Thief

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Thief with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER reveal a clear progression as resolution climbs. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 153.8 FPS, but stepping up to 1440p drops that to 109.5 FPS, and 4K further reduces it to 60.7 FPS. This scaling pattern—a roughly 40% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and another 45% drop to 4K—indicates that the rendering load is scaling aggressively with pixel count.

The High settings curve tells a similar story: 91.9 FPS at 1080p, 61.8 FPS at 1440p, and 37.6 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K here is particularly steep, a 39% reduction, which suggests the GPU is becoming the dominant constraint as pixel throughput demands increase. At 1080p High, the system maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, but at 4K High it falls well below that threshold, landing at 37.6 FPS.

Looking at the Ultra settings, the pattern holds: 87.7 FPS at 1080p, 57.9 FPS at 1440p, and 36.6 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 1440p Ultra is 34%, while the 1440p-to-4K transition costs another 37%. This consistent scaling behavior indicates that Thief's engine responds predictably to resolution changes, with the RTX 2060 SUPER's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus becoming increasingly stressed as resolution rises.

The Low-to-Ultra spread at each resolution also highlights the GPU's headroom. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 66.1 FPS, while at 4K that spread narrows to 24.1 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions is classic GPU-bound behavior—when the pixel fill rate saturates, settings adjustments yield diminishing returns. The data suggests that for smooth 4K play, users would need to drop to Medium settings (49 FPS) or accept the Low preset's 60.7 FPS, which remains the only 4K configuration that clears the 60 FPS mark.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER sits at the center of this performance picture, built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip manufactured on TSMC's 12 nm process. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves critical for Thief's texture-heavy environments at higher resolutions. The GPU's 2176 shading units and 64 ROPs handle the rasterization workload, while its base clock of 1470 MHz and boost of 1650 MHz provide the raw compute throughput—7.181 TFLOPS FP32—that drives the frame rates seen in the measured data.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 63rd percentile among all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19774. Its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, which scores 19680 (a 0.5% delta), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN at 19706 (0.3% ahead). This clustering indicates the RTX 2060 SUPER performs within a tight band of its contemporaries, and the Thief results reflect this positioning—it delivers playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p across all settings, but struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K except on the Low preset.

The memory subsystem deserves particular attention. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 36.6 FPS, and the 8 GB frame buffer likely becomes a limiting factor as resolution increases texture and geometry data demands. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while respectable for the era, shows strain when the engine pushes high-detail assets across 3840x2160 pixels. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 16462 and DirectX 12 score of 61 provide context—Thief, released in 2014, uses DirectX 11 primarily, and the GPU's DirectX 11 score of 130 indicates strong legacy API performance that aligns with the measured results.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database's tested combinations, the Ryzen 5 5600 plus RTX 2060 SUPER pairing ranks 1136th out of 1642 combos for Thief specifically. That places it in the lower-middle tier of the overall distribution, which is somewhat surprising given the individual components' respectable benchmark standings. The CPU ranks in the 79th percentile among all processors, and the GPU sits at the 63rd percentile, yet their combined performance in this title lands them in roughly the 31st percentile of combos.

This ranking gap suggests that Thief may not fully utilize the strengths of either component. The game's 2014 release date predates the architectural efficiencies of Zen 3 and Turing, and the measured frame rates—while solid at lower resolutions—don't push the combo into higher territory. The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Core i7-11700F, which scores 21957 versus the Ryzen's 21765 average (a 0.9% delta), and the AMD EPYC 9534 at 21900 (0.6% ahead). These margins are small, indicating the CPU is well-matched to its peers, yet the Thief combo ranking suggests the game's engine doesn't translate that synthetic strength into proportional frame rate gains.

The GPU's rival comparison reinforces this: the RTX 2060 SUPER's average benchmark score of 19774 sits just 0.5% above the RTX 2070's 19680, yet in Thief, the measured results show the GPU capable of 153.8 FPS at 1080p Low—a strong absolute number. The combo rank of 1136 out of 1642 means 506 other combinations outperform it in this specific title, which speaks more to the game's age and optimization priorities than to any deficiency in the hardware itself.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 2060 SUPER deliver their strongest results. The Low preset achieves 153.8 FPS, Medium reaches 119.5 FPS, High produces 91.9 FPS, and Ultra settles at 87.7 FPS. Every setting at this resolution clears the 60 FPS threshold with substantial headroom, making 1080p the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate displays. The difference between Low and Ultra is 66.1 FPS, which represents a 43% performance penalty for maximum visual fidelity—a reasonable trade-off given the game's age.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain playable but the margin shrinks. Low produces 109.5 FPS, Medium drops to 81.1 FPS, High manages 61.8 FPS, and Ultra falls to 57.9 FPS. The Ultra setting dips just below 60 FPS, indicating that 1440p with full settings will require some compromises for smooth gameplay. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 51.6 FPS, a 47% reduction, showing that the resolution increase amplifies the cost of higher settings.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low yields 60.7 FPS—barely above the 60 FPS target—while Medium drops to 49 FPS, High falls to 37.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 36.6 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra narrows to 24.1 FPS, a 40% penalty, but the absolute numbers mean that only the Low preset offers a consistent 60 FPS experience. For 4K gaming, users will need to choose between visual quality and frame rate, with Medium offering a compromise at 49 FPS that may be acceptable for slower-paced stealth gameplay.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 provides the computational foundation for this combo, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture with the Vermeer codename. Its base clock of 3.50 GHz boosts to 4.40 GHz, and the 32 MB shared L3 cache helps feed the GPU with game data. The CPU's synthetic benchmark results are strong: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 18309, single-core reaches 2584, and 3DMark tests show 5641 for 16 threads and 882 for single-thread performance. These numbers place the CPU in the 79th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 21765.

In Thief, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but at 1080p it provides enough headroom to keep the GPU fed. The 1080p Low result of 153.8 FPS suggests the CPU can sustain high frame rates without bottlenecking, as the 12 threads handle the game's AI, physics, and scene management. The PassMark multithread score of 21541 and integer math score of 68396 indicate strong general-purpose compute that benefits the game's simulation layers.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the database include the Intel Xeon D-1746TER (average score 21635, just 0.6% behind) and the AMD EPYC 9554P (21899, 0.6% ahead). These tight margins show the Ryzen 5 5600 performs in line with its peers, but Thief doesn't appear to be a CPU-intensive title—the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K tracks almost entirely with GPU load. At 4K, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are unlikely to be the limiting factor; the 37.6 FPS at High settings reflects GPU saturation rather than CPU constraint. The 65 W TDP and DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth round out a platform that delivers consistent, if not spectacular, results in this 2014 stealth title.