Thief

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 produces a frame-time profile that is unmistakably bounded by the 2017-era Polaris GPU. In _Thief_, the measured average frame rates span from 17 FPS at 4K Ultra to 75 FPS at 1080p Low, a spread that highlights just how large the gap is between the two components. The CPU is a modern 6-core/12-thread Zen 5 part with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, while the GPU is a 4 GB GDDR5 card with a 1244 MHz boost. The data in this entry exposes a system in which every resolution step and every settings change is reflected in the GPU's own limits, with the CPU never appearing as the constraint.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS for this combo plummet as resolution rises, a signature of GPU-limited rendering. At the High preset, the 1080p average is 43 FPS. When moving to 2560×1440 it drops to 30 (a 30.2% reduction), and at 3840×2160 it falls further to 17 (a 43.3% drop from 1440p, and 60.5% lower than 1080p). The Low preset shows the same pattern: 75 → 51 → 30, a 32% decrease from 1080p to 1440p and then a 41% from 1440p to 4K, resulting in a 60.0% overall loss. Medium retains the same shape, with 57 → 39 → 23, while Ultra drops from 41 → 28 → 17.

These are not linear relationships, but the consistent scaling suggests that every added pixel after 1080p directly expands the time the GPU needs to render the frame. The minimum FPS readings for Medium underscore the same trend: 48 at 1080p, 33 at 1440p, and 19 at 4K. If the CPU were the limiting factor at higher resolutions, we would expect frame rates to be closer together across resolutions because the CPU work would be static. Instead, the data shows a pixel-count-driven bottleneck that is consistent with a GPU that is already saturated in the highest resolution.

The numbers also reveal that none of the 4K presets ever reaches a sustained average above 30 FPS; even Low sits exactly at 30. This hints that the 4 GB frame buffer and the overall memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s are stretched to the breaking point at that resolution. The combination of a 2017—era GPU with modern high-definition outputs—defined by the 256-base 1244 boost clocks—is simply not prepared for pixel counts above 1920×1080.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a Polaris 20 chip built on a 14 nm process, with 5,700 million transistors and a die size of 232 mm². Its 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs give it a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. The shader memory system is comprised of 4 GB of GDDR5 across a 256-bit bus, delivering 224.0 GB/s. The boost clock is 1244 MHz (base 1168 MHz), and the card consumes up to 150 W, with a recommended power supply of 450 W.

In terms of pure benchmark scores, the GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result is 880 points, with Geekbench Vulkan registering 42752, OpenCL 32084, and Metal 39349. These figure place the card in the 74th percentile of all GPUs. Its closest rivals, according to the used benchmark aggregate, are within ±1.2% of its average score of 28766 — the Radeon R9 M295X (0.7% faster), the GeForce RTX 8000 (1.2% slower), and the Radeon RX 470 (0.8% slower). The RX 570's performance in _Thief_ is fully commensurate with these numbers: it is only comfortable at 1080p Low (75 FPS) and Medium (57), but becomes unplayable at 4K, where even the lowest preset averages only 30 FPS.

The 4 GB memory has a direct impact. At 1440p High (30 FPS) and 4K High (17 FPS), the card appears to have exhausted both compute capacity and bandwidth. The memory clock of 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) is low compared to modern cards, and the 224 GB/s bandwidth is not enough to feed a modern title at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core 12-thread Zen 5 processor with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and boost of 5.40 GHz, built on TSMC's 4 nm process. It carries 1 MB L1 cache per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and a 32 MB shared L3, using the AMD Socket AM5 and dual-channel DDR5. Its TDP is 65 W, making it a low-power savour. In synthetic tasks, it marks 17528.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2183.5 in the single-core test; its Geekbench 6 multi-core score is 14438 and single-core is 2923. The CPU lands in the 81st percentile of all CPUs benchmarked.

Yet, in _Thief_, none of this translates to higher frame rates because the GPU is the source of the bottleneck. The measured data at 1080p Low yields 75 FPS, but that number only rises to about 75 because the GPU can push the finite amount of polygons per second. With such a powerful CPU that still cannot exceed 57 FPS on the Medium preset at 1080p, we see that the CPU overhead is negligible. The GPU's single-threaded performance (PassMark single thread 4570) is also insufficient to feed the graphics system, but rather the entire engine is halting on the GPU's pixel worst.

The 1244 MHz boost clock and the 2048 shader units are at the core of the Black: the card's 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are simply not adequate for the higher math required by Thief at resolutions above 1920×1080.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU combination is listed as rank 3551 out of 372 combos tested in _Thief_. That places it in the bottom 5% of the entire set — only 169 combinations perform worse. Unsurprisingly, the GPU's limited performance against a high-core-count CPU produces a mismatch that leads to a very low placement. The combo's standing is further reinforced by the average FPS being below 100 at any setting, with the maximum never exceeding 75 (at Low 1080p). In comparison, a higher-spending build with as robust a GPU would likely place at the top 5 percentile.

FAQ

Q: How does the RX 570’s average FPS at 1440p Medium compare to 1080p Medium?

A: The 1440p Medium average is 39 FPS (min 33, max 45), while 1080p Medium is 57 FPS (min 48, max 65) — a difference of 18 FPS in average.

Q: What is the highest average framerate that this combo can achieve in Thief with the Ultra preset?

A: The Ultra preset peaks at 41 FPS at 1920×1080. At 2560×1440 it drops to 28, and at 3840×2160 it is 17.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration in this test?

A: The card is equipped with 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz.

Q: How does the CPU’s multi-threaded performance rank compared to other CPUs?

A: The Ryzen 5 9600X has an average benchmark score of 29713, placing it in the 81st percentile, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 17528.5.

Q: At which resolution and preset does the game hit a 60+ average FPS?

A: None of the measured presets reach 60 FPS on average; the closest is 1080p Low at 57 FPS (Medium) and 75 FPS (Low). No setting delivers a sustained 60+ average.

Q: What is the highest resolution at which the game can still hold a 30+ FPS average?

A: 2560×1440 Low presets gives 51 FPS, and 1440p High gives 30 FPS. At 4K, only Low presets exactly 30 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured frame rates for this combination, broken down by resolution and settings, are listed below.

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|------------|----------|---------|---------|---------|

| 3840×2160 | High | 17 | — | — |

| 3840×2160 | Low | 30 | — | — |

| 3840×2160 | Medium | 23 | 19 | 26 |

| 3840×2160 | Ultra | 17 | — | — |

| 2560×1440 | High | 30 | — | — |

| 2560×1440 | Low | 51 | — | — |

| 2560×1440 | Medium | 39 | 33 | 45 |

| 2560×1440 | Ultra | 28 | — | — |

| 1920×1080 | High | 43 | — | — |

| 1920×1080 | Low | 75 | — | — |

| 1920×1080 | Medium | 57 | 48 | 65 |

| 1920×1080 | Ultra | 41 | — | — |

The only rows that include a minimum and maximum frame rate are the Medium settings, where the spread is between the 1080p (48–65) and 1440p (33–45) and 4K (19–26). The absence of full min/max data for other presets prevents a deeper analysis of frame-time variance.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal trade-off between frame rate and visual budget within this data set is the Medium preset at 1920×1080. It delivers an average of 57 FPS (min 48, max 65), the closest to the 60 FPS boundary of all presets tested. At 2560×1440, choosing Low gives an average of 51 FPS, which is the only 1440p preset that stays above 50; Medium is just 39 FPS, and Ultra only 28. At 3840×2160, no preset achieves an average above 30, so the only option for a stable framerate is Low (30 FPS) or Medium (23) — but the data shows that the GPU is not appropriate for that resolution.

The data suggests that 1440p Low is a moderate sweet spot at 51 FPS, but to maintain a smoother experience, the best choice according to the measured numbers is 1080p Medium — it gives an above-50 average with a slight dip to 48 minimum. If maximum fidelity is desired, 1080p High (43 FPS) is just 5 FPS lower than Medium but with the visual improvement. Given the exact FPS numbers that are resident, a user who favors 30 FPS consistency could drop to 1440p Low to achieve 51.

In summary, the measured frame rates clearly indicate that the system is GPU-limited: the high-quality CPU cannot compensate for the card's inability to sustain real-time frame rates at higher resolutions. Therefore, the most effective way to increase playability in this game is to lower the resolution or reduce the graphics preset, not to 'upgrade' the CPU.