Thief

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X paired with the Intel Arc B390 delivers a fundamentally GPU-limited experience in Thief, where the integrated graphics solution consistently caps performance far below what the 12-core Zen 4 processor can provide. The data shows a combo ranking in the 2534th position out of 2851 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 11% of all systems, with the Arc B390’s 9th percentile standing among all GPUs being the primary constraint. While the Ryzen 9 7900X ranks in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, the measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings reveal that this pairing produces playable results only at 1080p Low, with every other configuration falling short of smooth gameplay thresholds.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K in Thief is steep and consistent, indicating that the Intel Arc B390 is the definitive limiting component in this combo. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 50 at 1920x1080 to 34 at 2560x1440, then further to 20 at 3840x2160. This represents a 32% reduction moving from 1080p to 1440p, and a 41% reduction moving from 1440p to 4K. The scaling pattern is similar across other settings: Low settings produce 86 FPS at 1080p, 59 FPS at 1440p, and 35 FPS at 4K, while Medium settings yield 66, 45, and 26 FPS respectively. Ultra settings show the same downward trajectory, with 48 FPS at 1080p dropping to 33 FPS at 1440p and 19 FPS at 4K.

The magnitude of these declines points directly at the GPU. The Ryzen 9 7900X, with its 12 cores, 24 threads, and boost clock of 5.60 GHz, is more than capable of feeding frames at any of these resolutions. The fact that the FPS drops by roughly half when going from 1080p to 4K at every settings level suggests that pixel throughput — not CPU geometry or draw call processing — is the bottleneck. The Arc B390’s pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s, combined with its 7.680 TFLOPS FP32 performance, are simply insufficient for 4K workloads in this 2014 stealth title, which was designed for era-appropriate hardware.

At 1080p, the scaling is less punishing but still reveals the GPU limitation. The difference between Low (86 FPS) and Ultra (48 FPS) at 1080p is 38 FPS, a 44% performance penalty for maxing out settings. This gap narrows at higher resolutions: at 1440p the delta is 26 FPS (59 to 33), and at 4K it is 16 FPS (35 to 19). The narrowing spread at higher resolutions is typical of a GPU that is already saturated — when pixel fill rate becomes the hard ceiling, the incremental cost of higher settings compresses because the base performance is already so low. The data indicates that even the most demanding settings at 1080p cannot fully utilize the Ryzen 9 7900X’s capabilities, and the CPU remains largely idle from a gaming perspective.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. It features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 ROPs, along with 12 ray tracing cores. The base clock sits at 300 MHz with a boost clock of 2500 MHz, and the memory configuration is entirely system shared, with bandwidth described as “System Dependent.” This shared memory architecture is a critical factor in Thief performance, as the GPU must compete with the CPU for DDR5 bandwidth, which for the Ryzen 9 7900X is rated at 83.2 GB/s on a dual-channel bus.

The GPU’s benchmark results are stark: a single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 places it in the 9th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all legacy NVIDIA parts — the GeForce GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% slower), GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% slower), GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% slower), and GeForce GT 710 (1443, 2.7% slower). This context is essential: the Arc B390 is not merely underpowered for modern gaming; it is performing at a level comparable to entry-level GPUs from over a decade ago. In Thief, this translates to the measured FPS figures, where even the best case scenario — 1080p Low at 86 FPS — is only achieved because the game is old enough to be undemanding by current standards.

The VRAM situation is unusual: the Arc B390 has no dedicated VRAM, instead using “System Shared” memory. This means the effective memory bandwidth is dependent on the system’s DDR5 implementation, which is shared with the CPU. For a game like Thief that was released in 2014, texture memory requirements are modest by today’s standards, so the lack of dedicated VRAM is not the primary limiter. Instead, the raw compute throughput — 7.680 TFLOPS FP32 and 15.36 TFLOPS FP16 — combined with the 60.00 GPixel/s fill rate, determines the ceiling. At 4K, the GPU must process four times as many pixels as at 1080p, and the data shows it simply cannot keep up, with average FPS falling to 19-35 depending on settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranking of 2534 out of 2851 tested combinations places this system in the bottom 11% of all configurations in the database for Thief. This is a remarkably low position, driven almost entirely by the GPU. The Ryzen 9 7900X’s average benchmark score of 53,288 places it in the 91st percentile among all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD EPYC 7313P (53,206, just 0.2% lower), Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (53,469, 0.3% higher), Intel Xeon 634 (52,974, 0.6% lower), and Intel Core i7-14700F (53,620, 0.6% higher). These margins are minuscule, indicating that the CPU is performing exactly as expected for a high-end desktop processor.

The contrast between the CPU’s 91st percentile and the GPU’s 9th percentile is the defining characteristic of this combo. In Thief, the game’s engine is not particularly CPU-intensive by modern standards, so the Ryzen 9 7900X’s 12 cores and 24 threads are largely underutilized. The 3DMark multi-threaded scores for the CPU show strong scaling: 10,972 for 16 threads, 7,798 for 8 threads, 4,151 for 4 threads, and 2,137 for 2 threads, with a single-thread score of 1,093. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29,300 and single-core score of 2,016.5 further confirm that the CPU is not a bottleneck in any scenario that this GPU can reach.

The ranking data suggests that this combo is suitable only for very light gaming or non-gaming workloads. In Thief, the 2534th rank means that 317 other tested combos performed worse, but the vast majority of systems — 2,534 — delivered higher frame rates. This places the Arc B390 in a category with integrated graphics from other vendors, not with discrete GPUs. The GPU’s nearest rivals in the benchmark database — all of which are legacy NVIDIA parts scoring within 2.7% of the Arc B390 — reinforce that this is entry-level territory, far below what even a mid-range discrete GPU would achieve.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the resolution most likely to produce playable results, the data shows the following average FPS: Low settings deliver 86 FPS, Medium delivers 66 FPS, High delivers 50 FPS, and Ultra delivers 48 FPS. The Medium setting also recorded a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 75 FPS, providing a more complete picture of frame time consistency. The gap between Low and Medium is 20 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 16 FPS, and High to Ultra is only 2 FPS. This pattern indicates that the GPU hits a performance plateau around the High settings level, where additional graphical features cost minimal performance because the GPU is already constrained by other factors.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS drops to 59 for Low, 45 for Medium, 34 for High, and 33 for Ultra. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 38 FPS and a maximum of 52 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium is 14 FPS, Medium to High is 11 FPS, and High to Ultra is a negligible 1 FPS. The compression of performance differences at higher resolutions is again evident, with the GPU’s fill rate limits dominating. At 1440p, even Low settings barely achieves 60 FPS, which is generally considered the minimum for smooth gameplay, and that is the only settings level that reaches this threshold.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable: Low averages 35 FPS, Medium averages 26 FPS (with a minimum of 22 and maximum of 30), High averages 20 FPS, and Ultra averages 19 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 9 FPS, Medium to High is 6 FPS, and High to Ultra is just 1 FPS. At 4K, the GPU is so saturated that all settings converge toward the same low FPS range, with the difference between Low and Ultra being only 16 FPS. This is a classic sign of pixel fill rate limits, as the GPU cannot push more than roughly 35 FPS even at the lowest settings, and the Ultra setting is only 46% slower than Low.

The minimum FPS data, available only for Medium settings, shows that frame pacing is also a concern. At 1080p Medium, the minimum of 56 FPS is 15% below the average of 66 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum of 38 FPS is 16% below the average of 45 FPS. At 4K Medium, the minimum of 22 FPS is 15% below the average of 26 FPS. This consistency in the minimum-to-average ratio suggests that the GPU’s frame delivery is stable, but at a low absolute level, which would result in noticeable stutter during action sequences in Thief.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 Low is the only configuration that exceeds 60 FPS, averaging 86 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the average is 66 FPS, which is also above the 60 FPS threshold, but the minimum drops to 56 FPS. For 1440p, only Low settings (59 FPS average) approach playability, while 4K is not viable at any setting, with the highest average being 35 FPS at Low.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database?

A: The Arc B390 scored 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it in the 9th percentile. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX with a score of 1463, which is 1.3% slower. The GeForce 800M (1460) is 1.5% slower, the GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446) is 2.5% slower, and the GeForce GT 710 (1443) is 2.7% slower. This places the Arc B390 in the performance range of decade-old entry-level discrete GPUs.

*Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X a bottleneck for this GPU in Thief?*

A: No. The Ryzen 9 7900X ranks in the 91st percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 53,288, while the Arc B390 ranks in the 9th percentile. The CPU’s 12 cores, 24 threads, and 5.60 GHz boost clock far exceed the demands of Thief, and the measured FPS scaling with resolution confirms that the GPU is the limiting component in every scenario.

Q: What are the CPU’s benchmark scores relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 9 7900X scores 53,288 on average. Its nearest rivals are the AMD EPYC 7313P at 53,206 (0.2% lower), Intel Xeon Phi 7290 at 53,469 (0.3% higher), Intel Xeon 634 at 52,974 (0.6% lower), and Intel Core i7-14700F at 53,620 (0.6% higher). All differences are under 1%, indicating the CPU is performing at expected levels.

*Q: Does the Arc B390 have dedicated VRAM, and does it matter for Thief?*

A: The Arc B390 uses “System Shared” memory with “System Dependent” bandwidth, meaning it has no dedicated VRAM. For Thief, which was released in 2014, this is not the primary limiting factor; the GPU’s compute throughput (7.680 TFLOPS FP32) and pixel rate (60.00 GPixel/s) are the main constraints, as evidenced by the severe FPS drops at higher resolutions.

*Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking in the database for Thief?*

A: This combo ranks 2534th out of 2851 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 11%. This low rank is attributable to the GPU’s 9th percentile standing, while the CPU’s 91st percentile shows that the processor is not the limiting factor.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor from the 7000 series, built on the Zen 4 architecture with a 5 nm process at TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a TDP of 170 W. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache, totaling 13,140 million transistors across a 2x 71 mm² die size. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s, and it uses the AMD Socket AM5 platform with PCIe Gen 5 (24 lanes from the CPU).

In Thief, the CPU’s role is minimal because the game’s engine does not scale well with the 12 cores. The benchmark data shows strong multi-threaded performance: a 3DMark max-thread score of 12,536, a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29,300, and a Geekbench multi-core score of 19,267. Single-thread performance is equally strong, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1,093 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,016.5. These scores indicate that the CPU is more than capable of handling any frame rate the Arc B390 can produce.

The nearest rivals to the Ryzen 9 7900X in the CPU benchmark database — the AMD EPYC 7313P (0.2% lower), Intel Xeon Phi 7290 (0.3% higher), Intel Xeon 634 (0.6% lower), and Intel Core i7-14700F (0.6% higher) — all fall within a 1% performance band. This demonstrates that the 7900X is delivering expected performance for its class. In the context of Thief, the CPU’s 91st percentile rank is irrelevant to the gaming experience because the GPU’s 9th percentile rank creates a hard ceiling. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (86 FPS) is likely the maximum this combo can achieve, and that figure is determined by the GPU’s pixel fill rate, not the CPU’s ability to issue draw calls or process game logic.

The data suggests that any CPU from the last decade would produce similar results with the Arc B390 in Thief, as the game is not CPU-bound at these frame rates. The Ryzen 9 7900X’s 64 MB L3 cache and DDR5 bandwidth are wasted on this workload, as the GPU cannot request data fast enough to utilize them. For users considering this combo for Thief, the CPU is a non-factor; the experience is entirely defined by the GPU’s limitations. The 2534th rank out of 2851 combos is a direct consequence of the Arc B390’s position in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, and no amount of CPU headroom can overcome that constraint.