The Technomancer

The Technomancer is a 2016 Action RPG that still puts up a fight on modern hardware. This combo pairs the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 with the AMD Radeon RX 6600, and the measured data shows a system that lands at rank 2193 out of 2825 tested combos for this game. That places it in the lower-middle portion of the field, meaning it is not a top-tier performer here, but it is far from the bottom. The CPU is a strong component in general terms, sitting in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU is more modest, ranking in the 63rd percentile among all GPUs. The gap between those two components is the defining story of this pairing in The Technomancer.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2193 out of 2825 tested combinations places this system in the 22nd percentile of all tested configurations for this game. That is a below-average result, and the data suggests the GPU is the primary reason. The RX 6600 is an end-of-life product from the Radeon RX 6000 series, built on the Navi 23 chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture. Its average benchmark score of 19036 puts it in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA Quadro K6000 (deltaPct 0), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile (deltaPct -0.1), the NVIDIA Tesla K20m (deltaPct -0.3), and the NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation (deltaPct 0.4). Those are extremely tight margins—within 0.4 percent—so the RX 6600 is effectively trading blows with a range of workstation and mobile parts.

The CPU, by contrast, is a far more capable piece of hardware. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 has an average benchmark score of 64640, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD EPYC 4464P (deltaPct -0.3), the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (deltaPct 0.3), the AMD EPYC 7343 (deltaPct 0.7), and the AMD EPYC 9124 (deltaPct -0.7). Again, the performance deltas are minimal, but the absolute level is high. This is a desktop part that should not be the bottleneck in a game like The Technomancer, which is an older title with modest CPU demands. The data confirms this: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 130 FPS, which is well beyond what a CPU-limited scenario would show. The bottleneck is clearly the GPU, and that drags the overall combo rank down.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is the limiting factor in this pairing. It has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That is a modest memory configuration by modern standards, and The Technomancer's settings scale heavily with GPU load. The GPU’s base clock is 1626 MHz, with a game clock of 2044 MHz and a boost clock of 2491 MHz. Memory runs at 1750 MHz, which translates to 14 Gbps effective. The chip has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with 28 ray tracing cores. Pixel rate is 159.4 GPixel/s and texture rate is 279.0 GTexel/s, while FP32 performance is 8.928 TFLOPS.

In The Technomancer, the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for the measured settings, but the compute power is what holds performance back. At 4K Ultra, the combo manages only 24 FPS average, which is unplayable. Dropping to 4K High improves that to 31 FPS, and 4K Medium hits 36 FPS. Only at 4K Low does it reach 47 FPS, which is still below the 60 FPS target most players want. The GPU’s relative standing among rivals is telling: it sits within 0.4 percent of the NVIDIA Quadro K6000, a much older workstation card, and the RTX 2000 Ada Generation. This is not a GPU that can push high resolutions in demanding titles, and The Technomancer’s results reflect that.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on Arrow Lake architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration and a memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. It uses Intel Socket 1851 and has a TDP of 65 W. The integrated graphics are Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 32EU, though those are irrelevant for gaming with a discrete GPU.

In The Technomancer, the CPU is never the constraint. The game is from 2016, and its threading demands are far below what this processor offers. Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42216 and single-core score of 5960 confirm strong all-around performance. Passmark multi-thread score of 49682 and single-thread score of 4689 reinforce this. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU has the least work, the combo reaches 130 FPS. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would see that number plateau regardless of GPU load. Instead, the FPS scales directly with resolution and settings, which is a classic sign of GPU limitation. The CPU is effectively idle in this game, waiting for the GPU to catch up.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings levels each. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low averages 130 FPS, Medium averages 100 FPS with a minimum of 85 and maximum of 115, High averages 85 FPS, and Ultra averages 67 FPS. These numbers show a clear progression—each step up in settings costs roughly 15-20 percent performance. The gap from Low to Ultra is 63 FPS, which is a 48 percent drop. This is a healthy scaling curve that gives players room to tune for their preferred balance.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly. Low averages 85 FPS, Medium averages 65 FPS with a minimum of 56 and maximum of 75, High averages 56 FPS, and Ultra averages 44 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is substantial: Low goes from 130 to 85 FPS, a 35 percent reduction. Medium goes from 100 to 65 FPS, a 35 percent reduction. High goes from 85 to 56 FPS, a 34 percent reduction. Ultra goes from 67 to 44 FPS, a 34 percent reduction. The consistency of that ~35 percent drop across all settings indicates the GPU is being taxed uniformly by the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the results become marginal. Low averages 47 FPS, Medium averages 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 and maximum of 41, High averages 31 FPS, and Ultra averages 24 FPS. From 1440p to 4K, the drops are: Low from 85 to 47 FPS, a 45 percent reduction; Medium from 65 to 36 FPS, a 45 percent reduction; High from 56 to 31 FPS, a 45 percent reduction; Ultra from 44 to 24 FPS, a 45 percent reduction. Again, the scaling is uniform, but the absolute values are too low for comfortable play. Only Low at 4K comes close to 50 FPS, and even that is below the 60 FPS target.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. Moving from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 35 percent of performance across all settings. Moving from 1440p to 4K costs roughly 45 percent of performance across all settings. The fact that these percentages are nearly identical regardless of whether the game is running at Low or Ultra settings is a strong indicator that the GPU is the sole limiting factor. If the CPU were involved, we would expect to see smaller percentage drops at lower settings, because the GPU would have less work and the CPU might become a factor. Instead, the scaling is uniform, which is the signature of a pure GPU-bound scenario.

The RX 6600 has 8 GB of VRAM and 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. At 4K, the pixel count increases four-fold from 1080p, and the GPU simply runs out of compute throughput. The 47 FPS at 4K Low versus 130 FPS at 1080p Low demonstrates this: a 64 percent reduction in performance for a 4x increase in pixels. The GPU is not bandwidth-limited in this case—it is shader-limited. The 1792 shading units are insufficient for the workload at high resolutions. The CPU, with its 20 cores and 5.30 GHz boost, is never close to being a factor. The data shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can hit 100+ FPS at Medium settings and 85 FPS at High.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured rows, the best experience for this combo in The Technomancer is at 1920x1080 with Medium settings. That configuration yields an average of 100 FPS, with a minimum of 85 and maximum of 115. That is a smooth, responsive experience that stays well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides headroom for dips. High settings at 1080p drop to 85 FPS average, which is still playable, but the jump from Medium to High costs 15 FPS, and the visual difference in a 2016 title may not justify it. Ultra at 1080p drops to 67 FPS, which is still above 60, but it is the first setting level that approaches the edge of comfort.

At 2560x1440, the situation changes. Low settings give 85 FPS, which is acceptable, but Medium drops to 65 FPS, and High drops to 56 FPS. For a 1440p monitor, the recommendation is to stick with Low or Medium, depending on whether frame rate or visual quality is the priority. Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot if you can tolerate occasional dips to 56 FPS. High at 1440p is borderline, and Ultra at 44 FPS is not recommended.

At 3840x2160, no setting level is truly comfortable. Low gives 47 FPS, Medium gives 36 FPS, High gives 31 FPS, and Ultra gives 24 FPS. Even Low is below the 60 FPS target, and the game will feel stuttery. The only scenario where 4K makes sense is if you are willing to accept 30 FPS as a playable target, in which case Low settings at 4K are the only option that approaches that. For most players, the practical advice is to stay at 1080p, where the combo delivers a solid 100 FPS at Medium, and reserve 1440p for less demanding settings. The GPU is simply not capable of delivering a consistent 60 FPS at 4K in this title, regardless of settings. The CPU has more than enough headroom to support any of these configurations, but the RX 6600 caps the experience.