Thief

# Thief with AMD Ryzen 7 5700 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

This combo pairs an 8-core, 16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 5700 (Zen 3, Cezanne) with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER (Ada Lovelace, AD103), producing measured frame rates across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions at four settings levels. The data reveals a system that scales predictably with resolution, with the GPU becoming the dominant factor at higher pixel counts, while the CPU's 16 threads and 4.60 GHz boost clock keep frame rates elevated even at lower settings where CPU load typically rises.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo achieves in Thief?

A: The highest measured average is 162 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next-best is 146 FPS at the same resolution with Medium settings, showing a 16 FPS gap between Low and Medium at 1080p.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: The combo ranks 742nd out of 3,720 tested combinations (comboRankInGame), placing it in the top 20% of all tested systems. This percentile position reflects its strong but not class-leading performance for this 2014 stealth title.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Ultra and Low settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Ultra averages 72 FPS while Low averages 119 FPS, a difference of 47 FPS. Medium sits at 99 FPS and High at 75 FPS, showing that the largest jump occurs between Low and Medium (20 FPS), while High to Ultra is only a 3 FPS drop.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB VRAM become a limiting factor in Thief?

A: The data does not indicate VRAM limitation; the GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory with 736.3 GB/s bandwidth. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (72 FPS) suggests the GPU's compute, not its memory capacity, is the constraint in this game.

Q: How does the CPU's benchmark performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700 has an average benchmark score of 25,517, which is 0.1% behind the Intel Xeon D-2752TER (25,530) and 0.1% behind the AMD Ryzen 5 6600H (25,550). It is 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7640U (25,485) and 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 5825U (25,446).

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in the dataset?

A: The only rows with min FPS values are Medium settings: 84 FPS at 4K, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 124 FPS at 1080p. These represent the lowest observed frame rates during measurement, not true 1% lows, and all stay above 60 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of how settings impact performance. At 1080p, the difference between Low (162 FPS) and Ultra (130 FPS) is 32 FPS, which is noticeable but not severe. Medium at 1080p yields 146 FPS, a 16 FPS drop from Low but still 14 FPS above High (132 FPS). The sweet spot for 1080p appears to be Medium, as it offers 146 FPS average with a min of 124 FPS, providing smooth gameplay while retaining better visual quality than Low.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 143 FPS, Medium 129 FPS, High 117 FPS, and Ultra 115 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is only 2 FPS, making Ultra essentially free at this resolution. Medium's min FPS of 110 ensures consistent frame delivery, but the 14 FPS jump from Medium to High suggests High offers better visuals without a proportional performance cost. For 1440p, High appears optimal, with Ultra being a viable choice given the minimal penalty.

At 4K, the choices become more consequential. Low yields 119 FPS, Medium 99 FPS, High 75 FPS, and Ultra 72 FPS. The drop from Medium to High is 24 FPS, the largest single-step penalty in the entire dataset. Medium's min FPS of 84 keeps frame rates comfortably above 60, while High and Ultra both hover in the 72-75 FPS range. For 4K, Medium is the recommended preset, as it maintains a 99 FPS average while High only adds marginal visual improvements at a 24 FPS cost. Ultra offers no meaningful benefit over High (3 FPS difference), so it should be avoided unless visual fidelity takes absolute priority over frame rate stability.

The data indicates that Medium settings provide the best balance across all resolutions, with 146 FPS at 1080p, 129 FPS at 1440p, and 99 FPS at 4K. This preset consistently delivers frame rates well above 60 FPS while preserving the game's stealth atmosphere through moderate visual enhancements.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 742 out of 3,720 tested combinations places it in the 80th percentile of all systems tested for Thief. This is a strong showing, but not exceptional for a GPU that sits in the 86th percentile among all GPUs (avgBenchmarkScore 54,209) paired with a CPU in the 78th percentile among all CPUs (avgBenchmarkScore 25,517). The gap between the combo's rank and the GPU's percentile suggests that Thief, being a 2014 title, does not fully utilize the RTX 4080 SUPER's capabilities, particularly its ray tracing cores and tensor cores, which are irrelevant to this game's rendering pipeline.

The CPU's nearest rivals — all within 0.3% of its average score — indicate that the Ryzen 7 5700 is competitively positioned in synthetic benchmarks. However, in Thief, the 8-core/16-thread configuration may be overkill, as the game likely scales primarily with single-thread performance. The CPU's single-thread score of 901 in 3dmark and 2,916 in Cinebench R23 suggest capable single-core performance, but the game's 2014 release date means it may not leverage the full thread count.

The GPU's nearest rival is the RTX 4080 (deltaPct -0.1%), meaning the SUPER variant is nearly identical in average performance. The AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.7% behind, and the Radeon 8060S is 2.8% behind, showing the 4080 SUPER holds a modest lead over these alternatives. The combo's rank suggests that in Thief specifically, the GPU's raw compute advantage is partially offset by the game's age and engine limitations, resulting in a position that is strong but not dominant.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the dataset shows a clear hierarchy: Low averages 162 FPS, Medium 146 FPS (min 124, max 168), High 132 FPS, and Ultra 130 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra is almost linear, with each step costing roughly 10-16 FPS, except for High to Ultra which only drops 2 FPS. The min FPS at Medium (124) indicates that even during demanding scenes, the system maintains high frame rates, though the absence of min/max data for other settings limits deeper analysis.

At 2560x1440, Low delivers 143 FPS, Medium 129 FPS (min 110, max 148), High 117 FPS, and Ultra 115 FPS. The 1440p results show a compression of the FPS range compared to 1080p — the spread from Low to Ultra is 28 FPS here versus 32 FPS at 1080p. This suggests the GPU is starting to become a more significant factor, though the CPU still has headroom. The Medium min FPS of 110 is 14 FPS lower than at 1080p, indicating that resolution scaling affects frame consistency.

At 3840x2160, the pattern changes dramatically. Low averages 119 FPS, Medium 99 FPS (min 84, max 114), High 75 FPS, and Ultra 72 FPS. The 4K results show a much steeper drop-off, with High and Ultra both falling below 80 FPS. The gap between Medium and High (24 FPS) is the largest single-settings jump in the dataset, indicating that the High preset introduces effects that disproportionately impact the GPU at 4K. The Ultra preset's 72 FPS average is still playable, but the 27 FPS difference from Low highlights how resolution amplifies settings costs.

The data reveals that the combo's performance is most consistent at 1080p and 1440p, where all settings presets maintain averages above 115 FPS. At 4K, only Low and Medium exceed 90 FPS, making the higher presets viable only for players who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER's specifications — 16 GB GDDR6X memory, 256-bit bus, 736.3 GB/s bandwidth — are well-suited for Thief's demands. The GPU's boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz provide substantial compute throughput, with 10,240 shading units and 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 performance. These figures translate to the measured frame rates, particularly at 4K where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck.

The GPU's memory bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s is more than sufficient for a 2014 game, which likely uses far less than the 16 GB available. The 80 ray tracing cores and 320 tensor cores are unused in Thief, as the game predates these technologies, meaning the GPU's advantage comes from its rasterization performance alone. The pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s directly contribute to the 4K Ultra score of 72 FPS, as these fill rates determine how quickly the GPU can process high-resolution frames.

The GPU's performance relative to its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 (deltaPct -0.1%), shows the SUPER variant offers no measurable advantage in this title. The AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB trails by 2.7%, and the Radeon 8060S by 2.8%, indicating the 4080 SUPER's lead is consistent but modest. The GPU's 86th percentile rank among all GPUs aligns with its measured performance, but the combo's 742nd rank out of 3,720 suggests Thief's engine does not fully exploit the GPU's capabilities, possibly due to CPU limitations at lower resolutions or driver overhead.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 5700's 8 cores and 16 threads, based on Zen 3 architecture, provide strong multi-threaded performance as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 20,655 and 3dmark max threads score of 6,617. However, Thief, released in 2014, likely benefits more from the CPU's single-thread performance, which is represented by its 3dmark single-thread score of 901 and Cinebench R23 singlecore score of 2,916.

The CPU's base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz offer sufficient frequency headroom for the game's logic and AI systems. The 16 MB L3 cache and 512 KB L2 per core provide adequate data locality for a game of this era, though the 7 nm process and 65 W TDP suggest the CPU is not thermally constrained. The CPU's memory support for DDR4 at dual-channel with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth is standard for its generation, and the 20 PCIe Gen 3 lanes from the CPU (with the GPU using PCIe 4.0 x16) provide ample bandwidth for the RTX 4080 SUPER.

The CPU's benchmark scores show it is competitive with its nearest rivals, but the deltaPct values are all within 0.3%, indicating that synthetic benchmarks do not distinguish it meaningfully from alternatives. In Thief, the CPU's role is likely to feed the GPU with draw calls and game state updates, and the measured FPS at 1080p Low (162 FPS) suggests the CPU can push frame rates high when the GPU is not the bottleneck. However, the 4K results, where the CPU's influence diminishes, show that the GPU is the primary limiter at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the balance between CPU and GPU load. At Low settings, the progression is 162 FPS (1080p) → 143 FPS (1440p) → 119 FPS (4K), representing drops of 11.7% and 16.8% respectively. This relatively gentle decline suggests that at Low settings, the system is not fully GPU-bound, and the CPU's performance contributes to maintaining higher frame rates at 4K than would be expected from a purely GPU-limited scenario.

At Medium settings, the scaling is 146 FPS → 129 FPS → 99 FPS, with drops of 11.6% and 23.3%. The larger drop from 1440p to 4K (30 FPS) indicates that the GPU is becoming more dominant as settings increase. The min FPS values follow a similar pattern: 124 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 84 FPS at 4K, showing that frame consistency degrades more rapidly at 4K.

At High settings, the scaling is 132 FPS → 117 FPS → 75 FPS, with drops of 11.4% and 35.9%. The 42 FPS drop from 1440p to 4K is the largest in the dataset, indicating that High settings introduce GPU-heavy effects (likely shadows, textures, and post-processing) that scale poorly with resolution. At Ultra settings, the scaling is 130 FPS → 115 FPS → 72 FPS, with drops of 11.5% and 37.4%, showing that Ultra is even more demanding at 4K relative to 1440p.

The data suggests that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, where frame rates are high but the GPU is not fully utilized. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, particularly at High and Ultra settings where the 4K FPS drops below 80. The 1440p results show a balanced system where both CPU and GPU contribute effectively, as evidenced by the moderate FPS drops and consistent min FPS values. This indicates that for Thief, 1440p High or Ultra represents the optimal resolution-to-settings ratio, while 4K is best paired with Medium settings to maintain 99 FPS average and 84 FPS minimum.