Thief

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Thief with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 reveals a pronounced resolution scaling curve. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 164.7 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Low drops that to 143.6 FPS, a reduction of roughly 13%. At 3840x2160 Low, the average falls further to 123.5 FPS, which is about 25% below the 1080p figure. This pattern indicates the GPU remains the dominant performance driver, but the CPU is keeping pace well enough that the frame rate does not collapse as resolution increases.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically at higher resolutions. At 1920x1080, the spread from Low (164.7 FPS) to Ultra (135 FPS) is 29.7 FPS. At 2560x1440, that spread narrows to 25.5 FPS (143.6 Low versus 118.1 Ultra). At 3840x2160, the spread expands to 46 FPS (123.5 Low versus 77.5 Ultra). This inversion—where the settings gap grows at 4K—suggests that at 1080p and 1440p, the CPU is occasionally limiting the frame rate, compressing the difference between presets. At 4K, the GPU becomes unequivocally the bottleneck, and its workload scaling with visual quality translates directly into larger FPS deltas.

Looking at the High preset specifically, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is gentle: 135.5 FPS down to 119.3 FPS, an 11.9% drop. From 1440p to 4K, the drop is steeper: 119.3 FPS down to 84.1 FPS, a 29.5% reduction. This nonlinear behavior is typical of a system where the RTX 4090 has ample headroom at lower resolutions, and the Ryzen 5 5600X, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, becomes increasingly relevant as the render resolution drops. The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU's single-thread performance is the limiting component; at 4K, the GPU's raw throughput dictates the outcome.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific CPU-GPU pairing ranks 251st out of 1642 tested combinations for Thief. That places it in the top 15.3% of all tested combos, which is a strong showing given the game's age and the hardware's capabilities. The rank reflects the synergy between the Ryzen 5 5600X and the RTX 4090 in this specific title; the CPU's 78th percentile standing among all CPUs and the GPU's 91st percentile among all GPUs combine to produce a result that is better than the sum of its parts would suggest.

The CPU's nearest rivals in general benchmark scores provide context for its contribution. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT scores 20740 on average, which is 0.3% higher than the 5600X's 20680. The Intel Core i7-10700 matches at 20746, also 0.3% ahead. The Intel Core i5-12490F leads the group at 20794, a 0.5% advantage. On the other side, the Intel Xeon 6325P trails at 20538, which is 0.7% behind. These deltas are all within a single percentage point, meaning the 5600X is effectively at parity with its closest competitors in synthetic workloads. In Thief, the game's engine may favor one architecture over another, but the benchmark rank of 251 suggests that the combo as a whole is properly balanced, with neither component dragging the other down.

The GPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score further illuminate the situation. The NVIDIA Tesla T4 scores 66733, which is 0.4% higher than the RTX 4090's 66473. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 scores 67097, a 0.9% lead. The NVIDIA Quadro P6000 leads at 67320, 1.3% ahead. The NVIDIA Tesla P40 trails at 66127, 0.5% behind. These are professional or workstation cards that happen to have similar aggregate scores, but in gaming workloads like Thief, the RTX 4090's architecture is far more optimized. The combo rank of 251 out of 1642 confirms that this pairing is well above the median, and the data suggests that users with this setup can expect a consistently high frame rate across all tested configurations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and uses a 5 nm process at TSMC. Its die contains 76,300 million transistors across a 609 mm² area, with a transistor density of 125.3M per mm². The GPU has 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. It also includes 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores. The base clock is 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz. Memory is 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. The memory clock is 1313 MHz, which translates to 21 Gbps effective.

In Thief, the VRAM capacity is far beyond what the game requires, even at 4K Ultra. The 24 GB pool ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution assets never cause a stutter or a drop below the measured averages. The memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s is similarly excessive for a 2014 title, meaning the GPU's memory subsystem is never a limiting factor. The pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s are the more relevant figures; they dictate how quickly the GPU can fill the screen and apply textures, which directly impacts the frame rate at higher resolutions.

The FP32 performance of 82.58 TFLOPS is the raw compute throughput, and in a game like Thief, which relies heavily on lighting and shadow calculations, this compute power is what enables the high frame rates at 4K. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the combo still manages 77.5 FPS, which is respectable for a demanding preset. The GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz indicates that the card is running at or near its maximum frequency during these tests, as the thermal and power headroom (450 W TDP) are sufficient for sustained boost behavior. The RTX 4090's 91st percentile ranking among all GPUs is reflected in these results; it is clearly the dominant component in this pairing for Thief.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured averages are as follows: Low settings produce 164.7 FPS, Medium produces 146.4 FPS, High produces 135.5 FPS, and Ultra produces 135 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is negligible, only 0.5 FPS, which suggests that the Ultra preset's additional settings do not meaningfully tax the GPU at this resolution. The jump from Low to Medium is 18.3 FPS, and from Medium to High is 10.9 FPS. The CPU's role is evident here; the 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600X with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz is sufficient to feed the GPU at these frame rates, but the diminishing returns between High and Ultra indicate that the CPU is nearing its limit for this game's draw calls.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 143.6 FPS, Medium at 129.3 FPS, High at 119.3 FPS, and Ultra at 118.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 25.5 FPS. The scaling from Medium to High is 10 FPS, and from High to Ultra is just 1.2 FPS. The pattern repeats: Ultra offers almost no benefit over High at this resolution, but the overall frame rates are high enough that either preset provides a smooth experience. The 1440p results are approximately 12-15% lower than the 1080p results across all settings, consistent with the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 123.5 FPS, Medium at 108.5 FPS, High at 84.1 FPS, and Ultra at 77.5 FPS. The scaling is more aggressive here. The drop from Low to Medium is 15 FPS, from Medium to High is 24.4 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 6.6 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 77.5 FPS is the lowest measured figure, but it remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The 4K High result of 84.1 FPS is a better balance of visual quality and performance. The data shows that at 4K, the GPU is fully engaged, and the frame rate scales almost linearly with the workload increase from Low to Medium to High, before flattening slightly at Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 146.4 FPS, which is only 18.3 FPS less than Low but provides substantially better visual fidelity. At 2560x1440, Medium yields 129.3 FPS, still comfortably above the 120 FPS threshold for high-refresh displays. At 3840x2160, Medium produces 108.5 FPS, which is excellent for 4K gaming and leaves headroom for any background tasks. The Medium preset avoids the steep performance penalties seen at High and Ultra while still offering a significant improvement over Low.

For users prioritizing maximum visual quality, the High preset is the superior choice over Ultra. At 1080p, High (135.5 FPS) and Ultra (135 FPS) are effectively identical, so there is no reason to select Ultra. At 1440p, High (119.3 FPS) is 1.2 FPS faster than Ultra (118.1 FPS), again a wash. At 4K, High (84.1 FPS) is 6.6 FPS faster than Ultra (77.5 FPS), and the visual difference between these two presets in a 2014 title is unlikely to be perceptible. The data strongly indicates that Ultra is a waste of resources for this combo; High captures essentially all of the visual benefit at a lower performance cost.

For the absolute highest frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p (164.7 FPS) is the only configuration that exceeds 160 FPS. However, this comes at the cost of visual quality, and the jump to Medium (146.4 FPS) is a better trade-off for most users. At 4K, Low (123.5 FPS) is the only preset that breaks 120 FPS, but again, the Medium preset at 108.5 FPS is a more reasonable compromise. The benchmark data suggests that this combo is powerful enough that users should default to Medium for a fluid experience, or High if they prefer visual polish, and only drop to Low if they are chasing maximum refresh rates on a high-end monitor.