Thief

# Thief with Intel Core i3-12100F + AMD Radeon RX 7600

The combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and AMD Radeon RX 7600 offers a fascinating look at how a 2014 stealth title behaves on modern mid-range hardware. With 12 measured data points spanning three resolutions and four quality presets, this dataset reveals a system that is clearly capable of delivering smooth gameplay at 1080p and 1440p, while struggling to maintain playable framerates at 4K. The data shows a strong CPU and GPU pairing that performs as expected for their respective benchmark percentiles, yet the scaling patterns suggest specific bottlenecks that are worth investigating.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured FPS, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 both deliver playable framerates across all settings, with 1080p showing the highest performance. At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves 60.7 FPS, while at 3840x2160 the same preset drops to 38.6 FPS, making 4K the only resolution where the system struggles.

Q: How does the RX 7600 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 7600's average benchmark score is 20258, which places it 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT and 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 460. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile by 1.3% and the Intel Arc B570 by 1.5%, showing a very tight cluster of competing GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU's benchmark percentile ranking?

A: The Intel Core i3-12100F sits in the 72nd percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13516. This places it just 0.1% behind the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX and 1.8% ahead of the Intel Core i7-7700K.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more in Thief?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary limiter at higher resolutions, as FPS drops significantly from 1080p to 4K. However, the CPU's 4 cores and 8 threads with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz are sufficient for this title, as shown by the strong 1080p Low result of 157 FPS.

Q: What is the VRAM capacity of the RX 7600 and how does it relate to Thief?

A: The RX 7600 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s bandwidth. For a game released in 2014, this is more than adequate, and the measured FPS does not indicate any VRAM-related stuttering or performance degradation across settings.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This specific combination ranks 1108 out of 1642 tested combos in Thief, placing it in the lower two-thirds of all systems tested. This ranking reflects the mid-range nature of both components rather than any specific incompatibility.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy of performance across the four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 157 FPS, Medium hits 120 FPS, High reaches 90 FPS, and Ultra drops to 86.3 FPS. The step from High to Ultra costs only 3.7 FPS, making Ultra the best choice for 1080p users who want maximum visual quality without sacrificing smoothness.

At 2560x1440, the picture changes slightly. Low delivers 108.5 FPS, Medium provides 83.3 FPS, High maintains 60.7 FPS, and Ultra yields 60.4 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra here is negligible at just 0.3 FPS, so for 1440p users, Ultra is the obvious recommendation since it offers the same performance as High with better visuals. Medium remains a strong option for those prioritizing higher framerates, offering 83.3 FPS which is well above the 60 FPS threshold.

For 3840x2160, the situation is more constrained. Low produces 64.1 FPS, Medium drops to 45.7 FPS, High falls to 38.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 37.1 FPS. Only the Low preset achieves a consistent 60+ FPS experience at 4K. Users with 4K displays should either accept Low settings or consider dropping to 1440p for the best balance of quality and performance.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important information about the system's bottleneck. At High settings, performance drops from 90 FPS at 1920x1080 to 60.7 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 29.3 FPS, and then further to 38.6 FPS at 3840x2160, a cumulative drop of 51.4 FPS. This pattern shows a steep decline as pixel count increases, indicating that the RX 7600's pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior is consistent across all settings. At Low, the drop is from 157 FPS at 1080p to 108.5 FPS at 1440p to 64.1 FPS at 4K. At Ultra, the drop is from 86.3 FPS to 60.4 FPS to 37.1 FPS. The proportional reduction from 1080p to 4K is roughly 55-60% across all presets, which suggests that the GPU is doing proportionally more work at higher resolutions and hitting its fill rate limits. The CPU does not appear to be a constraint, as the i3-12100F's single-thread performance of 893 in 3dmark single-thread tests is sufficient for this older title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings shows excellent headroom. Low produces 157 FPS, Medium reaches 120 FPS, High hits 90 FPS, and Ultra delivers 86.3 FPS. This represents a 45% reduction from Low to Ultra, with the largest single step being from Medium to High at 30 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains solid but the margins tighten. Low achieves 108.5 FPS, Medium provides 83.3 FPS, High reaches 60.7 FPS, and Ultra yields 60.4 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 25.2 FPS, while the drop from High to Ultra is negligible at 0.3 FPS, indicating diminishing returns at the highest preset.

At 3840x2160, the data shows significant strain. Low is the only playable option at 64.1 FPS, with Medium dropping to 45.7 FPS, High falling to 38.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoming out at 37.1 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 7.1 FPS, while High to Ultra costs only 1.5 FPS, suggesting that the GPU's rendering pipeline saturates at around 38 FPS in this title at 4K.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 33 chip manufactured on TSMC's 6 nm process. Its base clock of 1720 MHz and boost clock of 2655 MHz, combined with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs, provide a pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s. These specifications translate to the observed framerates in Thief, where the GPU's raw throughput dictates performance at higher resolutions.

The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a 2014 title. The measured FPS shows no signs of memory bandwidth limitations, as even at 4K Ultra, the performance degradation follows a smooth curve rather than showing sudden drops that would indicate VRAM or bandwidth exhaustion. The GPU's passmark G3D score of 16634 and 3dmark Steel Nomad score of 2310 place it in the 63rd percentile against all GPUs, confirming its position as a capable mid-range part.

The RX 7600's 32 ray tracing cores are largely irrelevant for Thief, which does not utilize this feature, but the DirectX 12 Ultimate support ensures compatibility with modern driver paths. The GPU's 21.75 TFLOPS of FP32 performance gives ample compute headroom for this older title, and the data confirms that the GPU, not the CPU, is the limiting factor at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. With a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, it delivers strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by its 3dmark single-thread score of 893 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681. This is crucial for Thief, which relies heavily on single-threaded game logic.

The CPU's benchmark results show a clear scaling pattern: the 3dmark 4-thread score of 2859 is significantly higher than the 2-thread score of 1659, demonstrating that the 4 cores are well-utilized. The 3dmark max-thread score of 4023 is essentially identical to the 8-thread score of 4026, indicating that the additional threads beyond 4 provide minimal benefit in this test. This suggests that the i3-12100F's 4 physical cores are the primary resource for gaming workloads.

In Thief specifically, the CPU's performance is more than adequate, as shown by the 1080p Low result of 157 FPS. The fact that FPS scales consistently with resolution across all settings indicates that the CPU is never the bottleneck, even at 4K where the GPU is clearly struggling. The CPU's 12 MB of L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core provide sufficient data locality for this game's asset streaming, and the memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 gives builders flexibility without impacting in-game results.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and AMD Radeon RX 7600 ranks 1108 out of 1642 tested combos in Thief, placing it in the 67th percentile of all systems tested. This ranking is notably lower than what either component's individual percentile might suggest, as the CPU sits in the 72nd percentile and the GPU in the 63rd percentile. The discrepancy indicates that this pairing, while balanced for modern titles, does not extract maximum performance in Thief specifically.

The ranking suggests that many other combinations in the database deliver higher framerates in this game, likely due to more powerful GPUs that can handle the 4K resolutions where this combo struggles. However, the measured FPS data shows that at 1080p and 1440p, this system provides an excellent experience, with even Ultra settings maintaining playable framerates. The combo's mid-pack ranking reflects its positioning as a balanced 1080p/1440p solution rather than a high-end 4K performer.

Given the CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX and Intel Core i7-7700K, and the GPU's rivals include the RX 7600 XT and RTX 3070 Mobile, this combo sits in a competitive segment where small performance deltas translate to significant ranking differences. The data shows that while this system is not a top-tier performer in Thief, it delivers consistent and reliable framerates across the most common gaming resolutions, making it a practical choice for this title.