Thief

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 (Cezanne) architecture using TSMC's 7 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, drawing a 65 W TDP. The chip carries 16 MB of L3 cache, with 512 KB of L2 and 64 KB of L1 per core, and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. Its PCIe implementation is Gen 3 with 16 lanes from the CPU.

For a game released in 2014 like Thief, the CPU demands are modest by modern standards, but the data shows this processor is more than sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GPU in most scenarios. The Ryzen 5 5600G achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10551 and a single-core score of 1409, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 8428 and single-core score of 1801. In Passmark's multithread test, it scores 19717, and in single-thread testing it scores 3177.

When placed against its nearest rivals in the broader benchmark database, the Ryzen 5 5600G sits extremely close to several competing parts. The Intel Core i3-1220P posts an average score of 21066, which is just 0.1% lower than the 5600G's average of 21088. The Intel Core Ultra 7 256V scores 21112, placing it 0.1% above the AMD chip. Similarly, the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U scores 21133 (0.2% higher), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 155U scores 21174 (0.4% higher). These margins are negligible in real-world gaming, indicating the 5600G's CPU performance is squarely in the mainstream desktop class.

The processor's 74th percentile ranking among all CPUs in the database reinforces its position as a solid mid-range part. For Thief, the 12 threads and 4.40 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom for the game's AI, physics, and scene management. The integrated Radeon Vega 7 graphics are irrelevant here since a discrete GPU is paired, but the CPU's raw throughput is what matters. The measured FPS data shows that even at 1080p with Low settings, where CPU overhead is most likely to surface, the combo still achieves 261 FPS average, suggesting the 5600G is not the limiting factor at any tested resolution.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB205 chip, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process with 31,100 million transistors on a 263 mm² die. It features 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s. The GPU's base clock is 2325 MHz with a boost clock of 2512 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The card houses 6144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, 80 ROPs, 48 ray tracing cores, and 192 tensor cores.

For a 2014 title like Thief, the RTX 5070 is enormously over-provisioned. The GPU's 12 GB VRAM is far beyond what the game requires at any resolution, and its 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than enough to render the game's DirectX 11-era visuals at maximum settings. The card's Passmark G3D score of 29137 and average benchmark score of 40377 place it in the 82nd percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (score 40318, 0.1% lower), AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (score 40063, 0.8% lower), AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (score 40870, 1.2% higher), and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (score 39568, 2.0% lower).

The RTX 5070's raw performance dominates Thief's requirements. At 4K Ultra settings, the combo still manages 65 FPS average, which is playable but not fluid. The fact that dropping to 4K Low yields 139 FPS, and 1080p Low yields 261 FPS, shows the GPU is scaling with workload as expected. The 672.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth ensures texture streaming is never a bottleneck, and the 192-bit bus is more than adequate for the game's asset sizes. The GPU's PCIe 5.0 x16 interface is backward compatible with the CPU's Gen 3 slots, so no practical bandwidth limitation exists for this title.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 achieves a rank of 61 out of 3720 tested combos in Thief. This places the pairing in the top 1.6% of all configurations in the database, which is a remarkable result given that the CPU is a mid-range part from 2021 while the GPU is a current-generation flagship tier card. The ranking demonstrates that for this specific game, the GPU is the dominant contributor to overall FPS, and the 5600G provides just enough CPU throughput to keep the RTX 5070 fed.

The 3720 combos include a wide range of processor and graphics card pairings, from budget APUs to high-end enthusiast builds. Ranking 61st means the 5600G + RTX 5070 combination outperforms 3659 other combos, which confirms both the efficiency of the Zen 3 architecture in gaming workloads and the sheer brute force of the Blackwell GPU. The data indicates that the 5600G's 74th percentile CPU ranking does not prevent the combo from reaching near-top-tier status in Thief, suggesting the game is not particularly CPU-sensitive at the settings tested.

In practical terms, this combo sits in the upper echelon of systems capable of running Thief at high refresh rates. The rank of 61 implies that only a small number of combinations—likely featuring higher-end CPUs like recent Ryzen 9 or Core i9 parts paired with the RTX 5070 or stronger GPUs—deliver better results. The 5600G's 6-core/12-thread configuration with 16 MB L3 cache is sufficient for the game's engine, which was designed for the 4-core/8-thread era of 2014. The measured FPS data confirms this, as the combo never drops below 65 FPS even at 4K Ultra, and exceeds 250 FPS at lower settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data for this combo spans three resolutions and four quality presets, providing a comprehensive view of performance scaling. At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the combo delivers 261 FPS on Low settings, 227 FPS on Medium, 196 FPS on High, and 157 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a minimum FPS of 193 and a maximum of 261, indicating some variance but generally stable performance. The gap from Low to Ultra is 104 FPS, representing a 40% drop in average FPS when moving from the most performance-friendly to the most demanding preset.

At 2560x1440, the FPS figures are lower but still exceptionally high. Low settings yield 231 FPS, Medium delivers 161 FPS (with min 137 and max 186), High produces 135 FPS, and Ultra drops to 108 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is more pronounced at higher settings: High drops from 196 to 135 FPS (a 31% reduction), while Low drops from 261 to 231 FPS (an 11% reduction). This suggests that lower settings are more CPU-bound at 1080p, while higher settings shift the bottleneck toward the GPU as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the combo remains playable across all settings. Low settings achieve 139 FPS, Medium delivers 96 FPS (with min 82 and max 111), High produces 81 FPS, and Ultra drops to 65 FPS. The 4K numbers are particularly telling: even at Ultra, the 65 FPS average is above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered the minimum for smooth gameplay. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 74 FPS, a 53% reduction. The Medium preset's minimum of 82 FPS at 4K indicates that even in demanding scenes, the combo rarely dips below 80 FPS, which is strong for a 2014 title at 4K resolution.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

Analyzing the FPS deltas across resolutions reveals the balance between CPU and GPU load. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by 30 at Low settings (261 to 231), 66 at Medium (227 to 161), 61 at High (196 to 135), and 49 at Ultra (157 to 108). The percentage drops are 11.5% for Low, 29.1% for Medium, 31.1% for High, and 31.2% for Ultra. The relatively small drop at Low settings (11.5%) indicates that the CPU is becoming the limiting factor at 1080p Low, since the GPU has headroom but the processor cannot push more frames.

From 1440p to 4K, the drops are more consistent across settings. Low drops from 231 to 139 (39.8% reduction), Medium from 161 to 96 (40.4%), High from 135 to 81 (40.0%), and Ultra from 108 to 65 (39.8%). This uniformity is a classic sign of GPU-bound performance: as resolution increases, the pixel throughput demand grows proportionally, and the GPU's rendering capacity becomes the constraining factor. The RTX 5070's 201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate and 482.3 GTexel/s texture rate are being utilized more fully at higher resolutions.

The overall scaling from 1080p Low (261 FPS) to 4K Ultra (65 FPS) represents a 75% reduction in average FPS. This is a substantial drop, but it aligns with the expected 4x pixel count increase from 1080p to 4K (approximately 2.07 million to 8.29 million pixels). The fact that the FPS does not drop by 75% from 1080p to 4K at the same settings (e.g., Low: 261 to 139, a 46.7% drop) confirms that the CPU is partially limiting at 1080p, allowing the GPU to compensate somewhat at higher resolutions where the CPU has more time to prepare frames.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the Ryzen 5 5600G is the primary bottleneck across all settings, but particularly at Low where frame rates exceed 260 FPS. At 1440p and 4K, the RTX 5070 becomes the limiting component, with the CPU providing enough throughput to keep the GPU busy. This is an ideal balance for a gaming system: the CPU prevents the GPU from being underutilized at high resolutions, while the GPU delivers playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p High settings with this combo?

A: The average FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings is 196 FPS, with no minimum or maximum FPS reported for that configuration.

*Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations in Thief?*

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 ranks 61st out of 3720 tested combos, placing it in the top 1.6% of all configurations.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the limiting factor at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 65 FPS average. The resolution scaling data shows a uniform ~40% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings, which indicates the GPU is the limiting component at 4K.

Q: What is the maximum FPS recorded in the measured data?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 261 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The maximum FPS in any single measurement is also 261, seen at 1080p Medium (max FPS) and at 1080p Low (average FPS).

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 5600G compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600G has an average benchmark score of 21088, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i3-1220P (21066) and 0.1% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V (21112). It is also 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U (21133) and 0.4% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 7 155U (21174).

*Q: Can this combo run Thief at 4K with playable frame rates on all settings?*

A: Yes. At 3840x2160, the combo achieves 139 FPS on Low, 96 FPS on Medium, 81 FPS on High, and 65 FPS on Ultra. All settings are above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the user's target resolution and refresh rate. For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset provides 157 FPS average, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on modern monitors. Given that the minimum FPS is not reported for Ultra at 1080p, but the Medium preset shows a minimum of 193 FPS, it is reasonable to assume Ultra maintains at least 150 FPS in most scenes. For 1080p users, Ultra is the recommended preset, as it delivers the best visual quality while still exceeding 150 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 135 FPS average, which is suitable for 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays. Ultra at 1440p drops to 108 FPS, which is still playable on 100 Hz or 120 Hz monitors but may show slight dips in demanding scenes. The Medium preset's 161 FPS average with a 137 FPS minimum makes it an excellent choice for competitive play at 1440p, sacrificing some visual fidelity for a smoother experience. For most users, High is the balanced recommendation at 1440p, offering 135 FPS with better graphics than Medium.

At 3840x2160, the High preset produces 81 FPS average, which is suitable for 60 Hz displays with headroom to spare. Ultra at 4K yields 65 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS minimum for most 4K monitors but leaves little margin for frame rate drops in heavy scenes. The Medium preset at 4K provides 96 FPS average with an 82 FPS minimum, making it the best choice for users with 4K 120 Hz displays who want to take full advantage of higher refresh rates. The Low preset at 4K (139 FPS) is overkill for most displays and should only be used for esports-style play.

The data shows that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions, with minimum FPS figures reported only for Medium at all three resolutions (193 at 1080p, 137 at 1440p, 82 at 4K). These minimums indicate that Medium maintains consistent frame delivery without severe dips. For users prioritizing maximum visual fidelity, Ultra is viable at all resolutions, with 4K Ultra (65 FPS) being the only configuration that approaches the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset is a strong middle ground, delivering 196 FPS at 1080p, 135 FPS at 1440p, and 81 FPS at 4K, making it the recommended preset for users with standard 60 Hz to 144 Hz monitors who want a balance of quality and performance.