Thief

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER combination delivers a solid 1080p and 1440p experience in Thief, with 4K remaining a challenge at higher presets. The measured frame rates show a clear hierarchy based on settings, and the data suggests that players should prioritize a balance between visual fidelity and smoothness. The sweet spot for this pairing is the High preset, which offers a substantial improvement over Medium settings while maintaining playable frame rates across all tested resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the High preset is the optimal choice for this hardware configuration. At 1920x1080, High delivers an average of 97.8 FPS, which is only 4.3% lower than the 132.9 FPS achieved at Medium, yet it provides noticeably better visual quality. The jump from High to Ultra at 1080p is more costly, with the average dropping to 93.5 FPS, a decline of 4.4%, while the visual gains are typically marginal in a 2014 stealth title. For players with 1440p displays, High remains the best option, producing 68.9 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset at 1440p does offer a higher 86.6 FPS, but the visual compromise is significant. At 4K, the High preset falls to 42.3 FPS, which is not ideal for a smooth experience; in this case, the Low preset’s 71.6 FPS is the only playable option, making it the recommended setting for 4K displays. The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p, where it achieves 93.5 FPS, but given the performance cost relative to High, it is hard to justify unless maximum image quality is the absolute priority.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to run Thief with this CPU and GPU?*

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the most versatile resolution, with all presets producing playable frame rates, from 93.5 FPS at Ultra to 160.4 FPS at Low. At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 68.9 FPS, which is still smooth, but the Ultra preset drops to 63.9 FPS, indicating a tighter performance envelope.

Q: How does the Ultra preset affect performance compared to High?

A: Across all resolutions, the Ultra preset incurs a measurable performance penalty. At 1080p, the average FPS drops from 97.8 at High to 93.5 at Ultra, a 4.4% decrease. At 1440p, the drop is from 68.9 to 63.9 FPS, a 7.3% decrease, and at 4K, it falls from 42.3 to 37.4 FPS, a 11.6% decrease.

*Q: Is the RTX 2070 SUPER capable of running Thief at 4K?*

A: Yes, but only at the Low preset, which achieves an average of 71.6 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K drops to 52.8 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets fall to 42.3 and 37.4 FPS respectively, which are below the ideal threshold for a smooth experience.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and High presets at 1440p?

A: The difference is substantial. The Low preset delivers 117.5 FPS, while the High preset delivers 68.9 FPS. This represents a 41.4% reduction in frame rate when moving from Low to High, highlighting the significant cost of higher graphical fidelity.

*Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance relate to the frame rates in Thief?*

A: The Ryzen 7 5700 has a strong multi-threaded presence, scoring 20655 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. While Thief is not a heavily threaded title, this CPU ensures that the GPU is not bottlenecked at lower resolutions, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p, such as 160.4 FPS at Low settings.

Q: What settings should be used to achieve a stable 60 FPS at 2560x1440?

A: The High preset is the only setting that guarantees a frame rate above 60 FPS at 1440p, with an average of 68.9 FPS. The Medium preset offers 86.6 FPS, which provides more headroom, while the Ultra preset at 63.9 FPS is marginal and may dip below 60 FPS in demanding scenes.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary driver of performance in Thief, and its capabilities are well-matched to the game's demands. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is sufficient for the textures and assets in Thief at all tested settings, as evidenced by the consistent scaling of frame rates with resolution. The GPU's base clock is 1605 MHz, with a boost clock of 1770 MHz, and it has a pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s. These specifications directly influence the rendering of the game's environments and lighting effects.

The benchmark results show that the GPU's performance is the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 37.4, which is a 60.7% reduction from the 1080p Ultra score of 93.5 FPS. This drop is consistent with the increased pixel count, indicating that the GPU's fill rate and shading power are being fully utilized. The GPU's FP32 performance of 9.062 TFLOPS is a measure of its raw compute capability, which is sufficient for the DirectX 11-era graphics of Thief. The relative performance of the RTX 2070 SUPER is strong, as it ranks in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 22206 places it close to the NVIDIA RTX A400, which scores 22307, a difference of only 0.5%. In the context of Thief, the GPU's 8 GB of VRAM is not a limiting factor at the tested settings, as the game's memory requirements are well within this capacity.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a clear picture of the system's performance across different settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the system is capable of high frame rates across all settings. The Low preset yields an average of 160.4 FPS, which is exceptionally smooth and indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at this resolution. The Medium preset delivers 132.9 FPS, a 17.1% reduction from Low. The High preset achieves 97.8 FPS, a further 26.4% reduction from Medium. The Ultra preset brings the average down to 93.5 FPS, which is only a 4.4% drop from High, suggesting that the Ultra settings are less demanding than the jump from Medium to High.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales predictably with the increased pixel count. The Low preset delivers 117.5 FPS, which is a 26.7% reduction from the 1080p Low score. The Medium preset achieves 86.6 FPS, a 26.3% reduction from its 1080p counterpart. The High preset produces 68.9 FPS, a 29.5% reduction from the 1080p High score. The Ultra preset falls to 63.9 FPS, a 31.7% reduction from the 1080p Ultra score. This consistent scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at this resolution, with the CPU providing ample headroom.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop significantly, making only the Low preset viable for smooth gameplay. The Low preset achieves 71.6 FPS, which is a 39.1% reduction from the 1440p Low score. The Medium preset delivers 52.8 FPS, a 39.0% reduction from 1440p Medium. The High preset falls to 42.3 FPS, a 38.6% reduction from 1440p High. The Ultra preset bottoms out at 37.4 FPS, a 41.5% reduction from 1440p Ultra. These results confirm that the RTX 2070 SUPER is not capable of maintaining 60 FPS at 4K with High or Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal the nature of the system's bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average FPS across all settings decreases by approximately 27%. This is a significant reduction, but the frame rates remain playable at most presets. The drop from 1440p to 4K is even more pronounced, with an average decrease of approximately 39%. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is being pushed to its limits at 4K, as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p, while the frame rate does not scale linearly.

The data shows that the RTX 2070 SUPER is the limiting component at all resolutions above 1080p. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads, has a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20655, which places it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs. This processing power ensures that at 1080p, where the GPU is less stressed, the system can achieve frame rates as high as 160.4 FPS at Low settings. However, as the resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows, and the frame rates drop in a manner consistent with the GPU's rendering capabilities. The benchmark results indicate that the system is well-balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but the GPU becomes a clear bottleneck at 4K, particularly at higher settings. This is a typical pattern for a mid-range to high-end GPU of its generation, and it underscores the importance of matching the resolution to the hardware's capabilities.