Thief

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Thief, a 2014 stealth title that remains demanding at higher resolutions. The measured data shows this combination ranks 200th out of 1,642 tested combos, placing it in the top 12% of all systems tested. This CPU-GPU pairing proves particularly strong at 1440p, where it maintains high frame rates even at maximum settings.

FAQ

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

A: The system achieves 143 FPS on average at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, which is the most demanding preset tested at that resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 compare to its nearest rival in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4070’s average benchmark score of 37,283 is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, which scores 37,507, making the two effectively performance peers in synthetic tests.

Q: What is the CPU’s single-threaded performance advantage in Cinebench R23?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D scores 8,430 points in Cinebench R23 single-core, which is a very strong result for a 16-core processor and indicates excellent responsiveness in lightly threaded workloads.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU more likely to be the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: The data suggests the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at 3840x2160, as the average frame rate at High settings drops to 59.3 FPS compared to 100.8 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction that aligns with the increased pixel rendering load.

Q: How much faster is the Ryzen 9 9950X3D than the standard Ryzen 9 9950X in average CPU benchmarks?

A: The 9950X3D’s average benchmark score of 71,660 is 1.8% higher than the 9950X’s 70,420, showing a modest but measurable performance uplift from the 3D V-Cache configuration.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the system averages 174.4 FPS on Low settings versus 95 FPS on Ultra, representing a significant 79.4 FPS gap that highlights the impact of graphical presets on performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 serves as the visual workhorse in this configuration, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process. The GPU features 5,888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output pipelines, alongside 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory operates across a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock sits at 1,920 MHz with a boost clock of 2,475 MHz, while memory runs at an effective 21 Gbps. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 29.15 TFLOPS.

In Thief, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly critical as resolution scales. At 1080p with High settings, the system achieves 150.1 FPS, but this drops to 100.8 FPS at 1440p and further to 59.3 FPS at 4K. The pattern across settings at 4K reveals clear GPU-bound behavior: Low settings yield 101.2 FPS, Medium produces 79.9 FPS, and Ultra drops to 58.6 FPS. The RTX 4070’s 12 GB VRAM capacity proves sufficient for this title, as the 2014 game does not require excessive memory allocation. The GPU’s 81st percentile ranking among all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37,283, places it in the upper tier of graphics cards. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, scores 37,507 (0.6% higher), while the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A scores 38,008 (1.9% higher), indicating the RTX 4070 sits in a competitive performance band.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D provides substantial processing headroom for this gaming workload, featuring 16 cores and 32 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge). The CPU operates with a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz, backed by a substantial 128 MB of shared L3 cache. This large cache capacity is a hallmark of the X3D series, designed to reduce memory latency in gaming scenarios. The processor also includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core and 1 MB of L2 cache per core, with dual-channel DDR5 memory support providing 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

Benchmark results demonstrate the CPU’s exceptional multi-threaded capability. In Cinebench R23, the 9950X3D scores 59,712 in multi-core and 8,430 in single-core tests. PassMark multithread results show 70,255 points, while 3DMark max-thread testing yields 17,184 points. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 71,660 places it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs tested. Compared to its nearest rivals, the 9950X3D outperforms the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (71,056, 0.9% lower) and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (70,420, 1.8% lower), while trailing the Intel Xeon 6517P (73,050, 1.9% higher). In Thief, the CPU’s role is less pronounced than the GPU’s, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p Low settings, the system hits 235 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU well beyond typical display refresh rates. The 32 threads ensure that even if the game engine exploits multiple cores, there is ample processing capacity to avoid bottlenecks.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and RTX 4070 achieves a combo rank of 200 out of 1,642 tested configurations in Thief. This places the system in the top 12.2% of all combinations, which is a strong result given the GPU’s mid-to-high tier positioning. The ranking reflects the synergy between a top-tier CPU and a capable GPU, where the processor ensures the graphics card receives data without interruption. The CPU’s 96th percentile ranking versus the GPU’s 81st percentile suggests the processor provides significant headroom, meaning the RTX 4070 is the performance ceiling in most scenarios. However, in a title like Thief that is not heavily multithreaded, the CPU’s raw single-thread performance (3,401 in Geekbench single-core) helps maintain high frame rates even at lower resolutions. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 143 FPS, which is 44% higher than the 4K Ultra result of 58.6 FPS, showing that the combo scales predictably with resolution. The rank of 200 indicates that while many higher-end GPU pairings exist, this configuration offers a balanced profile for gamers targeting high refresh rates at 1440p or smooth 4K experiences at reduced settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal a clear pattern of GPU scaling that indicates the RTX 4070 becomes the limiting component as pixel count increases. Starting at 1080p High settings, the system averages 150.1 FPS. Moving to 1440p High drops this to 100.8 FPS, a reduction of 32.8%. At 4K High, the frame rate falls to 59.3 FPS, which is 41.2% lower than the 1440p result. This trajectory is consistent with the GPU’s rendering workload, as 4K contains roughly 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p.

The settings scaling at each resolution further confirms GPU dominance. At 1080p, the spread between Low (235 FPS) and Ultra (143 FPS) is 92 FPS, showing significant headroom even at maximum settings. At 1440p, the spread narrows to 79.4 FPS (174.4 Low versus 95 Ultra), while at 4K, the spread compresses to 42.6 FPS (101.2 Low versus 58.6 Ultra). This compression at 4K indicates the GPU is approaching its limits, as even Low settings cannot exceed 101.2 FPS, whereas at 1080p, Low settings approach 235 FPS, suggesting the CPU is capable of much higher frame rates if the GPU could keep pace. The data points to a system where the RTX 4070 is the primary determinant of performance at 4K, while the Ryzen 9 9950X3D ensures that 1080p and 1440p gaming remains fluid with minimal CPU-induced frame drops.