Thief

Thief (released 2014-02-24) is a stealth title whose performance profile on the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination is fully captured by the measured frame-rate data below. The CPU (12 cores, 24 threads, 3.70 GHz base, 4.80 GHz boost, 64 MB L3) and GPU (8 GB GDDR6, 1500 MHz base, 1725 MHz boost, 448.0 GB/s bandwidth) deliver playable results across all tested resolutions and settings, but the shape of the frame-rate curve reveals clear guidance on how to tune settings for a given target.

Settings Recommendations

For a 1920x1080 display, every preset in the measured set exceeds 115 average FPS. The Low preset hits 170 average FPS, Medium 154, High 121, and Ultra 115. There is no compromise at this resolution because even the Ultra preset holds above 100 FPS; users can safely select the highest visual quality available. At 2560x1440, the same conclusion holds for Medium (109 average FPS) and Low (143), but High drops to 83 and Ultra to 79 — still comfortably above 60 FPS. For a 1440p monitor, or for users who prefer a fluid experience over slight visual gains, Medium offers a 109 average with a minimum recorded frame of 92 and maximum of 125, which is the best quality-to-smoothness trade-off from the measured rows.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes. The Ultra preset produces an average of 46 FPS, High 49, Medium 64, and Low 84. If a monitor or gaming TV locks to 60 Hz, the Medium preset at 4K is the only configuration that reaches an average over 60, and its average (64) leaves headroom. Low delivers 84 average FPS, but Low settings eliminate significant visual detail. Thus, for 4K the recommended setting is Medium — the 64 average is above 60, and the measured range (min 54, max 74) dips below 60 only rarely. For a strict 60 FPS target, Medium is the safe choice; for a strict 120 FPS target at 4K, no preset reaches it, so a lower resolution or reduced quality would be necessary. No setting row in the data reaches 120 average FPS at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is a 30-series Ampere part with 8 GB GDDR6 memory, a 256-bit bus giving 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, and a confirmed boost clock of 1725 MHz (base 1500 MHz). The chip carries 5888 shading units. These numbers appear directly in the measured frames: the GPU decides at which speed each preset/quality combination runs, particularly at 1080p and 1440p where the CPU has sufficient headroom.

The passmark G3D score is 22214, the GPU’s percentile against all GPUs is 61. In the Thief benchmark, a 1080p/Ultra session yields 115 average FPS; the same GPU at 4K/Ultra yields 46 average. The drop is just over a 3× loss of frame rate from 1080p to 4K (115→46). This cannot be explained by the CPU; the CPU scores are equally high (e.g., Passmark Multi-thread 39002). Instead, the VRAM footprint of 4K textures is unlike any 8 GB card can sustain at high settings, and the frame data show that even at 4K/Medium the average only reaches 64. The GPU’s closest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (avgScore 17083, deltaPct 0.7) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (17037, deltaPct 1.0), placing the RTX 3070 within 0.7-1.0% of those cards in the Passmark GPU score. Thief is an older title without ray tracing or intensity-heavy shaders, so the real limitation at high resolutions is the graphics core and its memory subsystem—the 8 GB/256-bit memory bus is the same type as its release era (2020), but the 4K data shows that the 448 GB/s bandwidth is not enough to keep the frame rate in acceptable territory for Ultra at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

Frame rates decline steeply as resolution increases. The 1080p/Medium session averages 154 FPS, while the 1440p/Medium averages 109 and 4K/Medium averages 64. That is a series of 154→109 (Medium, 1080p→1440p) and 109→64 (1440p→4K). A 11% drop from 1080p to 1440p is about 45 FPS, but for High settings the corresponding numbers are 121 (1080p), 83 (1440p) and 76 (1440p) to 64 (4K) to High / 4K 49. For the Ultra preset, the sequence is 115→79→46. At 1080p, Low yields 170 FPS, which drops to 143 at 1440p and 84 at 4K. The scaling shows two regimes: from 1080p to 1440p, the frame rate drops by ~20% across settings (e.g., High 121→83 is a reduction of 1/3 of the original); from 1440p to 4K, the drop is even more dramatic—Medium 109→64, High 83→49, showing that 4K is untenable for 60 FPS reflection of pixel shading than for CPU compute. The 1080p rows are mostly CPU-bound? Yet, even at Low the 170 FPS is so high that the GPU is still capable; the CPU’s role is not the bottleneck here. The resolution scaling pattern (60%→50% frame retention from 1080p to 4K) strongly indicates a GPU function that outweighs any CPU influence, because the CPU core counts (12C/24T) and clocks (up to 4.80) would not degrade with more pixels. Since the game runs at 170 FPS at 1080p/Low, the CPU is not a limiting component until the GPU gets heavier, which happens harshly in 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global combo benchmark for Thief, this CPU+GPU pairing has a measured rank of 1440 out of 3720 tested combinations. Effectively, this places it in the top 38% of all tested combos — better than two-thirds of the entire field. The CPU has a percentileVsAllCPUs of 87, so relative to all CPUs, 87% of desktop processors score lower. The GPU’s same percentileVsAllGpus is 61, meaning that 61% of all GPUs fall below it. Combined with the ranking, the system’s strong suit is at 1080p and 1440p; at 4K it falls just outside the top third due to GPU memory pressure on the 8 GB card. Note the rivals from the CPU and GPU nearestRivals tables: the CPU is within 0.3%–0.4% of the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H, Ultra 7 356H, and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 440 in average score, but is 0.5% slower than the Intel Core i7‑14650HX. There is no factorial relationship between those rival specs because the pack provides no scores for Thief itself; the rank is the only in-game metric we have for other combinations.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X uses the Zen 3 (Vermeer) codename, with 12 cores / 24 threads, a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost to 4.80 GHz, and 64 MB L3. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 16262, single-core 1527. PassMark multi-thread is 39002, single-thread 3469. Among the measured rows, the CPU is clearly not the limiting factor in Thief: at 1080p/Low, the 170 FPS average is higher than any 4K result, and even a single-thread score of 3469 indicates that a low-fleeting game like Thief can rely on what one core. The 24 threads provide marginal tightness but since Thief is not a heavily multithreaded title from 2014, six of the twelve cores are likely under‑utilized, but that alone does not produce a deficiency — the GPU disproportionately wanders the frame rate with resolution. The CPU’s L1/L2 caches (64KB / 512KB per core) have enough for the AI-driven stealth scenes, but the data cannot isolate CPU-only contributions without testing another CPU.

In the 4K/Ultra row, the average is 46 FPS while 1080p/Ultra is 115 — a factor of 2.5, which is translation over the exact same title but 4× the pixels. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would not depend so loosely on resolution. Therefore the CPU role in Thief is an appropriate slot: its 16‑thread or thread count does not feed the frame rate in a way that is painful, but it does not stab at any resolution. The percentile of 87% for the CPU in the full universe of CPUs supports that this combo sits in a satisfactory CPU spot; the GPU is the decisive factor.

FAQ

Q: How does the 4K resolves affect the average FPS compared to 1080p?

A: On High settings, the average FPS drops from 121 at 1920x1080 to 49 at 3840x2160. On Low settings, it drops from 170 to 84.

Q: What is the guaranteed minimum frame rate in Thief at the tested Medium preset?

A: Across all resolutions, the measured 4K/Medium reports only a min of 54 (average 64). At 1440p/Medium the min is 92, and at 1080p/Medium the min is 131. No other settings have min values.

Q: How strong is the CPU relative to others?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X has percentileVsAllCPUs of 87, and its benchmark scores include Multi‑core scores like Cinebench R23 Multi 16262 and a Passmark Multi‑Thread 39002. It sits between the Intel Core i7‑14650HX (avg 41526, -0.5% delta) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 366H (avg 41263, +0.3%) in averaged score.

Q: What is the GPU’s launch MSRP and how does that compare to the CPU’s?

A: The GPU launch MSRP is 499 USD; the CPU launch MSRP is $549. The data shows the combo achieves 1440p Ultra at 79 FPS, but 4K Ultra is 46 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in each tested resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, a Low setting shows 170 FPS, implying a light GPU load but also a high CPU single‑thread cap. At 3840x2160, the findings (Low 84, Ultra 46) indicate the GPU cap. The CPU has enough headroom for all scenarios, but because the game’s CPU needs are low for a 2014 title, the GPU memory (8 GB) may constrain Ultra at 4K.

Q: What is the measured combo rank?

A: This CPU+GPU combo has a rank of 1440 out of 3720 tested combos, meaning it sits above the median (exactly 61% of combos rank lower).

Measured FPS Breakdown

All values below are measured average FPS (with the 4K/Medium) min–max); no other min/max are given in the pack.

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

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

| 3840x2160 | High | 49 | – | – |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 84 | – | – |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 64 | 54 | 74 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 46 | – | – |

| 2560x1440 | High | 83 | – | – |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 143 | – | – |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 109 | 92 | 125 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 79 | – | – |

| 1920x1080 | High | 121| – | – |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 170 | – | – |

| 1920x1080 | Medium| 154 | 131 | 177 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 115 | – | – |

At the 4K, the Ultra setting's 46 average is the lowest recorded; doubling the CPU’s pass severity or exceeding to a different preset would gain 45 FPS by switching to Medium. The medium row also provides a min/max pair (54/72), which is the only profile with range data in the pack, suggesting variable 4K scenes. At 1440p and 1080p, medemium ‑are> (minimum 92, maximum 125) and 1080p/Medium (minimum 131, maximum 177) give confidence in steady play. These 12 values constitute the entire per-thread dataset, decoded for Thief (2014).