Thief

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers a solid, playable experience in Thief, but the data reveals a clear performance ceiling that shifts depending on resolution and settings. This combination ranks 984th out of 1642 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. The measured frame rates show that this pairing is capable of high refresh rates at 1080p, yet struggles to maintain smooth gameplay at 4K with maximum image quality.

Resolution Scaling

Thief's performance scales predictably as resolution increases, and the data clearly identifies where the bottleneck lies. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 169 FPS, which drops to 119.5 FPS at 2560x1440 and further down to 66.4 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 61% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that even at the lowest graphical preset, the GPU is being pushed harder as pixel count rises.

The scaling pattern becomes more dramatic at higher settings. With High settings, the average frame rate falls from 97.2 FPS at 1080p to 68.1 FPS at 1440p, then plummets to 38 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset tells a similar story: 91.4 FPS at 1080p, 65.4 FPS at 1440p, and just 39.5 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1440p and 4K is particularly steep, with roughly a 42% performance drop for High settings and a 40% drop for Ultra. This steep decline suggests that the RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth become limiting factors as the render resolution increases, with the GPU's compute capabilities unable to compensate for the additional pixel workload.

At 1080p, the CPU's role becomes more apparent. The Ryzen 9 5900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, can push frame rates well above 90 FPS across all settings. The difference between Low (169 FPS) and Ultra (91.4 FPS) at 1080p demonstrates that the GPU is still the primary constraint, but the CPU has enough headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck. The data indicates that for this game, 1440p represents the sweet spot for this combo, where High settings deliver 68.1 FPS — playable for most users — while 4K requires dropping to Low settings to achieve 66.4 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Thief?

A: Based on the measured FPS, 2560x1440 with High settings provides 68.1 FPS, which is a good balance between visual quality and smoothness. At 1920x1080, Ultra settings reach 91.4 FPS, offering a smoother experience if higher frame rates are preferred.

Q: Can this setup handle 4K gameplay in Thief?

A: Yes, but only with reduced settings. At 3840x2160, Low settings produce 66.4 FPS, while Medium drops to 51 FPS, and High/Ultra fall below 40 FPS (38 and 39.5 respectively). For consistent 60+ FPS at 4K, Low settings are required.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 5900X scores 39453 on average, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD EPYC 4245P (39383) and 0.9% higher than the Intel Core i7-13700F (39095). It trails the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS by 0.7% and the Intel Core i7-13700 by 1%.

Q: What is the GPU's performance percentile compared to all GPUs?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER sits in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307, which is 0.5% higher.

Q: Does the game favor CPU or GPU performance at 1080p?

A: The data suggests the GPU is still the limiting factor at 1080p, as frame rates vary significantly with settings (169 FPS at Low vs 91.4 FPS at Ultra). The CPU's 12 cores and 24 threads provide ample processing power, but the GPU's rendering capabilities cap performance.

Q: How does the frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p compare across settings?

A: The percentage drop is consistent: Low falls from 169 to 119.5 FPS (a 29% reduction), Medium from 132 to 86.6 FPS (34%), High from 97.2 to 68.1 FPS (30%), and Ultra from 91.4 to 65.4 FPS (28%). This uniform scaling indicates the GPU is the primary constraint across all presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the dominant factor in determining Thief's performance at higher resolutions. With 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, the card provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for 1080p and 1440p but becomes a limiting factor at 4K. The GPU's base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 2560 shading units, deliver 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power. These specifications place the card in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 22206.

The GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores 22307 (0.5% higher), while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z scores 22006 (0.9% lower). The AMD Radeon RX 5700 trails by 2.5% with a score of 21670. In Thief specifically, the RTX 2070 SUPER's performance at 1440p High (68.1 FPS) shows that the card's capabilities align well with its synthetic scores, though the 4K results (38 FPS at High) reveal its limitations with higher pixel counts.

The GPU's 64 ROPs and 160 TMUs handle texture and pixel processing efficiently at lower resolutions, but the 4K Ultra result of 39.5 FPS indicates that the card's fill rate and memory bandwidth are insufficient for maximum settings at that resolution. The data suggests that the RTX 2070 SUPER is best utilized at 1440p or below in this game, where it can maintain playable frame rates even at Ultra settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The Ryzen 9 5900X + RTX 2070 SUPER combination ranks 984th out of 1642 tested combos in Thief, placing it in the top 60% of all configurations. This mid-tier ranking reflects the balance between a high-end CPU from 2020 and a mid-range GPU from 2019. The CPU's percentile ranking of 90 among all CPUs indicates that the processor is not the limiting factor in most scenarios, while the GPU's 65th percentile ranking shows that the graphics card is the more modest component in this pairing.

The combo's ranking suggests that in a game like Thief, which was released in 2014, the hardware combination provides more than enough processing power but is constrained by the GPU's capabilities at higher resolutions. The 12-core CPU with 24 threads can easily handle the game's computational demands, but the RTX 2070 SUPER's mid-range positioning means that 4K gaming requires significant settings reductions. This ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data, which shows strong 1080p performance but compromised 4K results.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, based on the Zen 3 architecture with the Vermeer codename, provides substantial computational headroom for Thief. With 12 cores and 24 threads, the CPU operates at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts up to 4.80 GHz. The 64 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, while the 7 nm process node from TSMC ensures efficient power consumption with a 105 W TDP. The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show strong performance across the board: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 33150, Geekbench multicore reaches 11877, and Passmark multithread hits 39002.

The CPU sits in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39453. Its nearest rivals show close competition: the AMD EPYC 4245P scores 39383 (0.2% lower), the Intel Core i7-13700F scores 39095 (0.9% lower), while the Intel Core i7-13700 scores 39857 (1% higher). The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8845HS scores 39747 (0.7% higher). In Thief, the CPU's influence is most visible at 1080p Low settings, where the combo achieves 169 FPS — a frame rate that suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to avoid becoming a bottleneck.

However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU's performance headroom is not fully utilized in this game. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 91.4 FPS, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor even at lower resolutions. The CPU's high single-core performance (Cinebench R23 singlecore score of 4680) and 3DMark single-thread score of 941 ensure that Thief's game logic and physics calculations are handled without issue, but the overall experience is determined by the GPU's rendering capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of this combo's performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers excellent performance: Low settings achieve 169 FPS, Medium reaches 132 FPS, High produces 97.2 FPS, and Ultra still maintains a smooth 91.4 FPS. These numbers indicate that 1080p gaming is entirely viable at any settings preset, with even the most demanding configuration staying well above 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows the GPU's limitations beginning to appear. Low settings produce 119.5 FPS, which drops to 86.6 FPS at Medium, 68.1 FPS at High, and 65.4 FPS at Ultra. All of these results remain playable, though the gap between Medium and High (18.5 FPS difference) and High to Ultra (2.7 FPS difference) suggests diminishing returns at higher presets.

At 3840x2160, the performance falls below playable thresholds for demanding settings. Low settings achieve 66.4 FPS, which is acceptable, but Medium drops to 51 FPS, High falls to 38 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 39.5 FPS. The data shows that 4K gaming requires Low settings for a smooth experience, with Medium being borderline and High/Ultra being too demanding for consistent gameplay. The performance drop from 1440p to 4K is steepest at High settings (68.1 to 38 FPS, a 44% reduction), highlighting the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute limitations at higher pixel densities.