The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that heavily favors the GPU. When paired with the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and AMD Radeon RX 580, the data reveals a system that is firmly anchored by its graphics card, struggling to maintain smooth frame rates at higher resolutions. The benchmark results chart a predictable but steep decline in performance as visual fidelity and pixel count increase, painting a clear picture of a combo suited for 1080p gaming with adjusted settings rather than high-resolution or high-detail play.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Technomancer?

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the combo consistently approaches playable frame rates. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset averages 39 FPS, while High and Medium presets hit 50 FPS and 58 FPS respectively.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: The data indicates that 4K (3840x2160) is not a viable option for this hardware. The average frame rates range from 27 FPS on Low settings down to 14 FPS on Ultra, with the Medium preset showing a minimum of 18 FPS. These figures fall well below the threshold for a smooth gaming experience.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average FPS nearly doubles when moving from Ultra to Low. The Ultra preset averages 39 FPS, while Low averages 76 FPS. This represents a significant performance headroom that can be unlocked by reducing graphical fidelity.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data strongly suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The frame rate drops dramatically as resolution increases (from 50 FPS at 1080p High to 18 FPS at 4K High), which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The CPU’s performance is relatively high, but it cannot compensate for the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all other tested configurations?

A: The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 2583 out of 2825 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places it in the bottom 10% of all systems tested, indicating poor overall performance for this specific title.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p on Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the average FPS is 58. When the resolution is increased to 2560x1440 on the same Medium preset, the average FPS drops to 38. This is a 20 FPS reduction, a significant loss in smoothness for a single resolution step.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data for The Technomancer shows a clear trade-off between visual quality and frame rate, and the optimal setting depends heavily on the target resolution. For a 1920x1080 display, the High preset appears to be the sweet spot, delivering an average of 50 FPS. This provides a fluid experience that is generally considered playable for an action RPG, while still maintaining a respectable level of visual detail. The Medium preset offers a safer margin for demanding scenes, with an average of 58 FPS and a minimum of 50 FPS, ensuring that frame pacing remains consistent.

The Low preset at 1080p, averaging 76 FPS, is the only configuration that approaches high-refresh-rate territory, but it does so at the cost of significant visual fidelity. The Ultra preset, averaging just 39 FPS, is likely to feel stuttery and is not recommended for a smooth experience, despite offering the best image quality. At 2560x1440, the performance landscape shifts. The Low preset, with an average of 50 FPS, becomes the most viable option for maintaining a playable frame rate. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 38 FPS, which is borderline, and the High preset at 33 FPS will feel noticeably less fluid. The Ultra preset at 1440p, averaging 25 FPS, is not recommended for gameplay. For 3840x2160, the data shows that no preset provides a playable experience. Even the Low preset, averaging 27 FPS, falls below the standard for smooth motion, making 4K gaming impractical with this hardware.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the High preset reduces the average frame rate from 50 FPS to 33 FPS, a 34% drop. The subsequent step from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 on the same preset further reduces the average to 18 FPS, a 45% drop from the 1440p figure. This accelerating decline in performance as resolution increases is a hallmark of a system where the graphics card is the primary constraint. The GPU’s rendering pipeline is saturated, and its fill rate and memory bandwidth cannot keep up with the increasing pixel workload.

This pattern is consistent across all settings. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 58 at 1080p to 38 at 1440p, and then to 21 at 4K. The scaling is not linear, indicating that the GPU's resources are being exhausted at a faster rate than the pixel count increases. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245, with its high single-thread and multi-thread scores, is not the limiting factor here; if it were, we would see a more consistent frame rate across resolutions. Instead, the steep and consistent drops point directly to the AMD Radeon RX 580 as the bottleneck, unable to process the geometry and shading required at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The benchmark data provides a complete matrix of average frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system performs best. The Low preset yields an average of 76 FPS, the highest score recorded for this combo. The Medium preset delivers an average of 58 FPS, with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 67 FPS, showing a stable performance envelope. The High preset averages 50 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 39 FPS. These figures show that 1080p is the only resolution where the combo can consistently hit 60 FPS, and only on the Low preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance degrades significantly. The Low preset is the only option that remains playable, with an average of 50 FPS. The Medium preset averages 38 FPS (min 32, max 44), while the High preset averages 33 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to an average of 25 FPS. At this resolution, the system is clearly struggling to maintain smooth motion, and users must make significant sacrifices in visual quality to achieve a decent frame rate. At 3840x2160, the system is overwhelmed. The Low preset averages 27 FPS, the Medium preset averages 21 FPS (min 18, max 24), and the High preset averages 18 FPS. The Ultra preset produces a near-unplayable average of just 14 FPS. These numbers confirm that 4K resolution is outside the operational capability of this hardware combination for this game.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the decisive component in this combo's performance. Its benchmark results, including a Passmark G3D score of 8813 and a percentile ranking of 53 against all GPUs, position it as a mid-range part from its era. The GPU’s specifications, such as its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, are insufficient for the demands of The Technomancer at higher resolutions. The data shows that as the resolution increases, the frame rate collapses, which is directly attributable to the GPU's rendering limits.

The GPU's clock speeds, with a base of 1257 MHz and a boost of 1340 MHz, are not the primary issue; rather, it is the underlying architecture's processing power. The RX 580's position is made clear by its nearest rivals, which include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER and the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, with average scores differing by less than 1%. This places the RX 580 in a specific performance tier that is simply not equipped for high-fidelity gaming at 1440p or 4K. The 8 GB VRAM may be sufficient for texture loading, but the core compute performance is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the consistent frame rate drops across all presets when moving to higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a modern, high-performance processor that is not the bottleneck in this pairing. Its benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and a single-core score of 4648. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 90 against all CPUs places it in the top 10% of processors, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 and Intel Core i5-14600K, with performance deltas of less than 1%. This indicates that the CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic.

The CPU’s 14 cores and 14 threads, with a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, are more than sufficient for The Technomancer's requirements. The data supports this conclusion: if the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see frame rates that are more consistent across different resolutions, as the CPU's workload would remain relatively constant. Instead, the frame rates plummet with increasing resolution, a clear sign that the GPU is the component that is saturated. The CPU is effectively waiting on the GPU to finish rendering frames, and its powerful architecture is being underutilized due to the graphics card's constraints.

How This Combo Ranks

The combined performance of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and AMD Radeon RX 580 is ranked 2583 out of 2825 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places the system in the 9th percentile, meaning that over 91% of other tested hardware combinations deliver better performance in this specific game. This low ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's limitations, as the CPU's strong benchmark scores are unable to boost the overall gaming experience.

This ranking is a stark summary of the data. While the CPU is a top-tier performer in synthetic benchmarks, the gaming experience is dictated by the weakest link, which is the RX 580. The combo's rank reflects the reality that the GPU cannot deliver playable frame rates at higher settings or resolutions. The performance gap between this combo and the majority of others is substantial, and users with this configuration will have to rely on lower resolutions and settings to achieve a smooth experience. The data confirms that this pairing is fundamentally unbalanced for The Technomancer, with a powerful CPU being held back by an older, mid-range GPU.