Thief

The Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combination delivers a playable but hardly luxurious experience in Thief, with the data revealing a system that is decisively bound by its graphics processor at higher resolutions while remaining surprisingly capable at 1080p. The combo ranks 1574th out of 1642 tested configurations in this title, placing it in the bottom 5% of all systems, yet the measured frame rates tell a more nuanced story than that raw ranking suggests.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor built on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. It carries a 12 MB shared L3 cache and a 58 W TDP, making it a modest but modern desktop part. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912 and a single-core score of 1681, while Geekbench results show 7413 multi-core and 2224 single-core. These figures indicate a processor with strong single-threaded performance — a trait that matters for Thief, which is a 2014 title that does not heavily scale with many threads.

The CPU’s 3DMark scores reinforce this profile: 4051 with 16 threads, 4026 with 8 threads, but only 2859 with 4 threads and 1659 with 2 threads. The near-identical scores between 8-thread (4026) and max-thread (4023) tests suggest the chip saturates its capabilities quickly, which is expected for a quad-core design. In Thief, the game’s engine is old enough that it primarily relies on a few strong cores rather than many weaker ones, so the i3-12100F’s single-core performance is likely sufficient to avoid becoming the primary bottleneck at lower resolutions.

However, the benchmark data from the game itself shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios. At 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 77.2 FPS, which drops to 44.6 FPS at High and 40.5 FPS at Ultra. The relatively small gap between High and Ultra (from 44.6 to 40.5 FPS) suggests that the GPU is already straining to keep up with the increased graphical load, while the CPU has headroom to spare. The processor’s percentile ranking against all CPUs is 72, meaning it outperforms nearly three-quarters of all processors tested, which further indicates that the i3-12100F is not the weak link in this pairing.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

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

A: The data shows that 1080p Low yields the highest average frame rate at 77.2 FPS. For a balanced experience, 1080p Medium delivers 57.6 FPS, while 1440p Low achieves 50 FPS. The system cannot maintain 60 FPS at 1080p High, which averages 44.6 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1650’s average benchmark score is 8713, placing it just 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile (8746) and the AMD Radeon 550X (8749). It sits 0.5% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 (8671) and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 (8761). These are statistically negligible differences.

Q: Is the Intel Core i3-12100F a bottleneck for the GTX 1650 in this game?

A: The frame rate data suggests no. At 1080p Low, the system hits 77.2 FPS, and the gap between 1080p High (44.6 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (40.5 FPS) is only 4.1 FPS, indicating the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU’s strong single-core score of 1681 in Cinebench R23 supports this conclusion.

*Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking among all tested systems in Thief?*

A: This configuration ranks 1574th out of 1642 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 4% of all systems benchmarked for this game. This low rank reflects the modest GPU rather than the CPU, which ranks in the 72nd percentile against all processors.

Q: How does the CPU’s multi-threaded performance compare to its single-threaded performance?

A: The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 11912, which is 7.1 times its single-core score of 1681. In 3DMark, the 8-thread score of 4026 is nearly identical to the max-thread score of 4023, showing diminishing returns beyond 8 threads. The single-thread 3DMark score is 893.

Q: What are the GPU’s memory specifications and how do they affect 4K performance?

A: The GTX 1650 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. At 4K Ultra, the system manages only 16.7 FPS, and at 4K High it reaches 19.1 FPS, indicating that both the memory capacity and bandwidth are insufficient for high-resolution play.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling data clearly identifies the GPU as the limiting component in this configuration. Moving from 1080p Low (77.2 FPS) to 1440p Low (50 FPS) represents a 35% drop in frame rate, while the jump to 4K Low (30.6 FPS) is another 39% reduction. This pattern is consistent with a GPU that is struggling to fill pixels as resolution increases.

At High settings, the progression is equally revealing: 1080p High yields 44.6 FPS, 1440p High drops to 28.8 FPS (a 35% decrease), and 4K High falls to 19.1 FPS (a further 34% drop). The consistent percentage losses across resolution steps indicate that the frame rate is scaling almost linearly with pixel count, which is the hallmark of a GPU-bound scenario. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain relatively flat as resolution increased, since the CPU workload would stay constant while the GPU workload grows.

The Ultra settings tell the same story, with 1080p Ultra at 40.5 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 26.3 FPS, and 4K Ultra at 16.7 FPS. The gap between 1080p High and 1080p Ultra is only 4.1 FPS, while the gap between 1440p High and 1440p Ultra is just 2.5 FPS. This compression suggests that the graphics card is already near its limits at High settings, and Ultra provides only marginal additional strain. The CPU, with its 72nd percentile ranking and strong single-core performance, is not the factor limiting these results.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combo’s rank of 1574 out of 1642 tested configurations places it in the bottom 4.1% of all systems benchmarked in Thief. This is a low position, but it must be interpreted with the context of the component choices. The GPU’s percentile ranking against all GPUs is 43, meaning it outperforms fewer than half of all graphics cards tested. The CPU’s percentile is 72, so the processor is notably stronger relative to its peers than the GPU is relative to its own.

The synth benchmark averages support this asymmetry. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 13516, placing it within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (13534) and 0.4% of the Intel Core i7-1250U (13462). It is 0.6% ahead of the Intel Core i3-10105 (13430) and 1.8% ahead of the Intel Core i7-7700K (13280). In contrast, the GPU’s average score of 8713 is virtually tied with several rivals, including the RTX 3050 A Mobile (8746, -0.4% delta) and the Radeon 550X (8749, -0.4% delta).

The low combo rank is therefore driven almost entirely by the GPU, which is an end-of-life product released in 2019 with a 4 GB memory buffer. In a game like Thief that was released in 2014, the GPU’s age and modest specifications are the primary factors holding back performance. The CPU is more than adequate for the task, as evidenced by its high percentile ranking and its ability to feed the GPU at 1080p without causing frame rate collapses.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is built on the TU117 chip using a 12 nm process at TSMC, with 4,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. It has 896 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units. The GPU’s base clock is 1485 MHz with a boost clock of 1665 MHz, and its memory operates at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across a 128-bit bus, yielding 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The 4 GB GDDR5 frame buffer is the most significant limitation for Thief at higher resolutions.

The GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 305, and its Passmark G3D score is 7880, with a G2D score of 561. These synthetic results place the card in the 43rd percentile of all GPUs, indicating it is a below-average performer by modern standards. The directX 11 Passmark score of 58 and directX 12 score of 35 further illustrate its modest compute capabilities, though directX 9 scores 124, reflecting its stronger performance in older APIs that Thief might leverage.

The relationship between the GPU’s specifications and the measured frame rates is clear. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 77.2 FPS, which is a playable frame rate, but the 4 GB memory buffer becomes a constraint as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 40.5 FPS, and at 1440p Ultra it falls to 26.3 FPS. The 4K results are uniformly poor, with even Low settings producing only 30.6 FPS and Ultra dropping to 16.7 FPS. The 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth is insufficient to feed the pixel fill rate required at 4K, and the 4 GB frame buffer is likely causing texture thrashing as the game attempts to load higher-resolution assets.

The GPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks — the RTX 3050 A Mobile, Radeon 550X, Quadro P2200, and Radeon Pro WX 5100 — all post scores within 0.5% of the GTX 1650, meaning that swapping to any of these would yield nearly identical frame rates in Thief. This reinforces the conclusion that the GPU is the definitive bottleneck in this configuration, and that the CPU has ample headroom to support a more powerful graphics card if one were substituted.