Thief

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a compelling performance profile in Thief, a 2014 stealth title that remains surprisingly demanding at higher settings. The measured data reveals a system that is primarily GPU-limited at 4K, but transitions to a more balanced state at lower resolutions, where the CPU's capabilities become more apparent. This analysis breaks down the frame rate behavior across resolutions, settings, and component roles.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates where the bottleneck lies in this configuration. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 135.5 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at Ultra drops performance by 13.5% to 117.2 FPS, which is a modest decline. However, the jump to 3840x2160 at Ultra results in a significant 39.7% reduction from the 1440p figure, landing at 70.7 FPS. This pattern indicates a classic GPU-bound scenario: as pixel count increases, the rendering load on the RTX 4080 SUPER grows exponentially, while the CPU has ample headroom.

The data shows that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the limiting component at 4K, as frame rates fall below 100 FPS across all settings. At 1080p, the CPU's role becomes more pronounced. The difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 31.5 FPS (167.0 vs 135.5), whereas at 4K the same settings gap widens to 55.2 FPS (125.9 vs 70.7). This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU can feed frames fast enough to expose the GPU's raw compute limits, but at 4K, the GPU's pixel throughput is the primary constraint. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at High settings shows a 37.3% drop (119.7 to 75.4 FPS), reinforcing that the GPU is saturated at higher resolutions.

Interestingly, the 1080p to 1440p scaling at Low settings is minimal, with only a 13.4% decline (167.0 to 144.6 FPS). This relatively small drop suggests that the CPU is beginning to cap performance at 1080p Low, as the GPU has spare capacity. At Ultra settings, the same resolution transition shows a more substantial 13.5% drop (135.5 to 117.2 FPS), indicating the GPU is more engaged. The overall trend is clear: the system is CPU-limited at 1080p Low, balanced at 1440p, and definitively GPU-limited at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is a high-end Ada Lovelace part with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock of 2550 MHz and 10240 shading units deliver a theoretical FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS. In Thief, these specifications translate to strong raw performance, but the game's engine appears to respond more to memory bandwidth and raw pixel throughput than to raw compute.

At 4K Ultra, the GPU averages 70.7 FPS, which is below the 75.4 FPS seen at High settings. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 4.7 FPS, suggesting that Ultra settings introduce effects that are particularly taxing on the GPU's memory subsystem. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for Thief, even at 4K, as the game was released in 2014 and does not have high VRAM demands. The data shows no signs of VRAM-related stuttering or performance cliffs, confirming that the 16 GB capacity is a non-issue.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its standing. It holds an 88th percentile rank among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53610. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, scores 53489, a delta of 0.2%, indicating near-parity in synthetic tests. However, in Thief's real-world measurements, the RTX 4080 SUPER's performance at 4K Ultra (70.7 FPS) suggests that the game's specific rendering paths favor NVIDIA's architecture. The GPU's memory clock of 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) and 112 ROPs contribute to its ability to handle the game's shadow and lighting effects at high resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The average frame rate at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 135.5 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 53610 in average benchmarks, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT's 53489 score.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the GPU is the limiting component. The average frame rate at 4K Low is 125.9 FPS, but at Ultra it drops to 70.7 FPS, demonstrating GPU-bound behavior.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 144.6 FPS, while Ultra averages 117.2 FPS, a difference of 27.4 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU's multi-threaded performance correlate with higher frame rates in Thief?

A: The Ryzen 7 5700X scores 22620 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, but Thief shows only a 13.5% drop from 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra, suggesting the game is not heavily multi-threaded.

Q: What is the rank of this CPU+GPU combo among all tested configurations in Thief?

A: This combination ranks 260th out of 1642 total tested combos, placing it in the top 15.8% of all systems.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings provide a complete picture of performance. At 1920x1080, the system delivers high frame rates across the board. Low settings average 167.0 FPS, Medium 152.1 FPS, High 139.2 FPS, and Ultra 135.5 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 31.5 FPS, indicating that each settings tier has a measurable impact on performance, but even the heaviest preset remains well above 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong. Low averages 144.6 FPS, Medium 132.2 FPS, High 119.7 FPS, and Ultra 117.2 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at High settings results in a 14.0% reduction (139.2 to 119.7 FPS), which is a moderate penalty for the resolution increase. The scaling from Medium to High at 1440p shows a 9.5% drop (132.2 to 119.7 FPS), suggesting that High settings add significant visual complexity.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop substantially. Low averages 125.9 FPS, Medium 101.2 FPS, High 75.4 FPS, and Ultra 70.7 FPS. The most significant drop occurs between Medium and High at 4K, a 25.5% reduction (101.2 to 75.4 FPS). This indicates that High settings introduce effects that are disproportionately expensive at 4K pixel counts. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 6.2% (75.4 to 70.7 FPS), making Ultra a relatively minor additional cost over High.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1080p, the Ultra preset is the best choice, as it delivers 135.5 FPS, which is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay on high-refresh-rate monitors. The delta between High and Ultra at 1080p is only 3.7 FPS (139.2 vs 135.5), making the visual upgrade essentially free.

For 1440p, the High preset offers the best balance. It averages 119.7 FPS, which is comfortably above 60 FPS, while the Ultra preset only provides 117.2 FPS, a negligible improvement of 2.5 FPS. The Medium preset at 132.2 FPS is also viable, but High provides a better visual experience for only a 9.5% performance hit.

At 4K, the High preset is the recommended choice. It delivers 75.4 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play, whereas the Ultra preset drops to 70.7 FPS. The Medium preset at 101.2 FPS is also a strong option for players who prefer higher frame rates, as it maintains over 100 FPS while still providing decent visual quality. The Low preset at 125.9 FPS is only recommended for competitive play where maximum frame rates are critical, as it sacrifices significant visual fidelity.

Overall, the data suggests that the High preset is the sweet spot across all resolutions, offering a consistent visual quality upgrade with manageable performance costs. The Ultra preset is only worth considering at 1080p, where the performance hit is minimal.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X is a Zen 3 part with 8 cores and 16 threads, running at a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It has 32 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. In Thief, the CPU's role is significant at lower resolutions, where it can become the limiting factor.

At 1080p Low, the system averages 167.0 FPS, which is the highest frame rate in the entire dataset. However, the scaling to 1440p Low shows only a 13.4% drop (167.0 to 144.6 FPS), while the scaling from 1440p to 4K Low is a more substantial 13.0% drop (144.6 to 125.9 FPS). This pattern suggests that at 1080p Low, the CPU is nearing its limit, as the GPU has enough headroom to render frames faster than the CPU can supply them.

The CPU's single-thread performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3193 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2148. These scores indicate that the 5700X can handle Thief's primary game logic thread efficiently. The multi-threaded performance, demonstrated by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22620, is less relevant, as Thief likely uses only a few threads. This is evident from the fact that the frame rate does not scale dramatically with higher core counts at lower resolutions.

The CPU holds an 83rd percentile rank among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 26214. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i9-11900KF, scores 26196, a delta of 0.1%, indicating near-parity in synthetic tests. In Thief, the 5700X's performance is adequate for the game's demands, but it does cap frame rates at 1080p Low. The 65W TDP and 7nm process node ensure efficient operation, but the data shows that the CPU is not the primary driver of performance in this title at higher resolutions.