Thief

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers measured performance in Thief that is clearly split between the two components: the 12-core Zen 5 CPU easily sustains high frame rates at every setting, while the Turing GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution scales upward. Thief shipped on February 24, 2014, and this test covers 1080p, 1440p, and 4K at Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets. The Ryzen 9 9900X, released August 14, 2024, carries a launch MSRP of $499, while the RTX 2070 SUPER, available since July 8, 2019, had a launch MSRP of 499 USD. The data below comes from measured runs, with average, minimum, and maximum FPS captured for each setting where available.

Resolution Scaling

The clearest signal from the measured numbers is the speed at which average FPS collapses as pixel count grows, and it points directly at the GPU as the primary bottleneck. At Low settings, 1920x1080 produces 171 FPS, 2560x1440 falls to 118 FPS, and 3840x2160 reaches only 69 FPS. That ordering holds for every preset. The same drop pattern appears in the High rows: 99 FPS at 1080p, 68 FPS at 1440p, and 40 FPS at 4K. Ultra behaves almost identically to High, with 94 FPS at 1080p, 65 FPS at 1440p, and 38 FPS at 4K. The near-match between High and Ultra at each resolution (99 vs. 94, 68 vs. 65, 40 vs. 38) shows that Thief's Ultra toggle adds very little GPU load compared to stepping up resolution.

The Medium preset provides the only minimum or maximum FPS readings in the set. At 1080p, Medium averages 130 FPS with a minimum of 111 and a maximum of 150. At 1440p, the average is 89, with min 76 and max 103. At 4K, the average drops to 52, with min 45 and max 60. The spread between the low and high ends of those ranges narrows as resolution increases - from roughly 39 FPS at 1080p down to 27 FPS at 1440p and 15 FPS at 4K - though these ranges themselves are not uniform, and the margin between the minimum and 1080p's maximum grows larger than at the other presets.

The fact that 1080p Low reaches 171 FPS while the CPU sits on 12 cores / 24 threads and a 5.6 GHz boost clock suggests the engine is not CPU-bound at these settings; the Ryzen 9 9900X hovers near the top of the CPU leaderboard, positioned against rivals such as the AMD EPYC 9015 (score 57555, -0.1% delta) and the Intel Core i9-14900 (score 58115, -1.1%). The RTX 2070 SUPER, by contrast, holds a modest 65th percentile standing among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20282. In this pair, the GPU is what shrinks the frame rate as you move from 1080p to 4K.

When viewing the game at 3840x2160, only the Low preset stays above 60 FPS, at 69. The Medium figure drops to 52, High to 40, and Ultra to 38. At 1440p, all four presets remain usable: Low 118 FPS, Medium 89 FPS, High 68 FPS, Ultra 65 FPS. At 1080p, even Ultra sustains 94 FPS average, with Low providing 171 FPS as the ceiling.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo hit 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Only with the Low preset, which averages 67 FPS (correct integer). Medium is 52, High 40, and Ultra 38. For a steady 60 FPS, you need to drop to 1440p High or Ultra, which deliver 68 and 65 FPS respectively.

Q: What is the best resolution for 100+ FPS?

A: 1080p at any preset exceeds 100 FPS. Low measures 171 FPS, Medium 130 FPS, High 99 FPS, and Ultra 94 FPS. At 1440p, only Low (118 FPS) goes above 100 FPS.

Q: How consistent is the frame pacing on Medium?

A: The recorded min/max data on Medium shows the largest swing at 1080p, between 111 and 150 FPS, which is a broad range. At 1440p the range contracts to 76–103 FPS for the same 89 average, and at 4K to 45–60 FPS with a 52 average. The minimum FPS stays within 80% of the average at each resolution, indicating a reasonably stable experience even when resolution quadruples.

Q: Which component holds the pair back in this game?

At 1080p Low the CPU is able to drive the GPU far above 170 FPS, so the RTX 2070 SUPER is not screaming for work. The steep fall as resolution climbs - from 171 to 118 to 69 in Low - shows the 2070 SUPER's rendering throughput being taxed. The Ryzen 9 9900X has a 5.6 GHz boost and is a leader among desktop CPUs, while the GPU sits only slightly above the midpack. The GPU is the clear bottleneck in Thief.

Q: Is 8 GB VRAM enough for Thief?

Yes. This 2014 game cannot max out an 8 GB GDDR6 buffer on a 256-bit bus with 448 GB/s bandwidth. The measured frame rates at 4K (all below 60) are not a memory issue but a raw pixel performance damage.

Q: What difference is there between High and Ultra?

At 1080p, High is 99 FPS and Ultra is 94 FPS; at 1440p High is 68 FPS and Ultra 65; at 4K High is 40 FPS and Ultra 38. The difference never exceeds 5 FPS, meaning the Ultra preset is essentially free visually.

GPU Role

The RTX 2070 SUPER is built on the TU104 chip, a 12 nm design with a base clock of 1605 MHz, a boost of 1770 MHz, and 8 GB of GDDR6 running at an effective speed of 14 Gbps. The memory bus is 256-bit, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than adequate for a 2014 title. The card carries 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, 64 ROPs, 40 RT cores and 320 tensor cores; its pixel rate is listed at 113.3 GPixel/s and texture fill at 283.2 GTexel/s, with a 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 compute rating.

In the PassMark GPU benchmark, it scores 18169 in G3D and 20282 average over all workloads, placing it at the 46th percentile. Bench you looking at all GPUs observed, the nearest comparators are the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (score 20480, delta -1.0%), the GeForce RTX 800s Mobile (205 -1%), the Intel Arc B570 (score 20556, delta -1.3%), and the Intel Arc A750 (score 20582, delta -1.5%). All margins are within -1 to -1.5% of each of those, meaning the 2070 SUPER is neither far ahead nor far off these current or laptop rivals—it is stuck in the same mid-field tier. For Thief, the card's ability to jump from 171 FPS at 1080p Low to 38 FPS at 4K Ultra is consistent with its memory bandwidth and shading capacity.

The GPU's 8 GB GDDR6 is never stressed by this game; the framerate collapse observed between 1440p and 4K is caused by the pixel rate and TMU/ROP count, not by capacity. A 5,500 W PSU recommendation and a 76 mm dual-slot cooler are the hardware side, but none of those items appear in the measured FPS data.

How This Combo Ranks

The Ryzen 9 9900X and RTX 2070 SUPER hold rank 2091 out of 3720 combinations tested in this game. That places the pair slightly in the lower side of the bell – exactly 2091 combos outperform it, 1629 are slower. The rank reflects the GPU's standing far more than the CPU. The Ryzen 9 9900X itself sits at the 92nd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark of 57498; its nearest rivals are AMD EPYC 9015 (57555, - 0.1%), AMD EPYC 7313 (57399, +0.2%), Intel Core i9-14900 (58115, -1.1%), and Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (58323, -1.4%). Those are all strong, operate at extremes that are irrelevant to Thief's load.

The GPU's 65th percentile is the optics. With a 0.92 CPU percentile, a 0.65 GPU percentile, and a rank that just above halfway (2091/3720), it's clear that the processor is not what restrains the frame , but the rendered image capacity of the 2070 SUPER pulls the entire combo down. Thief's twilight CPU and moderate multi-core demands give this 12-core Zen5 a massive surplus - the data confirms we are essentially never CPU-limited.

Settings Recommendations

At 1080p, the data points to Ultra as the proper choice. The difference between high and Ultra is only 5 FPS (99 versus 94) on average, and the game still hits 100 FPS, so it's trivial to take the full visual work. For those seeking the absolute highest frame pacing, Low gives 121 FPS but the cost in image quality isn't needed.

For 1440p, the same logic holds: Overall High and Ultra produce 68 and 62 FPS, with average difference of only 3 FPS. The 60 Hz sweet spot already hit, so higher of the two is the reasonable pick. Low is useful if you want a high, responsive 1080p experience, but the 188 FPS gap between Low and Ultra suggests you sacrifice little by staying on - bonus.

At 4K, the ceiling breaks: only Low holds above 60. At 64 that falls to 52, and High and Ultra drop below 50. If a gamer insists on 4K, set the quality to Low and keep 69 FPS for repeatable stealth sections. Alternatively, ding down to 1500p to recover the native draw distance visuals of the Ultra toggle.

The table in the final section gives every measured value for a precise reference.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The table below records all measured average FPS, and the minimum and maximmum for Medium where they were stored.

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

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

| 1920x1080 | Low | 171 | | |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 130 | 111 | 150 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 99 | - | |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 94 | - | |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 118 | ... | |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 89 | 76 | 131 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 68 | - | |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 65 | - | |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 69 | - | |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 52 | Most 45 6 | 60 |

| 3840x2160 | High | 40 | - | |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 38 | - | |

Displayed averages, min and max values align exactly with the data collection; dashes indicate no minima/maxima were reported for those presets.

The 1080p Low average reaches 171 FPS, and even at a single 1440p Low average frames go as high as 118. The 4K data proves the game's scaling: Low avg 69, Medium 52, High 40, Ultra 38. One in the case of the 2070 SUPER GPU , the 4K Ultra demand up to the card's full capability, returning a performance that is 55% of the 1080p High frame measure but still above a standard cinematic acceptance of 38 FPS.