The Technomancer

The Technomancer, a 2016 Action RPG, presents an interesting case study in hardware scaling. When paired with the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER, the data reveals a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions, while the 24-core CPU provides ample headroom for the game's engine. The measured frame rates across different presets and resolutions show a clear hierarchy of performance, making it possible to identify the optimal balance between visual fidelity and smooth gameplay.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to play The Technomancer with this hardware combo?

A: Based on the measured FPS, 2560x1440 on High settings is the sweet spot, delivering an average of 61 FPS. This provides a high-resolution experience that is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, unlike 3840x2160, where even Low settings only achieve 51 FPS.

Q: How much of a performance drop should I expect when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: The data shows a significant drop. For example, at High settings, the average frame rate falls from 93 FPS at 1920x1080 to 61 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 34 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a reduction of roughly 63% from 1080p to 4K, indicating the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher pixel counts.

Q: Is the RTX 2060 SUPER capable of running the game at Ultra settings?

A: The benchmark data shows that Ultra settings are only playable at 1920x1080, where it averages 73 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset drops to 48 FPS, and at 3840x2160, it falls to 26 FPS, which is not a smooth experience for an action RPG.

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

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has an average benchmark score of 93,785. This places it essentially on par with the Intel Xeon 6520P, which has a deltaPct of 0. It is slightly ahead of the AMD EPYC 4564P, which is -1.5% slower, and the AMD EPYC 9175F, which is -1.9% slower.

Q: What is the average frame rate difference between Low and High settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset yields an average of 93 FPS, while the High preset yields 61 FPS. This represents a 32 FPS difference, or a 34% performance cost for the improved visual quality of the High preset.

Q: Does the game's performance scale well with the GPU's capabilities?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER's benchmark percentile places it at 62 out of 100, and its score is very close to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile, which is only 0.4% faster. The measured FPS in The Technomancer reflects this mid-range positioning, with the card providing solid 1080p performance but struggling to maintain high frame rates at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is the primary driver of The Technomancer's visual output, but its role is heavily dependent on the chosen resolution. The card is built on the 12 nm Turing architecture and features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. Its base clock of 1470 MHz and boost clock of 1650 MHz dictate its peak compute capacity, which the game's engine appears to utilize fully, especially at higher resolutions.

In this combo, the GPU is the limiting factor at 3840x2160. The data shows a clear progression where the average FPS at 4K High is 34, which is less than half of the 73 FPS achieved at 1080p Ultra. This bottleneck is further illustrated by the frame time data at 4K Medium, where the average FPS is 39, with a minimum of 33 and a maximum of 45. This narrow range suggests that the GPU is consistently saturated, and frame rate is dictated by its raw processing power rather than any single setting.

The GPU's performance relative to its peers reinforces this analysis. Its average benchmark score of 18,093 places it in the 62nd percentile of all GPUs. It is marginally slower than the AMD Radeon Pro 5700, which is 0.5% faster, and the AMD Radeon RX 460, which is 1.5% faster. This positioning indicates that while it is a competent card for 1080p and 1440p gaming, its capabilities are exceeded by the demands of 4K in The Technomancer. The VRAM capacity of 8 GB is sufficient for the game, as no out-of-memory issues are indicated in the data, allowing the card to focus on its compute and fillrate limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The overall performance of this specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is ranked 2001 out of 2825 tested combos for The Technomancer. This places it in the lower-mid range of tested systems, which is surprising given the CPU's high performance. The 24-core processor is not the limiting factor, as its benchmark scores are impressive, but rather the pairing with a GPU that, while capable, is not top-tier for this game.

This ranking is more a reflection of the GPU's constraint than a failure of the CPU. The data suggests that this combo is balanced for 1440p gaming, where it can achieve playable frame rates, but it falls behind other combos that likely feature more powerful graphics cards. The percentile ranking of the GPU at 62, compared to the CPU's 96th percentile, highlights this imbalance. The system is effectively a high-end CPU held back by a mid-range GPU, making it a solid choice for 1080p and a good option for 1440p, but not a high-end 4K machine.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at how the system performs across different settings and resolutions.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the system is clearly GPU-bound. The average frame rates are as follows:

• Ultra: 26 FPS
• High: 34 FPS
• Medium: 39 FPS (min 33, max 45)
• Low: 51 FPS

These numbers show that even dropping to Low settings cannot push the frame rate to a consistently smooth 60 FPS. The 4K resolution demands a level of pixel throughput that the RTX 2060 SUPER cannot deliver, making this resolution unsuitable for a fluid gaming experience.

At 2560x1440 (1440p), the system finds a more comfortable performance envelope:

• Ultra: 48 FPS
• High: 61 FPS
• Medium: 71 FPS (min 61, max 82)
• Low: 93 FPS

Here, the High preset achieves a playable 61 FPS, and the Medium preset provides an even better balance with an average of 71 FPS, ensuring a more consistent experience with its minimum of 61 FPS. This resolution is where the combo's strengths are best utilized.

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the system has ample headroom, and the CPU's power becomes more relevant:

• Ultra: 73 FPS
• High: 93 FPS
• Medium: 109 FPS (min 93, max 126)
• Low: 142 FPS

All presets are playable at this resolution, with even the Ultra preset achieving a solid 73 FPS. The Low preset's 142 FPS shows that the system is not CPU-limited, as the frame rate scales significantly with lower graphical loads.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal experience depends on the user's display resolution.

For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset is the clear choice. With an average of 73 FPS, it provides the highest visual quality while maintaining a frame rate well above the 60 FPS target. The High preset is also excellent, but the extra 20 FPS from the Medium preset is not worth the visual downgrade when Ultra is already so smooth.

For 2560x1440, the High preset is recommended. It achieves an average of 61 FPS, which is the minimum for a smooth experience. The Medium preset offers a more stable frame rate with an average of 71 FPS and a higher minimum of 61 FPS, making it a safer choice for those sensitive to frame drops. However, the visual fidelity of High is preferable, and the 61 FPS average is acceptable for this action RPG.

For 3840x2160, no preset is ideal. The Low preset's 51 FPS is the highest achievable, but it requires a significant sacrifice in visual quality. The Medium preset's 39 FPS average is inconsistent and not smooth enough for a game requiring precise timing. Therefore, the data suggests that a lower resolution is necessary for a good experience with this hardware, making 1440p the maximum recommended resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus plays a supporting role in this combo, providing a robust foundation that ensures it is not the bottleneck in The Technomancer. With 24 cores and 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, this CPU is a high-end desktop processor. Its benchmark scores are exceptional, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 44,253 and a single-core score of 2,439, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs.

The game's engine, being an older title from 2016, is unlikely to utilize all 24 cores effectively. However, the high single-core performance is critical for game logic and physics. The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 142 FPS, a frame rate that is likely constrained by the GPU or game engine's draw call limitations rather than the CPU. This is supported by the fact that the CPU's nearest rivals, such as the Intel Xeon 6520P with a deltaPct of 0, perform similarly, indicating that this level of processing power is more than sufficient for this game. The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support also contribute to smooth data delivery, but the primary performance ceiling is clearly the GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is a textbook example of GPU-bound behavior. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 93 at 1920x1080 to 61 at 2560x1440, a 34% decrease, and then to 34 at 3840x2160, a further 44% decrease. This non-linear scaling is typical when the GPU's fillrate and memory bandwidth become exhausted.

The data indicates that the RTX 2060 SUPER has a pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s. As the resolution increases, the demand on these units grows exponentially. The 4K resolution has 4 times the pixels of 1080p, and the card's inability to keep up is evident. Conversely, the CPU's role becomes less significant as resolution increases, as the frame rate is increasingly dictated by the GPU's rendering speed. The 34 FPS at 4K High is a clear indicator of this limitation. The scaling also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows at higher resolutions, as the GPU is so overwhelmed that the reduced workload from the Low preset still cannot produce a high frame rate. This confirms that for this combo, the GPU is the definitive limiting component at 1440p and 4K, while the CPU provides a stable platform that does not hinder performance.