Thief

Thief, a 2014 stealth title, exhibits pronounced performance scaling when paired with the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER. The measured frame rates reveal a system where the GPU becomes the dominant constraint as resolution increases, while the CPU provides sufficient headroom at lower settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS data to show how the component balance shifts across the three primary resolutions and four quality presets.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear and predictable pattern of frame rate degradation as resolution climbs from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 98.6 FPS at 1080p to 65.8 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 32.8 FPS. Moving to 4K at High settings yields 43 FPS, which represents a further drop of 22.8 FPS from the 1440p result. This scaling behavior indicates that the rendering load is scaling heavily with pixel count, a hallmark of GPU-bound performance.

The scaling factor from 1080p to 4K at High settings is a 56.4% reduction in frame rate (from 98.6 to 43 FPS). This is a substantial decline, suggesting that the RTX 2070 SUPER is being pushed to its limits at 4K. The transition from 1440p to 4K incurs a 34.7% performance penalty at High settings, while the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 33.3%. These consistent percentage drops across resolution steps point to a system where the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary limiting factors, rather than any CPU-side bottleneck.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling is less severe in absolute terms but still significant. The average FPS goes from 128.2 at 1080p to 112.2 at 1440p, and finally to 71.9 at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K at Low settings is 40.3 FPS, which is a 35.9% reduction. This indicates that even with reduced graphical fidelity, the pixel throughput demands at 4K overwhelm the GPU. The fact that Low settings at 4K (71.9 FPS) still beats High settings at 1440p (65.8 FPS) shows that the quality preset has a substantial impact on the rendering pipeline, but the resolution remains the dominant variable for frame rate.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the clear performance driver in this configuration. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, it provides 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. This bandwidth is critical for feeding the shading units at higher resolutions. The GPU’s base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 2560 shading units, produce a peak FP32 performance of 9.062 TFLOPS. The data suggests that at 1080p, this compute capacity is sufficient to maintain high frame rates, but at 4K, the pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s becomes a bottleneck.

The benchmark results for the GPU show a Passmark G3D score of 18169, placing it in the 65th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307, which is 0.5% higher, while the AMD Radeon RX 5700 trails by 2.5% with a score of 21670. These comparisons indicate that the RTX 2070 SUPER holds its own against contemporary competitors, but its 4K performance in Thief is constrained by its memory subsystem and raw compute throughput. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is likely insufficient to avoid texture fetch stalls at 4K Ultra settings, where the average frame rate falls to 36.4 FPS.

The GPU’s memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, effective 14 Gbps, which is standard for the GDDR6 generation. In Thief, the VRAM capacity of 8 GB is not likely to be exceeded at any of the tested settings, as the game’s release date of 2014 predates the massive texture budgets of modern titles. Therefore, the performance scaling is more about bandwidth and compute than capacity. The GPU’s 160 texture units and 64 ROPs, with a texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s, handle the game’s geometric and texture detail well at 1440p, but the 4K results show a clear drop-off that aligns with the GPU’s 65th percentile standing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 provides the processing foundation for this system. With 6 cores and 12 threads, it offers a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The Zen 2 architecture, built on a 7 nm process, delivers strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124. The CPU’s 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain data locality for game logic and draw calls. The multi-threaded capabilities are also solid, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15045.

In Thief, the CPU’s role is likely secondary to the GPU, but it still matters for maintaining consistent frame times. The Passmark single-thread score of 2562 and the 3DMark single-thread score of 696 indicate that the CPU can handle the game’s main thread without becoming a limiting factor. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 4605 shows that even under heavy multi-threaded loads, the CPU has ample headroom. The Ryzen 5 3600 sits in the 76th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18129. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-11400, scores 18150, a delta of -0.1%, meaning the Ryzen 5 3600 is essentially tied with it.

The CPU’s 65 W TDP and boost clock of 4.20 GHz suggest that it can sustain high clocks without thermal throttling, which is crucial for maintaining the frame rates seen at 1080p Low settings (128.2 FPS). At this resolution, the CPU is more likely to be a co-contributor to performance, as the GPU has excess capacity. However, at 4K, the CPU’s influence diminishes, as the frame rate is clearly limited by the GPU’s ability to render pixels. The data shows no signs of CPU bottlenecking, as the frame rates scale consistently with resolution, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest performance across all settings. The Low preset yields 128.2 FPS, Medium produces 116.2 FPS, High achieves 98.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 97 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is minimal at just 1.6 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are not heavily taxing the GPU at this resolution. The gap from Low to Ultra is 31.2 FPS, indicating that quality settings have a moderate impact at 1080p.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. Low settings produce 112.2 FPS, Medium hits 90.5 FPS, High reaches 65.8 FPS, and Ultra yields 67.3 FPS. Notably, Ultra slightly outperforms High at this resolution, which is an anomaly in the data. This could be due to the specific rendering paths for certain effects, but the difference is only 1.5 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings is 25.7 FPS, a 22.1% reduction, which is less severe than the High preset’s 33.3% drop.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the limiting component. Low settings manage 71.9 FPS, Medium drops to 50.6 FPS, High falls to 43 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 36.4 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is a 35.5 FPS difference, which is substantial. The Medium preset at 4K (50.6 FPS) is just above the 1440p High result (65.8 FPS), showing that resolution has a larger impact than a single quality tier step. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 40 FPS, making it the most demanding setting in the tested matrix.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1440p Ultra settings?

A: The average frame rate at 2560x1440 with Ultra settings is 67.3 FPS. This is slightly higher than the High preset at the same resolution, which averages 65.8 FPS, a 1.5 FPS difference.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: In Passmark G3D benchmarks, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER scores 18169. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307, which is 0.5% higher. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 scores 21670, putting it 2.5% lower than the RTX 2070 SUPER.

Q: Does the Ryzen 5 3600 bottleneck the system at 1080p?

A: The data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 128.2 FPS, and the CPU’s single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2124) is sufficient to keep up. The frame rate scaling with resolution suggests the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: What is the largest performance gap between settings at 4K?

A: The largest gap at 3840x2160 is between Low and Ultra settings. Low averages 71.9 FPS, while Ultra averages 36.4 FPS, resulting in a 35.5 FPS difference. This indicates that Ultra settings nearly halve the frame rate compared to Low at 4K.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER’s memory bandwidth affect 4K performance?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER has 448.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. At 4K Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 36.4 FPS, suggesting that this bandwidth, combined with the 113.3 GPixel/s pixel rate, is insufficient to maintain higher frame rates at this resolution.

Q: What is the percentile ranking of the CPU and GPU in their respective benchmark pools?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 ranks in the 76th percentile among all CPUs, while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks in the 65th percentile among all GPUs. The CPU’s higher percentile reflects its stronger relative standing in synthetic benchmarks compared to the GPU.