The Technomancer

The Technomancer is a 2016 Action RPG that stresses system balance in an unusual way: the data shows this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 with the Intel Arc B370 produces playable but never spectacular results, capping out at 71 FPS average in the best case tested. The CPU is a modern 14-core part with a 90th percentile standing among all tested processors, while the GPU sits at the 5th percentile, meaning the graphics card is overwhelmingly the limiting factor in every measured configuration. This combination ranks 2603 out of 2825 tested combos for this game, placing it in the bottom 8% of all pairings, which tells you immediately that expectations must be calibrated toward lower resolutions and reduced settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average frame rate this combo can achieve in The Technomancer?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 71 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. Dropping to Medium at the same resolution yields 55 FPS, while High produces 47 FPS and Ultra drops to 37 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K resolution in The Technomancer?

A: Barely, and only at lower settings. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 26 FPS, Medium averages 20 FPS with a minimum of 17 FPS, High drops to 17 FPS, and Ultra falls to 13 FPS. None of these are smooth by modern standards, though the Low preset is technically playable if you tolerate severe frame pacing issues.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B370 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The Arc B370's only benchmark score is 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. Its nearest rival is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 at 1186, which is 0.2% faster. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 scores 1190 (0.5% faster), the AMD Radeon HD 7650M scores 1192 (0.7% faster), and the AMD FirePro M2000 scores 1168 (1.4% slower). The GPU ranks in the 5th percentile of all tested GPUs.

Q: What CPU benchmarks does the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 have?

A: The CPU scores 32924 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4648 in single-core. In Cinebench R20 it scores 13828 multi-core and 1952 single-core. PassMark multi-thread is 38706 and single-thread is 4394. Its average benchmark score is 48995, placing it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for the frame rates seen in this game?

A: The GPU is clearly the bottleneck. The Arc B370 has only 1280 shading units, 40 TMUs, 20 ROPs, and 10 ray tracing cores, with a boost clock of 2400 MHz. Its FP32 performance is 6.144 TFLOPS. The CPU, by contrast, has 14 cores and 14 threads, boosting to 5.10 GHz, and sits near the top of its class. The massive gap between the CPU's 90th percentile rank and the GPU's 5th percentile rank explains why lowering resolution yields significant FPS gains.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the CPU?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 has a launch MSRP of $270. The Intel Arc B370 has no launch MSRP listed in the data.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and the Intel Arc B370 ranks 2603 out of 2825 tested combos for The Technomancer. That places it in the bottom 7.9% of all pairings tested, which is a poor result for a system built around a CPU that individually ranks in the 90th percentile. The discrepancy between the CPU's strong standalone position and the combo's weak rank is entirely attributable to the GPU. The Arc B370's 5th percentile standing among all GPUs drags the entire system down.

To put this in perspective, the CPU's average benchmark score of 48995 sits within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228) and within 0.4% of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196). It is 0.6% ahead of the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698) and 0.8% ahead of the Intel Core i5-14600K (48618). These are all strong processors, and the Core Ultra 5 245 is essentially tied with them in aggregate performance. Yet in The Technomancer, the measured FPS data shows that even the fastest CPU in the world would not rescue this GPU pairing from the bottom tier.

The GPU's nearest rivals are all legacy parts from over a decade ago. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, and AMD Radeon HD 7650M all score within 0.7% of the Arc B370 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. The only slower rival is the AMD FirePro M2000, which is 1.4% behind. This places the Arc B370 squarely in the entry-level integrated graphics territory, which is consistent with its specifications: it is an IGP with system-shared memory, a 25 W TDP, and no dedicated VRAM.

What this means for The Technomancer is straightforward. The game was released in 2016, and its engine does not demand modern hardware, but even a modest game from that era requires more graphics throughput than this GPU provides. The combo rank of 2603 out of 2825 reflects a system that can run the game at low settings and low resolutions, but anything beyond that requires compromise. The data shows a clear pattern: as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, average FPS drops by roughly half or more at every settings preset, confirming that the GPU is the sole constraint.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake-S architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache configuration includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, and it uses the Intel Socket 1851.

In The Technomancer, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The game is not known for extreme CPU demands, and the Core Ultra 5 245's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and single-core score of 4648 indicate ample headroom. The PassMark multi-thread score of 38706 and single-thread score of 4394 further confirm that this processor can handle the game's logic without breaking a sweat. Data compression (400942) and encryption (30236) scores are irrelevant to gaming, but the floating-point math score of 120548 and integer math score of 91187 suggest strong arithmetic throughput that benefits game physics and AI.

The lack of hyperthreading (14 cores, 14 threads) is worth noting, but for a game from 2016, that is unlikely to matter. The Technomancer was built for the era of quad-core processors, so the Ultra 5 245 provides vastly more parallel execution resources than the game can utilize. The 24 MB shared L3 cache is generous, and the 5.10 GHz boost clock ensures that single-threaded performance, which often dictates minimum frame rates in older games, is more than sufficient.

The evidence from the measured FPS data supports this assessment. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 71 FPS. When the resolution is increased to 2560x1440 with the same Low settings, FPS drops to 47, and at 3840x2160 it falls to 26. These drops are consistent with a GPU-limited scenario, because the CPU's workload does not change significantly with resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain roughly constant across resolutions. Instead, the halving of FPS as pixel count quadruples (from 1080p to 4K) is a textbook GPU limitation pattern.

The CPU's percentile rank of 90 versus the GPU's percentile rank of 5 creates an extreme imbalance. In many gaming builds, a 90th percentile CPU paired with a 50th percentile GPU would still yield a decent combo rank. Here, the GPU is so weak that the CPU's contribution is essentially wasted. The benchmark results indicate that the Core Ultra 5 245 is never the limiting factor in any measured configuration for The Technomancer.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture across three resolutions and four settings presets. Beginning at 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 71 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. The Medium preset averages 55 FPS with a minimum of 47 and a maximum of 63. High averages 47 FPS, and Ultra averages 37 FPS. These numbers show a linear progression: each step from Low to Medium to High to Ultra costs roughly 16-18% performance, which is typical for a game of this era.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts downward significantly. Low averages 47 FPS, Medium averages 36 FPS with a minimum of 30 and a maximum of 41, High averages 31 FPS, and Ultra averages 24 FPS. Comparing to 1080p, the 1440p Low preset (47 FPS) is roughly equivalent to the 1080p High preset (47 FPS), and the 1440p Medium (36 FPS) falls between 1080p High (47 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (37 FPS). This indicates that moving from 1080p to 1440p costs approximately one full settings tier of performance.

At 3840x2160, the results become marginal. Low averages 26 FPS, Medium averages 20 FPS with a minimum of 17 and a maximum of 23, High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages 13 FPS. The 4K Low preset (26 FPS) is actually slower than the 1440p Ultra preset (24 FPS), which demonstrates that the pixel count increase from 1440p to 4K is more punishing than the settings increase from Low to Ultra at the same resolution. This is consistent with a GPU that has only 20 ROPs and a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s.

The minimum FPS data is sparse, but the Medium preset at each resolution provides some insight. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 47 FPS, which is above the 30 FPS threshold often considered the minimum for playability. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 30 FPS, right at that threshold. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 17 FPS, which is well below acceptable. These minimums indicate that frame pacing becomes increasingly erratic as resolution climbs, likely due to the GPU's limited fill rate and bandwidth (system shared memory, system dependent bandwidth).

The delta between Low and Ultra settings is consistent across resolutions. At 1080p, Low (71 FPS) to Ultra (37 FPS) is a 48% reduction. At 1440p, Low (47 FPS) to Ultra (24 FPS) is a 49% reduction. At 4K, Low (26 FPS) to Ultra (13 FPS) is a 50% reduction. This uniformity suggests that the game's settings presets scale geometrically in terms of GPU workload, and the Arc B370 responds predictably to that scaling.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by Intel. It has 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster output units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. The base clock is 300 MHz and the boost clock is 2400 MHz. Its FP32 performance is 6.144 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 12.29 TFLOPS (2:1). The pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s.

Critically, this GPU has no dedicated VRAM. Its memory size, type, and bus width are all listed as "System Shared," meaning it relies on the system's DDR5 memory through the CPU's dual-channel bus. Memory bandwidth is "System Dependent," which in this configuration with the Core Ultra 5 245 is 102.4 GB/s. That bandwidth is shared with the CPU, so under load, the GPU competes with the processor for memory access.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places the Arc B370 in the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all ATI and AMD parts from the early 2010s, which puts its performance level in historical context. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186) and ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190) are within 0.5% of its score, while the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192) is 0.7% faster. The AMD FirePro M2000 (1168) is 1.4% slower. These are all discrete GPUs with dedicated VRAM, yet the Arc B370's integrated design with shared memory roughly matches their performance.

In The Technomancer, the GPU's limitations manifest directly in the measured FPS. The 20 ROPs and 48 GPixel/s pixel rate are the primary constraints at higher resolutions, which is why 4K performance collapses to single digits at Ultra settings. The 40 TMUs and 96 GTexel/s texture rate are similarly limiting for texture-heavy scenes, though the game's 2016 visuals do not demand extreme texture throughput.

The 25 W TDP and IGP form factor mean this GPU is designed for laptops or compact systems, not for gaming at high resolutions. The lack of a power connector and the "Portable Device Dependent" display outputs reinforce this positioning. Yet the data shows that even at 1080p, the GPU cannot maintain 60 FPS at Medium settings (55 FPS average), and only reaches 71 FPS at Low. For a game released in 2016, this is a poor result, but it is consistent with the GPU's 5th percentile standing.

The system-shared memory is another factor. With no dedicated VRAM, the Arc B370 must use the same 102.4 GB/s DDR5 bandwidth as the CPU. In The Technomancer, which likely requires several gigabytes of video memory at higher settings, this shared bandwidth becomes a bottleneck. The 1080p Medium minimum FPS of 47 and the 1440p Medium minimum of 30 suggest that memory bandwidth contention causes occasional stutters, while the 4K Medium minimum of 17 indicates severe bandwidth starvation.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience for this combo is at 1920x1080 with Low settings, which delivers an average of 71 FPS. This is the only configuration in the entire dataset that exceeds 60 FPS, and it provides the smoothest gameplay. The Low preset at 1080p is the recommended starting point for anyone using this hardware in The Technomancer.

If you prefer Medium settings, 1080p Medium averages 55 FPS with a minimum of 47 FPS. This is still playable, and the 47 FPS minimum means you will rarely experience frame drops below 45 FPS. The visual improvement from Low to Medium is likely worth the 16 FPS average loss for many players, especially in an Action RPG where character models and environments benefit from higher texture quality.

At 1440p, the only viable option is Low settings, which averages 47 FPS. This is smooth enough for most players, though the 47 FPS average means occasional dips below 40 FPS are likely. 1440p Medium averages 36 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS, which is borderline. If you can tolerate 30 FPS minimums, it might be acceptable, but the frame pacing will not be consistent. 1440p High (31 FPS) and Ultra (24 FPS) are not recommended.

4K resolution is not recommended for this combo. Even at Low settings, the average FPS is 26, which falls below the 30 FPS threshold for playability. Medium drops to 20 FPS, High to 17 FPS, and Ultra to 13 FPS. None of these are acceptable for an Action RPG that requires responsive combat. If you must play at 4K, the only option is Low, and even then, expect sub-30 FPS performance with visible stuttering.

The sweet spot is clearly 1080p Low or Medium. The data shows that the GPU's 20 ROPs and shared memory architecture cannot handle higher resolutions without significant FPS drops. The CPU's strong performance ensures that the game's logic and physics are never the bottleneck, so the settings recommendations are purely GPU-driven. For the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, 1080p Medium (55 FPS average, 47 FPS minimum) is the optimal choice. For maximum smoothness, 1080p Low (71 FPS) is the safest bet.

A final note on Ultra settings: at 1080p Ultra, the combo averages 37 FPS, which is technically playable but not ideal. The 37 FPS average suggests the GPU is working at its limit, and any complex scene with multiple enemies or particle effects will likely cause drops. Given that 1080p Medium provides 18 more FPS on average, the visual difference between Medium and Ultra in The Technomancer is unlikely to justify the performance cost. Stick with Medium for this hardware.