Thief

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 paired with the Intel Arc B390 produces a highly constrained gaming experience in Thief, with the measured data showing that the graphics adapter is the dominant bottleneck across all tested configurations. The combination ranks in the 11th percentile of tested combos, indicating that this pairing is not well suited for the game’s demands, but the data still reveals a clear optimal path for users who must run this hardware.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the Low preset at 1920x1080 delivers the only consistently fluid experience, with an average frame rate of 86 FPS. This is the single highest score recorded in the entire dataset and represents a 30% improvement over the next best measured configuration, which is Low at 2560x1440 with 59 FPS. For users prioritizing playability, this is the definitive choice.

The Medium preset at 1920x1080 achieves 66 FPS average, with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 75 FPS. This is a viable alternative for those who want slightly better visual fidelity without sacrificing too much smoothness, as the average remains above the 60 FPS threshold. However, the jump from Low to Medium costs 20 FPS, which is a substantial 23% performance penalty for what is likely a modest visual upgrade in a 2014 title.

At High settings, 1920x1080 drops to 50 FPS average, which is below the ideal smoothness target. The Ultra preset at 1920x1080 yields 48 FPS, barely lower than High, suggesting that the GPU is already saturated at this resolution and the extra settings overhead is minimal. The data shows a clear pattern: each step up the settings ladder at 1080p is met with diminishing returns, and the GPU’s limited compute resources are the limiting factor.

At 2560x1440, the numbers are more dire. Low produces 59 FPS, which is technically playable but leaves no headroom. Medium drops to 45 FPS, and High and Ultra sit at 34 and 33 FPS respectively. None of these configurations are recommended for a smooth experience, as even the best 1440p result is only 3 FPS above the 1080p High score.

At 3840x2160, all settings produce unplayable results. Low averages 35 FPS, Medium 26 FPS, and both High and Ultra fall below 20 FPS. The 4K data reveals that this combination is fundamentally incapable of handling the resolution, regardless of how far the settings are reduced.

The optimal experience is clearly Low at 1920x1080, where the 86 FPS average provides the best balance of smoothness and responsiveness. Medium at 1080p is a reasonable secondary choice for users who accept the 23% performance drop for improved visuals, but any higher settings or resolutions result in frame rates that fall below acceptable thresholds.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2534 out of 2851 tested combos in Thief. This places the pairing in the bottom 11% of all tested configurations, indicating that it is far from optimal for this title. The rank is a direct consequence of the GPU’s severe performance limitations, as the CPU is a relatively capable part on its own.

The Intel Arc B390’s benchmark data shows why this combo struggles. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 places it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all low-end parts from over a decade ago. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX scores 1463, which is 1.3% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce 800M scores 1460, which is 1.5% slower. The GT 625 OEM and GT 710 are 2.5% and 2.7% slower respectively. This places the Arc B390 in the same performance class as entry-level GPUs from 2011-2014, which explains its inability to handle Thief at higher resolutions.

In contrast, the Ryzen 5 5600 is a far more capable component. Its average benchmark score of 20468 places it in the 74th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V at 20454 (0.1% slower), the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G at 20425 (0.2% slower), and the AMD EPYC 9454P at 20422 (0.2% slower). The CPU is clearly not the bottleneck in this pairing, as its performance class is significantly higher than the GPU’s.

The combo rank of 2534 out of 2851 reflects the GPU’s dominance in determining overall gaming performance. Even with a strong CPU, the Arc B390’s 9th percentile GPU ranking drags the entire combination down. The data suggests that this pairing would perform similarly with a much weaker CPU, as the GPU is already the limiting factor at every resolution and setting tested.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings for this combination?

A: The best measured result is Low at 1920x1080, which produces an average FPS of 86. This is the only configuration that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, and it outperforms all other settings and resolutions in the dataset.

Q: Can this combination run Thief at 4K?

A: No, the data shows that all 3840x2160 settings produce unplayable frame rates. Low averages 35 FPS, Medium averages 26 FPS, and both High and Ultra fall to 20 and 19 FPS respectively, which are far below acceptable thresholds.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At Low settings, the drop is from 86 FPS at 1920x1080 to 59 FPS at 2560x1440, which is a 31% reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 66 FPS to 45 FPS, a 32% reduction. This indicates the GPU is heavily taxed by the additional pixel count.

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 the bottleneck in this system?

A: No, the CPU is significantly more capable than the GPU. The Ryzen 5 5600 has an average benchmark score of 20468, placing it in the 74th percentile of all CPUs. The Intel Arc B390, by contrast, ranks in the 9th percentile of GPUs, making it the clear performance limiter.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Arc B390’s 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482 is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, 1.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce 800M, 2.5% higher than the GT 625 OEM, and 2.7% higher than the GT 710. These are all low-end parts, highlighting the GPU’s limited capabilities.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080, Medium averages 66 FPS with a minimum of 56 and maximum of 75. At 2560x1440, the average drops to 45 FPS with a range of 38 to 52. At 3840x2160, the average falls to 26 FPS with a range of 22 to 30.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 86 FPS, which is the best result in the entire test suite. Medium follows at 66 FPS average, with a measured minimum of 56 FPS and maximum of 75 FPS. High drops to 50 FPS average, and Ultra is only marginally lower at 48 FPS. The narrow gap between High and Ultra at this resolution suggests that the GPU is already running at its limits, and the additional Ultra settings have minimal impact on frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly across all settings. Low averages 59 FPS, which is the only 1440p configuration that approaches playability. Medium averages 45 FPS, with a minimum of 38 and maximum of 52. High falls to 34 FPS, and Ultra sits at 33 FPS. The pattern here shows a consistent 30-35% performance penalty compared to 1080p at the same settings, which is expected given the increase in pixel count from 2.1 million to 3.7 million.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Low averages 35 FPS, Medium averages 26 FPS with a minimum of 22 and maximum of 30, High averages 20 FPS, and Ultra averages 19 FPS. The 4K pixel count of 8.3 million is more than double that of 1440p, and the GPU simply lacks the raw throughput to maintain playable frame rates at this resolution. The data shows a clear linear relationship between resolution and performance, with each step up causing a proportional drop in average FPS.

The settings scaling at each resolution follows a consistent pattern. From Low to Medium, there is a 23% drop at 1080p, a 24% drop at 1440p, and a 26% drop at 4K. From Medium to High, the drop is 24% at 1080p, 24% at 1440p, and 23% at 4K. High to Ultra produces the smallest changes, with only 4% at 1080p, 3% at 1440p, and 5% at 4K. This indicates that the Ultra preset adds little visual benefit relative to its performance cost, while the Medium preset represents the last step before significant frame rate degradation.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data shows a clear and predictable relationship between resolution and frame rate, with the GPU being the dominant factor in performance scaling. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 reduces the average FPS by 31% at Low settings, from 86 to 59. At Medium settings, the drop is 32%, from 66 to 45. At High, the drop is 32%, from 50 to 34, and at Ultra, the drop is 31%, from 48 to 33. This consistent 31-32% reduction across all settings indicates that the GPU is the limiting component, as the additional pixel count directly translates to proportional frame rate loss.

The scaling from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is even more severe. At Low settings, the average drops from 59 to 35 FPS, a 41% reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 45 to 26 FPS, a 42% reduction. At High, the drop is from 34 to 20 FPS, a 41% reduction, and at Ultra, the drop is from 33 to 19 FPS, a 42% reduction. The increasingly steep penalty at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU is operating well beyond its comfortable range.

The data reveals that the Arc B390 has a practical resolution ceiling around 1080p. At this resolution, the GPU can deliver acceptable frame rates at Low and Medium settings. At 1440p, the GPU is clearly struggling, with only the Low preset managing to stay above 50 FPS. At 4K, the GPU is completely overwhelmed, with even the lowest settings failing to reach 40 FPS.

The resolution scaling pattern also indicates that the CPU is not a limiting factor in this scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller performance differences between resolutions, as the CPU workload remains relatively constant while the GPU workload increases. The consistent 31-32% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and the even larger 41-42% drop from 1440p to 4K, suggests that the GPU is being pushed to its absolute limits at every resolution.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, manufactured on a 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU’s benchmark results show it is a capable part, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 18309 and a single-core score of 2584. Its PassMark multithread score of 21541 and single-thread score of 3256 further reinforce its mid-range positioning.

In the context of Thief, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU. The game was released in 2014, and its threading requirements are modest by modern standards. The Ryzen 5 5600’s 6 cores and 12 threads provide ample compute capacity for the game’s AI, physics, and game logic, and the measured frame rates are consistently GPU-limited across all resolutions and settings.

The CPU’s performance percentile of 74 places it well above the GPU’s 9th percentile, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V at 0.1% slower, the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G at 0.2% slower, and the AMD EPYC 9454P at 0.2% slower. This indicates that the CPU is not the weak link in this pairing. The data shows that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data at 1080p, where frame rates reach 86 FPS, but the GPU’s limited shading units and texture units prevent higher performance.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR4 with a 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for this game, and its PCIe Gen 4 interface provides adequate bandwidth for the GPU. The 65 W TDP suggests efficient power usage, but this is not a factor in the measured gaming performance. The CPU’s role in Thief is to provide a stable platform for the GPU, and benchmark results indicate it does so without becoming a bottleneck at any tested configuration.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor designed for mobile platforms, based on the Xe3-LPG architecture and manufactured on a 3 nm process. It has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units, with 12 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, with a pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s.

The GPU’s memory configuration is entirely system-dependent, with shared memory that has no dedicated bandwidth or bus width. This is a significant limitation, as the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory access, and the effective bandwidth is dependent on the system’s DDR4 configuration. The GPU’s FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS is modest, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 1482 places it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs.

The data shows that the Arc B390 is the primary bottleneck in this system. Its nearest rivals in benchmark performance include the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX at 1.3% slower, the NVIDIA GeForce 800M at 1.5% slower, and the GT 625 OEM and GT 710 at 2.5% and 2.7% slower respectively. These are all entry-level parts from the early 2010s, which contextualizes the GPU’s performance class as being roughly equivalent to a low-end discrete GPU from over a decade ago.

The GPU’s limitations are clearly visible in the measured frame rates. At 1080p, the GPU can manage 86 FPS at Low settings, but this drops to 66 FPS at Medium and 50 FPS at High. The GPU’s 24 ROPs and 48 TMUs are insufficient for higher resolutions, as evidenced by the sharp performance drops at 1440p and 4K. The 4K results, where even Low settings only achieve 35 FPS, highlight the GPU’s inability to handle high pixel counts.

The GPU’s TDP of 80 W and IGP form factor indicate it is designed for power efficiency rather than raw performance, and its DirectX 12 Ultimate support (with 12_2 feature level) ensures API compatibility with modern games, but the hardware is simply not fast enough to take advantage of it. The Arc B390’s performance in Thief is consistently poor, and the data indicates that this GPU is the definitive limiting factor in the combination.