Thief

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Thief with the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 show a pronounced scaling pattern as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 147.8 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded across the entire test matrix. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 123.4 FPS, a reduction of approximately 16.5%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 76.7 FPS, which represents a 48% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as pixel count rises, since the CPU has more headroom at lower resolutions.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all four quality presets. For High settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p reduces frame rates from 105.9 FPS to 71.9 FPS, a 32% drop. The jump from 1440p to 4K High brings the average down to 41.4 FPS, another 42% reduction. Ultra settings follow a similar trajectory: 101 FPS at 1080p, 71.3 FPS at 1440p, and 40.2 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset shows the same shape, with 135.1 FPS at 1080p, 95.2 FPS at 1440p, and 59.8 FPS at 4K.

The data reveals that the gap between 1080p and 1440p is substantial, but the gap between 1440p and 4K is even larger in relative terms. This suggests the RTX 4060's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth are being taxed heavily at 4K, where the game's asset streaming and texture throughput demands increase dramatically. At 1080p, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads can keep the GPU fed more consistently, which is why the frame rates remain high even at Ultra settings. At 4K, the GPU's shading units and ROPs become the bottleneck, and the frame rate collapses to near 40 FPS on the highest presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, containing 18,900 million transistors on a 159 mm² die. Its base clock runs at 1830 MHz with a boost clock of 2460 MHz, and the memory operates at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective) across a 128-bit bus, yielding 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, 48 ROPs, 24 RT cores, and 96 tensor cores, with a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is rated at 15.11 TFLOPS.

In Thief, the GPU's performance directly correlates with the preset selected. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 135.1 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra it drops to 101 FPS. This 34 FPS difference highlights how the game's Ultra preset increases shader complexity and draw calls, which the RTX 4060 handles with less headroom at higher settings. The GPU's 48 ROPs appear to be a limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the average frame rate is 40.2 FPS, barely above the 41.4 FPS seen at 4K High. The similarity between High and Ultra at 4K suggests that the GPU is saturated regardless of the preset, and the extra visual features on Ultra are not meaningfully reducing performance further because the GPU is already at its limit.

The RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p across all presets, but at 4K Ultra the data shows the frame rate dropping to 40.2 FPS. This indicates that the VRAM capacity and bandwidth are becoming constraints, as the game's textures at 4K may exceed the available memory, forcing the GPU to manage data more inefficiently. The benchmark scores for the GPU place it at the 66th percentile among all GPUs, with a Passmark G3D score of 19545. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, scores 23321, which is 0.6% higher, while the Intel Arc B580 scores 23021, 0.7% lower. These close deltas indicate the RTX 4060 sits in a competitive mid-range segment for this game.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 908th out of 1642 tested combos for Thief, placing it in the 55th percentile of all system pairings. This mid-pack ranking reflects that while the individual components are capable, the overall performance is not exceptional for this specific title. The CPU alone sits at the 79th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 20875. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12500, scores 20897, a delta of -0.1%, meaning the Ryzen 5 5500 is effectively tied with that chip. The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE also scores 20900, again 0.1% higher, while the AMD EPYC 7J13 scores 20845, 0.1% lower.

The GPU's percentile ranking is lower at 66%, with an average benchmark score of 23181. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti scores 23338, which is 0.7% higher, and the AMD Radeon 760M scores 22999, 0.8% lower. These tight margins in the GPU benchmarks suggest that the RTX 4060 is not significantly ahead of its immediate rivals in raw compute, which may explain why the combo's rank in Thief is not higher. The measured frame rates show that at 1080p Ultra, the combo reaches 101 FPS, which is playable but not exceptional for a modern graphics card. The rank of 908 out of 1642 indicates that many other CPU-GPU pairings deliver better performance in this game, likely due to combinations with higher-end GPUs or CPUs with better single-thread performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this combo in Thief?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 147.8 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 76.7 FPS on Low, 59.8 FPS on Medium, 41.4 FPS on High, and 40.2 FPS on Ultra settings.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested systems for Thief?

A: The combo ranks 908th out of 1642 tested combinations, placing it in the middle of the distribution.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 has an average benchmark score of 20875, which is 0.1% lower than the Intel Core i5-12500's score of 20897.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What frame rate difference exists between 1080p and 1440p at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 105.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 71.9 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 34 FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture with the Cezanne codename. It operates on the AMD Socket AM4 platform with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. The CPU has a 65 W TDP and features 64 KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 16 MB of L3 cache. It supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth and uses PCIe Gen 3.

In Thief, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 147.8 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra it drops to 101 FPS. The 46.8 FPS difference between these presets suggests that the CPU can sustain high frame rates when the GPU's workload is lighter, but the Ultra preset increases GPU demands enough to bring overall performance down. The CPU's single-thread performance, measured at 836 in 3DMark single-thread and 2319 in Cinebench R23 single-core, indicates it can handle the game's main thread adequately.

The 12 threads provide enough parallelism for Thief's multi-threaded tasks, as shown by the Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429. However, the CPU's performance relative to rivals is close: the Intel Core i5-12500 scores 20897 in average benchmarks, just 0.1% higher than the Ryzen 5 5500's 20875. This near-tie means the CPU is not a differentiator in this combo's ranking. The CPU's 79th percentile score among all processors suggests it is a solid mid-range choice, but its 3.60 GHz base clock and 4.20 GHz boost clock are not exceptional for gaming workloads. The data indicates that at 4K resolutions, the CPU's influence diminishes significantly, as the GPU becomes the limiting factor, evidenced by the frame rates dropping below 60 FPS on High and Ultra presets.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 offers the most compelling measured result. At 135.1 FPS, this setting provides nearly 90% of the performance of Low settings (147.8 FPS) while delivering a significantly better visual experience. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p costs 29.2 FPS, bringing the average down to 105.9 FPS, which is still smooth but begins to sacrifice headroom. Ultra at 1080p drops to 101 FPS, a marginal 4.9 FPS penalty over High, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional features are relatively inexpensive at this resolution.

At 1440p, the Medium preset delivers 95.2 FPS, which is a strong result for a 2560x1440 display. High settings at this resolution yield 71.9 FPS, which is playable but noticeably lower, while Ultra drops to 71.3 FPS, essentially identical to High. The data shows that at 1440p, the GPU is becoming more constrained, and the difference between High and Ultra is only 0.6 FPS, meaning players can enable Ultra without a meaningful performance penalty. Low at 1440p reaches 123.4 FPS, so if frame rate is the priority, that preset is viable, but the visual compromise is significant.

For 4K, the recommendation is more nuanced. Low settings produce 76.7 FPS, which is the only 4K preset that maintains a comfortable frame rate. Medium drops to 59.8 FPS, which is borderline for smooth gameplay, and High and Ultra fall to 41.4 FPS and 40.2 FPS respectively, which are below the threshold for responsive play. The data indicates that 4K gaming with this combo requires Low settings to stay above 60 FPS, and even then, the margin is thin. For players with a 4K display, the tradeoff between visual fidelity and playability favors Low settings unless the user is willing to accept sub-60 FPS performance on Medium. At 1080p and 1440p, Medium is the recommended preset for the best experience, as it balances the GPU's capabilities with the game's visual demands.