The Technomancer

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 3373rd out of 3696 tested combinations in The Technomancer. This places the combo in the bottom 9% of all tested systems, a position that clearly indicates the graphics card is the dominant limiting factor. The data shows a pairing of a top-tier modern processor with an end-of-life graphics solution, resulting in a system that struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination's rank of 3373 out of 3696 combos is decisively in the lower quartile of performance. This is not a marginal shortfall; it represents a fundamental imbalance where the GPU bottleneck prevents the CPU from demonstrating its capability. In benchmark terms, the RX 580 sits at the 53rd percentile among all GPUs, while the Core Ultra 7 265K sits at the 94th percentile among all CPUs. This 41-percentage-point gap in relative standing is the defining characteristic of this pairing.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 12928 places it within 0.4% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER and 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon 740M. These are the closest performance rivals, and the RX 580's standing among them reinforces its mid-range classification. Meanwhile, the CPU's average benchmark score of 70879 puts it 1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and 1.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F, showing it is competitive with recent high-end desktop processors. The result in this game, however, is entirely dictated by the weaker component.

The measured frame rates confirm this analysis. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 76 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire measured set that approaches a high-refresh experience. Every other setting and resolution combination falls short of 60 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 14 FPS, a figure that is effectively unplayable. The rank reflects this reality: a system that can only deliver smooth performance at the lowest settings and resolution is going to sit at the bottom of a database filled with more balanced configurations.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of running The Technomancer at 60 FPS?

A: Only at 1080p with Low settings, where the average FPS is 76. At 1080p Medium, the average drops to 58 FPS, and at High, it falls to 50 FPS. No other resolution or setting combination reaches 60 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 580's average benchmark score of 12928 is 0.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, 0.4% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, and 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon 740M. These are near-identical performance levels.

Q: What is the best resolution and setting for this combo?

A: The data indicates 1080p Low is the only playable configuration, delivering 76 FPS. At 1440p Low, the average drops to 50 FPS, and at 4K Low, it falls to 27 FPS. For a smoother experience, 1080p Medium at 58 FPS is the highest quality option that remains above 50 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its rivals?

A: The Core Ultra 7 265K scores 70879 on average, which is 1% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700KF and 1.3% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F. It trails the Intel Xeon 6511P by 0.2% and the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 by 0.7%.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The data suggests the opposite. The GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions. For instance, moving from 1080p Low (76 FPS) to 4K Low (27 FPS) results in a 64% performance drop, indicating that the GPU's rendering capacity is exhausted long before the CPU's processing limits are reached.

Q: What is the worst performing configuration in the measured data?

A: The 4K Ultra setting produces an average of 14 FPS, which is the lowest figure recorded. The 4K High setting is only marginally better at 18 FPS. Both are well below the threshold for smooth gameplay.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a steep and predictable decline as resolution increases, confirming that the RX 580's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 76 at 1080p to 50 at 1440p, a 34% drop, and then to 27 at 4K, a further 46% drop from the 1440p figure. This pattern is consistent with a GPU that has a 256-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which becomes increasingly saturated as pixel count rises.

At High settings, the scaling is similar but starts from a lower base: 50 FPS at 1080p, 33 FPS at 1440p (a 34% drop), and 18 FPS at 4K (a 45% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the GPU is operating at its architectural limits rather than being impacted by any specific setting toggle. The 8 GB of GDDR5 memory is not the issue here; the 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 193.0 GTexel/s texture rate are simply insufficient for higher resolutions.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings shows a 64% reduction in average FPS (76 to 27). This is a massive hit that points directly at the GPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively flat as resolution increases because the CPU would be maxed out regardless of pixel count. Instead, the frame rate nearly halves at each resolution step, which is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario. The Core Ultra 7 265K, with its 20 cores and 20 threads, is not being taxed by this 2016 Action RPG; it is waiting on the RX 580 to finish each frame.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. With Low settings, the average FPS is 76, which is the only configuration to exceed 60 FPS. Medium settings produce 58 FPS on average, with a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 67. High settings yield 50 FPS, while Ultra settings drop to 39 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 37 FPS, showing that the quality presets have a significant impact at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance degrades noticeably. Low settings average 50 FPS, which is exactly the same as 1080p High. Medium settings average 38 FPS, with a range of 32 to 44. High settings drop to 33 FPS, and Ultra falls to 25 FPS. The difference between the lowest and highest presets at this resolution is 25 FPS, a narrower spread than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is approaching its limits even on Low.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable. Low settings average 27 FPS, Medium averages 21 FPS (with a range of 18 to 24), High averages 18 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is only 13 FPS, which is the smallest of all resolutions. This compressed range shows that the GPU is so heavily saturated that even reducing quality settings cannot free up enough headroom to meaningfully increase frame rates. The minimum recorded FPS in the entire dataset is 18 at 4K Medium, while the maximum is 67 at 1080p Medium.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the decisive component in this pairing. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p but becomes a liability at higher resolutions. The GPU's base clock is 1257 MHz with a boost clock of 1340 MHz, and it features 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s are the metrics that directly impact The Technomancer's rendering load.

The GPU's percentile rank of 53 places it squarely in the middle of all GPUs, and its benchmark scores confirm this. The Passmark G3D score of 8813 and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1005 are modest figures. The DirectX 11 score of 60 and DirectX 12 score of 43 from Passmark indicate that the card performs slightly better under older API workloads, which is relevant for a game released in 2016. The GPU's GCN 4.0 architecture supports DirectX 12 with feature level 12_0, but the performance is not strong enough to leverage this in a demanding scenario.

The data shows that the GPU's 8 GB memory capacity is not the limiting factor; even at 4K Ultra, the VRAM is likely sufficient for this game's textures. Instead, the compute throughput is the issue. The 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the same for FP16, indicating no half-rate advantage. This is a mid-range card from 2017, and the measured FPS reflects its age. The 53rd percentile ranking and the average benchmark score of 12928, which is nearly identical to the GTX 1660 SUPER, put it in a performance class that cannot drive The Technomancer at high settings beyond 1080p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a high-end processor that is vastly overqualified for this GPU pairing. It has 20 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The CPU's L3 cache is 30 MB shared, and it supports DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 35850 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2020 in single-core, placing it at the 94th percentile among all CPUs.

The CPU's nearest rivals are all high-performance parts: the Intel Xeon 6511P (0.2% slower), the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (0.7% slower), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (1% faster), and the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (1.3% faster). These deltas are tiny, showing that the 265K is competitively positioned at the top of the desktop CPU market. The average benchmark score of 70879 is more than five times higher than the GPU's average score, which quantitatively illustrates the imbalance.

In The Technomancer, the CPU's role is minimal. The game, released in 2016, does not require 20 threads, and the frame rate data confirms that the CPU is never the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the CPU could theoretically push more than 76 FPS, but the GPU cannot render frames fast enough to saturate the CPU's capabilities. The CPU's boost clock of 5.50 GHz is more than sufficient for the game's single-threaded tasks, and its multi-core performance is entirely untapped. The data suggests that this processor would pair far better with a modern GPU, but in this configuration, its potential is wasted.