The Technomancer

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 lands at rank 883 out of 2,825 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places the configuration in the upper third of all tested systems, roughly in the 69th percentile of the tested pool. The ranking reflects a pairing that is clearly capable of high-refresh gameplay at most settings, though not at the absolute top tier where the most extreme combinations reside.

The CPU component itself sits in the 93rd percentile against all tested processors, with an average benchmark score of 63,173. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13790F, scores 63,080, a delta of just 0.1 percent — essentially a statistical tie. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 450G trails by a hair at 63,331 (a -0.2 percent delta from the 265HX's perspective), while the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P185 comes in at 62,839 (0.5 percent slower), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX at 62,738 (0.7 percent slower). The 265HX thus sits in a tight cluster where no rival is more than a fraction behind, indicating that multi-core synthetic workloads will not separate these chips meaningfully.

The GPU, meanwhile, holds the 86th percentile among all tested graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 54,247. Its closest competitor is the RTX 4080 SUPER at 54,209 (0.1 percent ahead), followed by the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at 54,828 (1.1 percent behind the 4080), the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55,698 (2.6 percent behind), and the Radeon 8060S at 55,757 (2.7 percent behind). The RTX 4080 is essentially indistinguishable from the SUPER variant in aggregate performance, which matters for interpreting the measured frame rates in this game.

Within The Technomancer specifically, the combo rank of 883 out of 2,825 suggests that while the hardware is strong, the game's engine does not scale perfectly with this particular pairing. The gap between the CPU's 93rd percentile and the GPU's 86th percentile, combined with the mid-pack combo rank, hints that frame pacing or driver overhead may cap performance below what raw component scores would predict.

# FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average FPS is 214, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 140 at High settings for the same resolution, and 109 at Ultra.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080's average benchmark score of 54,247 is 0.1 percent behind the RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209). This is within measurement noise, meaning the two cards are effectively tied in aggregate compute performance.

Q: Is the Core Ultra 7 265HX faster than the Core Ultra 7 255HX?

A: Yes, but marginally. The 265HX scores 63,173 on average versus 62,738 for the 255HX, a 0.7 percent difference. In practical terms, this will not produce a noticeable frame rate gap in most games.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 164 at 1920x1080 to 107 at 2560x1440, then to 59 at 3840x2160. The 4K figure is 64 percent lower than 1080p, indicating strong GPU scaling pressure.

Q: Does the GPU's VRAM capacity limit performance in this game?

A: The RTX 4080 has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory with 716.8 GB/s bandwidth. The Technomancer, being a 2016 title, does not show evidence of VRAM saturation in the measured data, as frame rates scale smoothly with resolution rather than exhibiting sudden cliffs.

Q: How does the combo's in-game rank compare to its component percentiles?

A: The combo ranks 883 out of 2,825 (roughly 69th percentile), while the CPU is in the 93rd percentile and the GPU in the 86th percentile. The in-game rank is thus lower than either component's synthetic standing, suggesting the game does not fully leverage the hardware's theoretical strengths.

# Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal how The Technomancer scales across resolutions, and the pattern is instructive for identifying the limiting component. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 140 to 92 — a 34 percent reduction. From 1440p to 3840x2160 at High, the average falls further to 50 FPS, a 46 percent drop from the 1440p figure and a 64 percent drop from 1080p.

This scaling behavior is classic GPU-bound performance. At 1080p High, the 140 FPS average suggests the CPU and GPU are both engaged, but the steep declines at higher resolutions point to the graphics card becoming the primary constraint. The RTX 4080's 16 GB memory buffer and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's asset loads, yet the raw throughput required to push 4K pixels at High settings exceeds what the card can sustain above 60 FPS.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more dramatic: 214 FPS at 1080p, 140 FPS at 1440p, and 77 FPS at 4K. The 1440p-to-4K drop of 45 percent indicates that even with reduced graphical load, the GPU remains the bottleneck at 4K. The CPU, with 20 cores and 20 threads, is never the limiting factor in these tests; its boost clock of 5.30 GHz and single-thread performance (a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5,737) provide ample headroom for the game's logic at any resolution.

The Medium settings row is the only one with min/max FPS data recorded. At 1080p Medium, the average is 164 FPS with a min of 139 and max of 189. At 1440p Medium, the average is 107 with a min of 91 and max of 123. At 4K Medium, the average is 59 with a min of 50 and max of 68. The min-to-max spread narrows as resolution increases (50 FPS spread at 1080p, 32 at 1440p, 18 at 4K), which further confirms that frame time variance is dominated by GPU workload rather than CPU stutter.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset for this combo covers three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset yields an average of 214 FPS, Medium 164 FPS (min 139, max 189), High 140 FPS, and Ultra 109 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra costs roughly half the frame rate, with each step from Low to Medium to High to Ultra reducing average FPS by 50, 24, and 31 respectively. The Ultra-to-High gap of 31 FPS is larger than the High-to-Medium gap of 24 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset includes disproportionately expensive effects.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 140 FPS for Low, 107 FPS for Medium (min 91, max 123), 92 FPS for High, and 72 FPS for Ultra. The percentage drops from 1080p are 35 percent for Low, 35 percent for Medium, 34 percent for High, and 34 percent for Ultra. This uniformity suggests that resolution scaling is consistent across settings — the GPU is handling a fixed additional pixel load regardless of quality level.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 77 FPS for Low, 59 FPS for Medium (min 50, max 68), 50 FPS for High, and 39 FPS for Ultra. The 4K-to-1440p drops are 45 percent for Low, 45 percent for Medium, 46 percent for High, and 46 percent for Ultra. The slightly larger percentage drops at 4K (versus the 34-35 percent seen from 1080p to 1440p) indicate super-linear scaling pressure, likely from memory bandwidth constraints as pixel fill demands approach the GPU's 280.6 GPixel/s pixel rate ceiling.

The only preset with complete min/max data is Medium, which shows a consistent pattern: min FPS is roughly 85 percent of average, and max FPS is roughly 115 percent of average, across all three resolutions. This 30 percent spread is typical for a GPU-bound scenario with occasional shader compilation hitches or physics spikes, but the absence of severe dips (min never falls below 50 FPS at 4K) suggests the experience remains stable even at the highest resolution.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing for The Technomancer. Its architecture, Ada Lovelace, is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. The card operates at a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz, with memory clocked at 1400 MHz (22.4 Gbps effective). This translates to 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s.

For a 2016 action RPG, these specifications are far beyond the game's original target hardware. The measured frame rates confirm that the GPU is the primary limiter only at 4K Ultra, where the average drops to 39 FPS. At 1080p and 1440p, the GPU has enough headroom to push well above 60 FPS even at Ultra settings (109 and 72 FPS respectively). The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a game of this era — there is no evidence of texture streaming stalls or memory capacity limits in the min FPS data.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark scores are strong but not class-leading. Its Passmark G3D score of 34,457 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,567 place it in the 86th percentile. The near-tie with the RTX 4080 SUPER (0.1 percent difference) means that the measured FPS in The Technomancer should be representative of that slightly newer card as well. The card's pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s becomes the binding constraint at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS of 39 corresponds to roughly 10.9 billion pixels per second — about 39 percent of the card's theoretical pixel throughput, which is reasonable once shader complexity and overdraw are factored in.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX provides the processing foundation for this combo, and its capabilities far exceed what The Technomancer requires. This 20-core, 20-thread processor is built on Arrow Lake-HX architecture with a 3 nm process from TSMC, featuring 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. The base clock of 2.60 GHz boosts to 5.30 GHz, and the cache hierarchy includes 192 KB L1 per core, 3 MB L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3.

In Cinebench R23, the 265HX scores 40,642 in multi-core and 5,737 in single-core. The single-core score is particularly relevant for gaming, as The Technomancer's engine (released in 2016) likely uses only a handful of threads for game logic. A single-core score above 5,700 ensures that even the most demanding simulation moments will not be CPU-bound. The multi-core score of 40,642 indicates that background tasks or streaming workloads will not interfere with frame pacing.

The CPU's nearest rival, the Core i7-13790F, scores 63,080 on average — just 0.1 percent behind. This effectively means that swapping between these two CPUs would produce no measurable difference in The Technomancer's frame rates. The 265HX's 93rd percentile ranking confirms that it is among the fastest mobile processors available, and its 5.30 GHz boost clock ensures that single-threaded performance is at the top of the range.

For this game specifically, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics data without becoming a bottleneck. The measured data supports this: at 1080p Low, the 214 FPS average is only limited by the GPU's ability to render frames, not by CPU instruction throughput. Even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU drops to 39 FPS, the CPU has ample headroom. The 20 cores and 20 threads (with no hyperthreading) are irrelevant for a game of this era, but they do ensure that the system remains responsive for streaming, recording, or other concurrent workloads.

# Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of which preset offers the best experience at each resolution. The goal is to maintain a playable frame rate while maximizing visual quality, and The Technomancer's presets scale predictably.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 109 FPS on average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Given that the High preset only improves this to 140 FPS, and the visual difference between High and Ultra is typically modest, the Ultra preset is the recommended choice for 1080p. The 109 FPS average leaves enough headroom for dips without falling below 60 FPS, and the GPU's 16 GB memory ensures no texture pop-in.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset drops to 72 FPS, which is still comfortably playable. The High preset offers 92 FPS, a 28 percent improvement, but the visual downgrade from Ultra to High may be noticeable in a game with detailed environments like The Technomancer. For players prioritizing a locked 60 FPS with headroom for 144 Hz displays, High is the safer choice; for those with 60 Hz monitors, Ultra at 72 FPS is acceptable. The Medium preset at 107 FPS (min 91, max 123) provides the most consistent frame pacing if competitive responsiveness is paramount.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes dramatically. The Ultra preset averages 39 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and will feel stuttery in combat. The High preset at 50 FPS is borderline, and the Medium preset at 59 FPS (min 50, max 68) is the minimum viable option for a playable experience. The Low preset at 77 FPS is the only 4K option that consistently exceeds 60 FPS, but the visual quality loss is substantial. For 4K, the Medium preset represents the best balance: it stays near 60 FPS on average, with a minimum of 50 FPS that is unlikely to cause significant disruption, while retaining more visual fidelity than Low.

The data suggests that this combo is best suited for 1440p gaming, where it can run Ultra at 72 FPS or High at 92 FPS with confidence. At 1080p, the hardware is overkill for this 2016 title, and at 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor unless settings are reduced to Medium or lower. The Medium preset's min/max data (50-68 FPS at 4K) confirms that even the recommended setting will see occasional dips below 60 FPS, but these are brief and unlikely to affect gameplay significantly in a story-driven action RPG.