinebench R23 multi-core yields 14,769 points, while single-core reaches 2,085 points. PassMark physics scoring 2,570 points further indicates strong computational performance for in-game simulation.

In The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, the CPU’s role is primarily to maintain a consistent frame delivery pipeline. The game’s age means it likely does not fully utilize 14 cores, but the Ultra 5 235’s high boost clock ensures that the primary game thread never becomes a bottleneck. The data supports this: at 1080p Low, the combination reaches 273 FPS average, a frame rate that would be impossible if the CPU were limiting performance. Even at 1080p Ultra, the 140 FPS average indicates the CPU is feeding the GPU efficiently, as this is well above the refresh rate of most monitors.

The processor’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth provide ample data throughput for game assets. The 3 nm process node and 17,800 million transistors suggest efficient power delivery, though the 65 W TDP is modest. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 89 against all CPUs places it in the upper tier, with nearest rivals including the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (0.1% faster) and Intel Core i9-13900HX (0.1% slower). This near-tie in average benchmark scores indicates the Ultra 5 235 is a consistent performer, but the measured FPS data suggests it is rarely the limiting factor in this game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, and its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is substantial for a 2016 title. The Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process with 35,800 million transistors, provides 7,680 shading units and 240 texture mapping units. The boost clock of 2610 MHz and base clock of 2310 MHz are high, enabling the 40.09 TFLOPS FP32 compute throughput.

In The Technomancer, the GPU’s role becomes apparent as resolution increases. At 1080p, the GPU is barely challenged, producing 273 FPS on Low settings. However, the scaling from 1080p to 4K tells the story of GPU-bound performance. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate plummets to 50 FPS, a 73% drop from 1080p Ultra’s 140 FPS. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, as the RTX 4070 Ti’s 12 GB VRAM and 80 ROPs struggle to fill the 8.3 million pixels of 4K resolution at high settings.

The GPU’s 84th percentile ranking against all GPUs places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (0.8% faster) and AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (1.3% faster) in average benchmark scores. This mid-high tier positioning is reflected in the game’s performance: the RTX 4070 Ti handles 1440p Medium with ease (137 FPS), but 4K Ultra exposes its limitations. The 64 FPS average at 4K High is playable, and 98 FPS at 4K Low shows the GPU can still deliver high frame rates at lower fidelity. The data suggests the GPU is the primary scaling factor across resolutions, with the CPU maintaining a consistent frame delivery pipeline.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for this CPU-GPU combination in The Technomancer?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 provides the best balance, delivering 137 FPS average with a 116 FPS minimum. This is the highest settings tier that maintains a fully documented frame range without dropping below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 scores 46,062 on average, which is 0.1% above the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46,030) and 0.1% below the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46,098). It also outperforms the AMD EPYC 4364P by 0.2% (45,970).

Q: Is the 12 GB VRAM on the RTX 4070 Ti sufficient for 4K gaming in this title?

A: Yes, the 12 GB of GDDR6X memory is adequate for The Technomancer, as evidenced by the 64 FPS average at 4K High. The GPU’s 504.2 GB/s bandwidth and 192-bit bus handle the game’s textures without issue, though 4K Ultra drops to 50 FPS due to compute limitations rather than memory capacity.

Q: Why does the 4K Ultra setting only achieve 50 FPS?

A: The 4K Ultra preset (50 FPS) is 14 FPS lower than 4K High (64 FPS) and 25 FPS lower than 4K Medium (75 FPS), indicating that Ultra settings impose a significant computational load on the RTX 4070 Ti’s 7,680 shading units and 80 ROPs at 8.3 million pixels.

Q: How does this combination rank among all tested combos?

A: The combination ranks 307th out of 2,825 tested combos, placing it in the top 11% of configurations. This ranking reflects the strong balance between the CPU’s 89th percentile and GPU’s 84th percentile performance.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: No, the data shows no CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combination reaches 273 FPS, and at 1080p Ultra it maintains 140 FPS, indicating the 14-core, 5.00 GHz boost clock CPU can feed the GPU effectively at all tested settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 210 FPS at 1080p to 137 FPS at 1440p (a 35% decrease) and then to 75 FPS at 4K (a 45% decrease from 1440p). This progressive decline is steeper than proportional pixel count increases, indicating that the RTX 4070 Ti’s fill rate and pixel throughput are the limiting factors at higher resolutions.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is even more aggressive. The 1080p Ultra average of 140 FPS drops to 91 FPS at 1440p (a 35% decrease) and then to 50 FPS at 4K (a 45% decrease from 1440p). The 90 FPS difference between 1080p Ultra and 4K Ultra represents a 64% performance loss, which is substantial. This suggests that the Ultra preset’s additional effects, likely including high-resolution shadows and post-processing, disproportionately tax the GPU’s 208.8 GPixel/s pixel rate at higher resolutions.

The Low settings scaling tells a slightly different story. At Low, the 1080p average is 273 FPS, dropping to 178 FPS at 1440p (a 35% decrease) and 98 FPS at 4K (a 45% decrease from 1440p). The percentage drops are consistent across settings tiers, confirming that resolution scaling is the primary factor, with the GPU’s 80 ROPs and 626.4 GTexel/s texture rate being the constraining resources. The CPU’s role in this scaling is minimal, as the consistent percentage decreases across all settings indicate the GPU is the sole bottleneck as pixel count grows.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a wide performance envelope. The Low preset achieves 273 FPS average, which is the highest recorded frame rate in the dataset. Medium reaches 210 FPS average, with a minimum of 178 FPS and maximum of 241 FPS, providing a documented frame range that indicates stable performance. High delivers 179 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 140 FPS average. The 133 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p demonstrates the GPU’s headroom at this resolution, with even Ultra settings easily exceeding 120 FPS for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain robust but show the onset of GPU limitation. Low still achieves 178 FPS average, a mere 35% drop from 1080p. Medium maintains 137 FPS average with a 116 FPS minimum and 158 FPS maximum, which is the tightest frame range in the dataset. High reaches 117 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 91 FPS average. The 87 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p indicates that Ultra settings now impose a meaningful performance penalty, though all settings remain above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance ceiling becomes apparent. Low achieves 98 FPS average, which is still playable, but Medium drops to 75 FPS average with a 64 FPS minimum and 87 FPS maximum. High reaches 64 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 50 FPS average. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration below 60 FPS, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. The 48 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 4K, while numerically smaller than at lower resolutions, represents a 49% performance loss that makes Ultra settings impractical at this resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti achieves a rank of 307 out of 2,825 tested combos in The Technomancer. This places the pairing in the top 10.9% of all configurations, a strong result that reflects the balanced nature of the hardware. The rank is influenced by the game’s release date in 2016, as modern hardware is likely to overperform relative to the game’s original target specifications.

The rank of 307 is consistent with the individual component percentiles. The CPU ranks in the 89th percentile against all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 84th percentile against all GPUs. The combo rank is slightly lower than either individual percentile, suggesting that the game’s performance is not perfectly optimized for this generation of hardware, or that the GPU’s 4K Ultra performance (50 FPS) drags down the overall ranking when compared to other combos that may achieve higher 4K scores.

In the context of the 2,825 tested combos, this pairing sits firmly in the upper echelon. The nearest rival CPUs (AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, Intel Core i9-13900HX) and GPUs (RTX 5090 Mobile, AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT) all score within 1.7% of this combo’s components, indicating that no single component is a weak link. The data shows that this combination is well-suited for The Technomancer at 1440p Medium and below, and even 4K High (64 FPS) is playable. The 307th rank out of 2,825 confirms the hardware’s capability, though the 4K Ultra result reveals the limits of this pairing for future-proofing at maximum settings.