Thief

# Thief with AMD Ryzen 5 5500 + Intel Arc B370

The combination of an AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and an Intel Arc B370 delivers playable frame rates in Thief only at 1080p with Low or Medium settings, with the measured data showing a hard ceiling of 78 FPS at 1080p Low and a steep drop-off as resolution increases. This pairing ranks 2634th out of 2851 tested combinations in this game, placing it in the bottom 8% of all CPU-GPU pairings, which aligns with the Arc B370's 5th percentile standing among all GPUs and the Ryzen 5 5500's 73rd percentile among all CPUs. The bottleneck is overwhelmingly the graphics solution; the CPU has ample headroom, evidenced by the fact that frame rates nearly halve when moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings, a pattern that points directly at GPU-limited rendering.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent and severe penalty as resolution climbs from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 78 FPS at 1920x1080 to 53 FPS at 2560x1440, a 32% reduction, and then to 31 FPS at 3840x2160, which is a 60% drop from the 1080p baseline. This scaling behavior indicates that the Intel Arc B370's fill rate and memory bandwidth—both of which are system-dependent or shared with the CPU—become the limiting factor almost immediately when pixel count increases.

The Medium preset tells a similar story: 59 FPS at 1080p, 41 FPS at 1440p (a 31% decline), and 24 FPS at 4K (a 59% decline from 1080p). The High preset shows 45 FPS at 1080p, 31 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K. Even Ultra, which only reaches 43 FPS at 1080p, falls to 29 FPS at 1440p and 17 FPS at 4K. The uniformity of these percentage drops across all four settings levels—roughly 30% from 1080p to 1440p and another 50% from 1440p to 4K—is a textbook signature of a GPU-bound scenario where the rendering pipeline stalls on pixel throughput rather than geometry or CPU logic.

What the data does not show is any evidence of CPU-related scaling plateaus. If the Ryzen 5 5500 were the constraint, we would expect to see frame rates at 1080p Low (78 FPS) to be much closer to those at 1080p Ultra (43 FPS), since lower settings reduce GPU load and expose CPU limits. Instead, the spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 35 FPS, which is substantial and confirms that the GPU is the primary limiter even at the lowest resolution. The 4K results—31 FPS at Low and 17 FPS at Ultra—demonstrate that the Arc B370 simply cannot maintain real-time performance at this resolution, regardless of how much load is taken off the GPU by lowering quality settings.

FAQ

Q: Is this CPU-GPU combo sufficient for 1080p gaming in Thief?

A: Yes, but only at Low or Medium settings. The measured data shows 78 FPS at 1080p Low and 59 FPS at 1080p Medium, both of which clear standard 60 FPS targets. High settings drop to 45 FPS, and Ultra falls to 43 FPS, which are playable but below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B370 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which is 0.2% behind the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186), 0.5% behind the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190), and 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192). It is 1.4% ahead of the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168).

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: The measured average is 41 FPS, with a minimum of 35 FPS and a maximum of 47 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold but may be acceptable for a stealth game where reaction time is less critical.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5500 a strong CPU for this game?

A: The CPU is not the limiting factor in this combination. It scores 16429 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2319 in single-core, and its 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates it has enough compute headroom. The frame rate drops between resolutions are far too large to be CPU-related.

Q: Does lowering settings from Ultra to Low help at 4K?

A: It helps, but not enough to make 4K playable. At 4K, Ultra averages 17 FPS, while Low averages 31 FPS. That is an 82% improvement, but 31 FPS is still below smooth playability, and the game will feel stuttery.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 5500 compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 5500 has an average benchmark score of 19593, which is 0.1% below the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 (19617), 0.4% below the Intel Core i5-12500 (19668), 0.5% above the Intel Core i7-10700F (19499), and 0.7% below the Intel Core i5-11600KF (19723).

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is the decisive component in this pairing, and its specifications explain why the measured frame rates are so low. The GPU has a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz, but its memory configuration is listed as "System Shared" with "System Dependent" bandwidth, meaning the GPU has no dedicated VRAM of its own. This forces the Arc B370 to compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth on the same bus, which in this setup is the Ryzen 5 5500's dual-channel DDR4 at 51.2 GB/s. For a game like Thief that loads textures and geometry continuously, this shared-memory arrangement is a severe handicap.

The GPU's compute resources are also modest: 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 render output units. The pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s, figures that align with the low FPS observed at higher resolutions. The FP32 throughput is 6.144 TFLOPS, and the FP16 rate is 12.29 TFLOPS (2:1). These numbers place the Arc B370 at the 5th percentile among all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all over a decade old: the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, AMD Radeon HD 7650M, and AMD FirePro M2000. The deltaPct values against these rivals are all within 1.4%, meaning the Arc B370 is effectively in the same performance class as those legacy parts.

In Thief specifically, the GPU's role is to handle the game's lighting and shadow calculations, which are computationally intensive for a 2014 title. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the average is 78 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. But as soon as the pixel count increases, the GPU's limited ROP count (20) and shared memory bandwidth become the bottleneck. The 4K results—18 FPS at High, 17 FPS at Ultra, 24 FPS at Medium, 31 FPS at Low—indicate that the Arc B370 cannot render Thief's full-resolution lighting at 4K under any settings. The GPU's 25 W TDP and IGP form factor (integrated graphics for a portable device) further underscore that this is not a discrete gaming GPU, despite the "Arc" branding.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the best experience in Thief with this hardware is at 1920x1080 with Medium settings. This preset produces an average of 59 FPS with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS, which means the game will stay above 50 FPS for the vast majority of gameplay. The Medium preset at 1080p is the only configuration that reliably approaches 60 FPS while still providing some visual fidelity beyond the lowest settings. Low settings at 1080p do achieve 78 FPS, but this comes at the cost of reduced texture detail and shadow quality, which are integral to Thief's stealth atmosphere.

At 2560x1440, the data suggests that only Low settings (53 FPS) are worth considering, as Medium drops to 41 FPS and High falls to 31 FPS. The 1440p Medium result of 41 FPS is playable but will feel less smooth, and the minimum of 35 FPS indicates occasional dips that could be noticeable during fast movement or combat. For 4K, no setting is recommended for a good experience; even Low averages 31 FPS, which is below the standard for smooth gameplay, and Ultra drops to 17 FPS, which is effectively a slideshow.

The recommendation is therefore to use 1080p Medium as the primary target. If a player prioritizes frame rate over visuals, 1080p Low at 78 FPS is the smoothest option available. The step from Medium to High at 1080p costs 14 FPS (from 59 to 45), which is a 24% penalty for incremental quality gains. The step from High to Ultra costs only 2 FPS (from 45 to 43), indicating that Ultra at 1080p is not meaningfully more demanding than High but also not meaningfully better for the frame rate. In practice, the measured data supports 1080p Medium as the sweet spot because it provides the best balance of playability and visual quality, with a 50 FPS floor that avoids the worst stutters.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range was measured. Low settings produce the highest average at 78 FPS, followed by Medium at 59 FPS (min 50, max 68), High at 45 FPS, and Ultra at 43 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 19 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 14 FPS, and the gap between High and Ultra is just 2 FPS. This shows diminishing returns at the top end: the game's Ultra preset is not significantly more demanding than High, but neither preset delivers a 60 FPS average.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 53 FPS for Low, 41 FPS for Medium (min 35, max 47), 31 FPS for High, and 29 FPS for Ultra. The 1440p Medium result is the only one with min/max data in this resolution, showing a 12 FPS range between the minimum and maximum, which indicates some scene-to-scene variance. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 30% across all settings, meaning the GPU is scaling predictably with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 31 FPS for Low, 24 FPS for Medium (min 20, max 27), 18 FPS for High, and 17 FPS for Ultra. The 4K Medium result shows a narrow 7 FPS range, which suggests the GPU is consistently hitting its performance ceiling rather than fluctuating with scene complexity. The difference between High (18) and Ultra (17) at 4K is negligible, confirming that the GPU is fully saturated at this resolution regardless of settings.

The overall pattern across resolutions is a near-linear scaling with pixel count. From 1080p to 1440p (a 1.78x increase in pixels), frame rates drop by about 30% to 35%. From 1440p to 4K (a 2.25x increase in pixels), frame rates drop by another 40% to 45%. This is consistent with a GPU that is limited by raw pixel throughput rather than any other factor.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Cezanne), manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz, with 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel mode with a theoretical bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, which is the same memory subsystem the Arc B370 must share for its "System Shared" memory. This sharing is a critical interaction: the CPU's memory bandwidth is not particularly high for a modern desktop part, and splitting it between the CPU and GPU can exacerbate the GPU's already weak performance.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 5500 scores 16429 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2319 in single-core, which places it at the 73rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 (delta -0.1%), Intel Core i5-12500 (delta -0.4%), Intel Core i7-10700F (delta +0.5%), and Intel Core i5-11600KF (delta -0.7%). These deltas are all within 0.7%, meaning the Ryzen 5 5500 is competitively positioned against those CPUs in general compute tasks. The CPU's 3DMark scores show strong multi-threading scaling: 5386 at 16 threads, 5411 at max threads, 4593 at 8 threads, 3151 at 4 threads, and 1645 at 2 threads, with a single-thread score of 836. This indicates that the CPU has no trouble feeding multiple threads, which is relevant for a game engine that may use several worker threads for AI, physics, and streaming.

In Thief specifically, the CPU's role is minimal based on the measured data. The frame rate drops from 1080p Low (78 FPS) to 1080p Ultra (43 FPS) demonstrate that the GPU is the bottleneck, because if the CPU were limiting, we would see similar frame rates across settings at the same resolution. The fact that 4K Low (31 FPS) is lower than 1440p Low (53 FPS), which is lower than 1080p Low (78 FPS), shows that the CPU is not the constraint—otherwise, the 1080p Low result would not be so much higher than the 4K Low result. The Ryzen 5 5500's high multi-thread scores (19330 in PassMark multithread, 7976 in Geekbench multicore) suggest it could handle much higher frame rates if paired with a stronger GPU, but with the Arc B370, the CPU is effectively idle-waiting on the GPU's rendering pipeline. The measured data indicates that the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are more than sufficient for Thief at all tested settings and resolutions, and the performance ceiling is entirely set by the Intel Arc B370.