Thief

Thief launched as a stealth title back in 2014, long before either piece of this pairing existed — so the interesting question is not whether an Intel Core i7-12700K and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 can run it, but by how large a margin they clear the bar. The measured data answers that plainly: every resolution and every preset tested stays above the 60 FPS playability threshold except one, and even that lone exception, 4K Ultra, misses by only a handful of frames at 55.5 average FPS. What follows is a resolution-by-resolution breakdown of the measured numbers, an analysis of which component actually limits this game, and guidance on the settings that make sense at each pixel count.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset contains average frame rates for four presets — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — across 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160, with min and max frame rates not recorded for any configuration. Starting at 1080p, the numbers are emphatic. Low averages 197 FPS, Medium 179.2, High 148, and Ultra 141.6. The spread from lowest to highest preset is just over 55 FPS, which is a modest penalty given the visual gap between Low and Ultra; the RTX 4070 barely breaks stride rendering this game at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the averages settle but remain high: Low hits 171.4, Medium 133.2, High 99.5, and Ultra 94.6. Note how close High and Ultra remain — under five frames separate them — suggesting the heaviest post-processing effects in this title cost relatively little once the resolution tax is paid.

At 3840x2160, the demands finally register. Low still averages 106.1 FPS, Medium 79.2, and High 60.8 — a hair above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra dips to 55.5 average FPS, the single sub-60 result in the entire dataset. The verdict data confirms this: High is flagged as the best playable setting at 4K, and Ultra is correctly excluded from the playable list at that resolution.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling pattern between resolutions tells a clear story about where the bottleneck sits. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra costs 47 FPS (141.6 down to 94.6); moving from 1440p to 4K costs another 39.1 (94.6 down to 55.5). That steep, roughly proportional decline as pixel count rises is the signature of a GPU-limited scenario, which makes sense: a 2014 stealth game poses minimal simulation load for a 12-core, 20-thread Alder Lake CPU.

There is a hint of a CPU ceiling at the low-settings end, though. At 1080p Low the system averages 197 FPS, and at 1440p Low, 171.4 — a smaller proportional drop than the Ultra column shows over the same resolution jump. When lowering settings stops buying proportional frame rate, something other than the GPU is imposing a limit. Even so, the i7-12700K's credentials — a single-thread Passmark score of 4013, a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1850.5, and a Geekbench single-core score of 2308 — indicate more per-core throughput than this game era typically knows how to use. In practice, the RTX 4070 does the heavy lifting at 1440p and 4K, while the CPU's role is mostly to stay out of the way at 1080p, which it does without issue.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run Thief at 4K with max settings?

A: Not quite. 4K Ultra averages 55.5 FPS, just under the 60 FPS playability threshold. Dropping one preset to High restores an average of 60.8 FPS, clearing the bar.

Q: What is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo?

A: 197 FPS average, at 1920x1080 on the Low preset. At that setting the system is likely approaching a limit other than pure GPU rendering capacity.

Q: Is 1440p Ultra playable?

A: Yes, comfortably. The measured average is 94.6 FPS — nearly 35 frames above the threshold — and every other 1440p preset is playable too, from 99.5 at High up to 171.4 at Low.

Q: How much does resolution cost at Ultra settings?

A: Going from 1080p to 1440p drops the Ultra average from 141.6 to 94.6 FPS, and 4K lowers it further to 55.5 FPS. The decline is consistent with GPU-bound scaling.

Q: Does the CPU hold this game back?

A: The data shows no evidence of a meaningful CPU limitation. Frame rates scale strongly with resolution and preset, which points to the GPU as the governing component. The i7-12700K sits in the 84th percentile versus all CPUs in the database.

Q: What settings does the database recommend at each resolution?

A: High at 3840x2160 (60.8 FPS), Ultra at 2560x1440 (94.6 FPS), and Ultra at 1920x1080 (141.6 FPS).

Similar Performance Alternatives

On the CPU side, the i7-12700K's average benchmark score of 35287 places it in a tight cluster of rivals. The Intel Core i5-13600T scores 35305, a delta of just -0.1 percent; the i7-12700KF sits at 35365 (-0.2 percent); the Core i7-13700T at 35403 (-0.3 percent); and the Core 5 213PE at 35428 (-0.4 percent). Any of these processors would deliver effectively identical performance in Thief, a game where the CPU is far from the limiting factor.

The GPU alternatives are more heterogeneous. The RTX 4070's average score of 37648 is nearly matched by the NVIDIA Tesla P4 at 37628 (0.1 percent delta) and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 at 37507 (0.4 percent). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile averages 38135 (-1.3 percent) and the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 sits at 37157 (1.3 percent). Given that Thief's performance on this pairing is GPU-bound at higher resolutions, a swap to any of these similarly scored cards would be expected to reproduce broadly similar frame rates, with the RTX 4080 Mobile trending marginally ahead and the PRO W6400 marginally behind.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding playable preset is Ultra, averaging 141.6 FPS — more than double the threshold, leaving enormous headroom. At 2560x1440, Ultra again clears the bar with an average of 94.6 FPS, roughly 58 percent above the threshold. At 3840x2160, Ultra falls short at 55.5 FPS average, so the best playable preset steps down to High, which averages 60.8 FPS. That 4K result is worth watching: it passes, but barely, and any background overhead or demanding scene could push dips below 60. Players who prioritize consistency over pixel density may find 1440p Ultra the sweet spot of this dataset.

The Verdict

Yes — this PC runs Thief, decisively. At 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, all four presets are playable, with best settings of Ultra at 141.6 and 94.6 average FPS respectively. At 3840x2160, three of four presets clear 60 FPS — Low at 106.1, Medium at 79.2, and High at 60.8 — with Ultra the sole exception at 55.5. For a game released in 2014 running on an Ada Lovelace GPU and an Alder Lake CPU, the only genuine decision the data forces is at 4K: accept a marginal 60.8 at High, or step down in resolution for a fully comfortable margin.

How This Combo Ranks

Within this game's database, the i7-12700K + RTX 4070 combination ranks 661 out of 3720 tested combos. That places it comfortably in the upper portion of the field — fewer than one in five combos outrank it — which aligns with the component-level percentiles: the CPU sits in the 84th percentile versus all CPUs and the GPU in the 81st versus all GPUs. Given the measured frame rates, it's reasonable to infer that the combos ranking higher are concentrated at the high-resolution, high-preset end of the results table. For Thief specifically, the ranking reflects surplus performance rather than a borderline result: this pairing ranks highly and still has headroom to spare at every resolution except 4K Ultra.