Thief

# Performance Analysis: Thief on AMD Ryzen 5 7400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

This benchmark dataset covers the stealth classic Thief across three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four quality presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), pairing the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. Measured average FPS values range from 66 at 4K Ultra to 180 at 1080p Low, revealing a system that remains fluid across most configurations but shows clear scaling patterns tied to resolution and settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and consistent across all presets, indicating that the RTX 4070 Ti becomes increasingly the limiting component as pixel count rises. At Low settings, average FPS falls from 180 at 1080p to 159 at 1440p (an 11.7% reduction) and then to 120 at 4K (a 33.3% reduction from 1080p). At High settings, the pattern is steeper: 148 at 1080p drops to 118 at 1440p (20.3% lower) and then to 70 at 4K (52.7% lower than 1080p). This nonlinear scaling — where the 4K penalty is disproportionately larger than the 1440p penalty — points to the GPU's memory bandwidth and rasterization throughput becoming strained at higher pixel counts.

Medium settings show the most complete dataset with min and max FPS values, providing insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the average is 163 FPS with a range of 139–188 (a 49 FPS spread). Moving to 1440p Medium, the average drops to 144 with a range of 122–166 (a 44 FPS spread). At 4K Medium, the average falls to 91 with a range of 78–105 (a 27 FPS spread). The narrowing spread at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU's consistent workload limits frame variance, whereas at lower resolutions CPU-side variability contributes more to frame time fluctuations.

Ultra settings exhibit the largest absolute drop: from 145 FPS at 1080p to 113 at 1440p (22.1% reduction) and then to 66 at 4K (54.5% reduction from 1080p). This 79 FPS difference between 1080p Ultra and 4K Ultra is the largest of any preset. The scaling pattern across resolutions — with 4K always costing roughly half or more of the 1080p performance — indicates that the RTX 4070 Ti's 504.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and 192-bit bus are the primary constraints at 4K, rather than the CPU.

The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (180) and Ultra (145) is 35 FPS (19.4%). At 1440p, the difference is 46 FPS (28.9%). At 4K, the difference grows to 54 FPS (45.0%). This widening delta confirms that higher resolutions amplify the GPU's workload sensitivity to quality presets, while at 1080p the system is less sensitive to settings changes because the CPU and GPU are more balanced.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, every preset and resolution combination in this dataset exceeds that threshold, meaning the RTX 4070 Ti never falls below 66 FPS average even at 4K Ultra. However, the optimal experience depends on the desired frame rate target. For 4K displays, High settings at 70 FPS average provide a playable experience, but Medium at 91 FPS offers a substantial 30% improvement over High while still delivering strong visual fidelity. Ultra at 66 FPS is marginally above the 60 FPS floor but leaves little headroom for frame time spikes, making Medium the recommended choice for 4K.

At 1440p, High settings deliver 118 FPS, which is smooth for most display refresh rates up to 120 Hz. Medium at 144 FPS unlocks compatibility with 144 Hz displays, and Ultra at 113 FPS is nearly identical to High in performance. Given that Ultra at 1440p (113 FPS) is only 4.2% slower than High (118 FPS), the visual quality upgrade from High to Ultra costs little in performance. Low at 159 FPS is unnecessary for most users since Medium and High already exceed 144 Hz thresholds.

At 1080p, the choice is between chasing maximum frame rates or maximum quality. Low at 180 FPS is the highest measured result, suitable for 180 Hz or higher displays, but Medium at 163 FPS and High at 148 FPS are both excellent. Ultra at 145 FPS is only 2% slower than High, making it the best experience for 1080p users with 144 Hz monitors who want maximum visual fidelity. The measured minimum FPS at 1080p Medium is 139, which stays above most display refresh rates, indicating good frame pacing.

The best overall experience per the measured rows is 1440p Medium or High: Medium at 144 FPS average with min/max of 122/166 provides both high frame rates and frame time stability, while High at 118 FPS offers superior visuals with only an 18% reduction in average FPS. For 4K users, Medium at 91 FPS is the sweet spot, balancing visual quality with a 38% performance advantage over Ultra.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 delivers 180 FPS average, which is the maximum measured result across all resolutions and settings in this dataset.

Q: Can this system maintain 60+ FPS at 4K with maximum settings?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 66, which exceeds the 60 FPS threshold. However, there is minimal headroom, and the measured average is only 6 FPS above the 60 FPS floor.

Q: How does the 1440p Medium preset compare to 4K Medium in terms of frame rate?

A: At 2560x1440 Medium, the average FPS is 144 with a range of 122–166. At 3840x2160 Medium, the average drops to 91 with a range of 78–105. The 4K result is 36.8% lower than 1440p.

Q: Which preset shows the largest difference between minimum and maximum FPS?

A: The 1080p Medium preset has the widest measured spread, with a minimum of 139 and maximum of 188 FPS, a 49 FPS range. This suggests more frame time variability at lower resolution where the CPU may be more involved.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth the performance cost compared to High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra (145 FPS) is only 2.0% slower than High (148 FPS). At 1440p, the gap is 4.2% (113 vs 118). At 4K, the gap widens to 5.7% (66 vs 70). The relative cost of Ultra increases slightly with resolution but remains under 6% across all settings.

Q: What is the lowest measured average FPS in the entire dataset?

A: The lowest average is 66 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is the only configuration below 70 FPS average, indicating the system's performance floor is still playable for most users.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the dataset shows a tight grouping across presets. Low settings produce 180 FPS average, which is the peak of the entire dataset. Medium delivers 163 FPS with a measured minimum of 139 and maximum of 188. High settings reach 148 FPS average, while Ultra achieves 145 FPS. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 35 FPS, representing a 19.4% reduction when moving from the lowest to highest quality preset. The 1080p results indicate that the Ryzen 5 7400F's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to keep the GPU fed, as even the most demanding preset stays above 145 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the performance hierarchy remains consistent but with wider gaps. Low settings deliver 159 FPS average, which is 11.7% below the 1080p Low result. Medium achieves 144 FPS with a minimum of 122 and maximum of 166. High settings produce 118 FPS average, while Ultra reaches 113 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 1440p is 46 FPS (28.9% reduction). Notably, 1440p High (118 FPS) is slightly lower than 1080p Ultra (145 FPS), showing that resolution takes precedence over settings for this GPU at this tier.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops become pronounced. Low settings deliver 120 FPS average, which is 33.3% below 1080p Low. Medium achieves 91 FPS with a minimum of 78 and maximum of 105. High settings produce 70 FPS average, while Ultra reaches 66 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 4K is 54 FPS (45.0% reduction). The 4K Medium result of 91 FPS is the first configuration below 100 FPS average, and both High (70) and Ultra (66) approach the 60 FPS threshold.

Comparing across resolutions, the 4K Medium result (91 FPS) is nearly identical to the 1440p Ultra result (113 FPS) in terms of relative position, but the absolute values show that 4K demands significantly more GPU resources. The measured minimum FPS values — only available for Medium presets — show that at 4K the minimum of 78 FPS still provides comfortable headroom above 60 FPS, while at 1080p the minimum of 139 FPS ensures compatibility with high-refresh displays.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, as evidenced by the resolution scaling patterns. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 504.2 GB/s bandwidth, the GPU has sufficient memory capacity for Thief at any resolution, but the bandwidth becomes a limiting factor at 4K. The 70 FPS average at 4K High versus 118 FPS at 1440p High illustrates that the GPU's pixel throughput is the primary constraint at higher resolutions.

The GPU's clock behavior — base 2310 MHz and boost 2610 MHz — combined with 7680 shading units and 80 ROPs, determines the raw rasterization performance. The measured 208.8 GPixel/s pixel rate and 626.4 GTexel/s texture rate are directly relevant to how the card handles the increasing pixel count from 1080p to 4K. The 40.09 TFLOPS FP32 compute capability is more than adequate for a 2014 game, meaning the GPU is likely not compute-bound but rather memory-bandwidth-bound at 4K.

The RTX 4070 Ti's 84th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44795, places it competitively. Its nearest rival comparisons show it within 1.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (deltaPct -0.8), 1.3% of the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT, 1.6% of the NVIDIA RTX A6000, and 1.7% of the Intel Arc A730M. This tight clustering indicates that the RTX 4070 Ti sits in a well-populated performance tier where small benchmark differences do not translate to meaningful gaming gaps.

The 12 GB VRAM capacity is not stressed by Thief, a game from 2014 that predates modern texture-heavy assets. However, the bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s is the more critical specification for this game's resolution scaling. The fact that 4K Ultra (66 FPS) is 54.5% slower than 1080p Ultra (145 FPS) — a larger percentage drop than the resolution's pixel count increase (4x) would suggest if scaling were linear — indicates that memory bandwidth saturation occurs at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz. This Zen 4 architecture processor, built on TSMC's 5 nm process, delivers strong single-threaded performance that is critical for a game like Thief from 2014, which likely utilizes fewer threads. The CPU's 32 MB shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth via DDR5 support help maintain consistent frame delivery, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU has more influence.

The CPU's benchmark results confirm its capability: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21765 and single-core score of 3072 place it in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 32750 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals — the Intel Core i5-14600T (32707, deltaPct 0.1), Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (32697, deltaPct 0.2), AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H (32812, deltaPct -0.2), and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (32662, deltaPct 0.3). This means the 7400F is performance-wise indistinguishable from these competitors in aggregate benchmarks, though gaming performance can vary based on per-core behavior.

In Thief, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p where the GPU is less stressed. The 35 FPS difference between 1080p Low (180) and 1080p Ultra (145) is smaller than the 54 FPS difference at 4K between the same presets, suggesting that at 1080p the CPU's frame production capability partially masks GPU workload differences. The 1080p Medium minimum FPS of 139 indicates that even in frame-time dips, the CPU maintains high throughput.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and Zen 4 architecture with 6,570 million transistors on a 71 mm² die make it an efficient choice, but the benchmark data does not show thermal throttling effects since all FPS values are measured averages or min/max without temperature context. The boost clock of 4.70 GHz is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4070 Ti at 1080p, as evidenced by the 180 FPS Low result being the highest in the dataset.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination — AMD Ryzen 5 7400F with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti — ranks 361st out of 2851 tested combos in Thief, placing it in the top 12.7% of all configurations. This rank reflects the strong performance of both components: the CPU's 83rd percentile standing and the GPU's 84th percentile standing combine to produce a system that handles Thief with exceptional ease across all tested settings.

The rank of 361 out of 2851 means there are 360 combos that outperform this pairing, but the vast majority (2490 combos) rank lower. Given that Thief is a 2014 title, the high rank is expected — modern mid-to-high-end hardware from 2023-2025 (the GPU released in January 2023, the CPU in January 2025) is far more powerful than what was available at the game's launch. The combo's performance is likely constrained more by the game's engine limitations than by hardware capabilities.

Compared to the nearest rival combos that would include the CPU's comparable processors (Intel Core i5-14600T, Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H, AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360) paired with similar GPUs, the 7400F's benchmark parity (within 0.3% across all rivals) suggests that combo rankings would shift based primarily on GPU differences rather than CPU choice. The RTX 4070 Ti's GPU rivals (RTX 5090 Mobile, Radeon Pro 5500 XT, RTX A6000, Arc A730M) have average scores within 1.7% of the 4070 Ti, indicating that swapping the GPU for any of these would produce nearly identical Thief performance.

The rank's practical implication is that this combo delivers maximum settings at 4K with playable frame rates (66 FPS Ultra), which is not achievable for most of the 2490 lower-ranked combos. The combination of 6-core/12-thread CPU with 12 GB GPU memory ensures no configuration of Thief — even the most demanding 4K Ultra preset — exceeds the system's capabilities. The data shows a performance floor of 66 FPS and a ceiling of 180 FPS, with the sweet spot at 1440p Medium/High where the system delivers 144 FPS or 118 FPS respectively without approaching any hardware limits.