Thief

# Thief Performance Analysis: Intel Core i3-12100F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

This combination of a 4-core Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a surprisingly capable experience in Thief, a 2014 stealth title that remains demanding at high resolutions. The measured data reveals a system that scales predictably across settings and resolutions, with the GPU taking on increasing responsibility as pixel count rises. Ranking 892nd out of 1642 tested combos places this pairing in the middle of the pack, suggesting balanced but not exceptional performance for this specific game.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies in this system. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 172 FPS, but that figure falls to 125.3 FPS at 1440p and 73.5 FPS at 4K — a steady decline that indicates the RTX 4060 is being progressively more taxed as resolution increases. The scaling pattern is remarkably consistent across all settings presets, with the 4K figures typically landing at roughly 40-58% of their 1080p counterparts.

The High preset illustrates this well: 104.7 FPS at 1080p drops to 71.2 FPS at 1440p (a 32% reduction) and then to 40.7 FPS at 4K (a further 43% reduction from 1440p). This non-linear scaling suggests that at 1080p, the CPU may still be contributing to frame delivery, but by 4K the GPU is clearly the limiting component. The gap between Low and Ultra settings at 4K is particularly telling — 73.5 FPS versus 40.5 FPS — showing that even at 4K, the GPU has enough headroom for lower settings to produce playable frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F brings 4 cores and 8 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost capability reaching 4.30 GHz. This Alder Lake-S architecture chip, built on Intel's 10 nm process, demonstrates strong single-thread performance in synthetic benchmarks — scoring 893 in 3dmark_single_thread and 1681 in cinebench_r23_singlecore. These numbers suggest the CPU can handle Thief's game logic and draw call processing without becoming a severe bottleneck at lower resolutions.

The multi-threaded results are more modest, with cinebench_r23_multicore scoring 11912 and passmark_multithread reaching 14015. Thief, being a 2014 title, likely does not scale perfectly across all 8 threads, but the 3dmark_8_threads score of 4026 versus 4051 for max_threads indicates that the CPU's performance plateaus quickly beyond 8 threads. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache provides adequate capacity for the game's working set, though the dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support means actual game performance will vary with memory choice.

The CPU's 72nd percentile ranking among all tested processors places it as a solid mid-range option, sitting within 1.8% of the Intel Core i7-7700K and 0.6% of the Intel Core i3-10105 in average benchmark scores. For a game like Thief, this level of CPU performance is sufficient to feed the RTX 4060 at most settings, though the 1080p Low result of 172 FPS may be partially constrained by CPU limits.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 892 out of 1642 tested combinations, this pairing sits just past the midpoint of all tested systems in Thief. This positioning is noteworthy because the RTX 4060's individual GPU percentile is 66, and the i3-12100F's CPU percentile is 72 — both above average components that nonetheless combine to produce a middling game-specific result. The data suggests that Thief's engine may not fully utilize the strengths of either component, or that the 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus of the GPU create a ceiling that prevents higher ranking.

The combo ranking also reflects that Thief rewards systems with balanced performance across many cores and high memory bandwidth. The i3-12100F's quad-core design, while efficient, may lag behind systems with more cores in this specific game's engine. Meanwhile, the RTX 4060's Ada Lovelace architecture, while modern, delivers performance that other GPUs in the same benchmark tier match — the closest GPU rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600M at -0.6% and the Intel Arc B580 at +0.7% in average scores.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results across all presets. Low settings produce 172 FPS, Medium reaches 139.9 FPS, High achieves 104.7 FPS, and Ultra drops to 99.6 FPS. These numbers indicate that 1080p gaming is thoroughly playable at any preset, with even the most demanding Ultra setting maintaining nearly triple-digit frame rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the measured FPS shows a clear step down: Low hits 125.3 FPS, Medium manages 95 FPS, High produces 71.2 FPS, and Ultra reaches 72.8 FPS. The Ultra preset actually outperforms High by 1.6 FPS at this resolution, a minor anomaly that falls within measurement variance but suggests the two presets may share similar rendering workloads.

At 3840x2160, performance becomes more demanding: Low delivers 73.5 FPS, Medium reaches 56.1 FPS, High drops to 40.7 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40.5 FPS. The 4K results reveal that only Low settings provide a consistently smooth experience at this resolution, with Medium being borderline and High/Ultra dipping below the 60 FPS threshold for comfortable play.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, built on the AD107 chip using TSMC's 5 nm process, packs 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. Its boost clock of 2460 MHz and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provide 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 24 RT cores reflect the Ada Lovelace architecture's efficiency, though Thief's 2014 engine likely does not leverage ray tracing or DLSS features.

The GPU's 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23181, places it near the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (delta -0.6%) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (delta -0.7%). The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Thief at all tested settings, though the 128-bit bus width may constrain performance at 4K Ultra where memory bandwidth demands are highest. The 118.1 GPixel/s pixel rate and 236.2 GTexel/s texture rate provide adequate fill rates for this game's environments, but the 4K Ultra result of 40.5 FPS indicates the GPU reaches its practical limit at that resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings at each resolution. At 1080p, any preset works well, but Ultra at 99.6 FPS offers the best visual quality while maintaining smooth gameplay — there is no reason to drop below High when the difference between High and Ultra is only 5.1 FPS.

For 1440p, Ultra at 72.8 FPS and High at 71.2 FPS are nearly identical in performance, making Ultra the recommended choice for maximum visual fidelity. Medium at 95 FPS provides a comfortable margin for those prioritizing higher frame rates, while Low at 125.3 FPS suits competitive play or high-refresh displays.

At 4K, only Low settings at 73.5 FPS deliver a consistently smooth experience. Medium at 56.1 FPS is playable but may exhibit noticeable frame pacing issues during action sequences. High and Ultra, at 40.7 FPS and 40.5 FPS respectively, are only suitable for slower-paced exploration or screenshot purposes. The 33 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K underscores the GPU's limitations at this resolution, making Low the pragmatic choice for 4K gaming.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Thief at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Only at Low settings, where the measured average FPS is 73.5. Medium drops to 56.1 FPS, while High and Ultra fall to 40.7 FPS and 40.5 FPS respectively, which may be too low for comfortable gameplay.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its closest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060's average benchmark score of 23181 is 0.6% below the AMD Radeon RX 6600M and 0.7% above the Intel Arc B580, with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti scoring 0.7% higher.

Q: What is the best preset for 1080p gaming with this system?

A: Ultra settings at 99.6 FPS provide the best visual experience while maintaining near-100 FPS performance, making it the recommended choice over High at 104.7 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck at 1080p Low settings?

A: The 172 FPS result at 1080p Low, combined with the CPU's 3dmark_single_thread score of 893 and 4-core/8-thread design, suggests the i3-12100F may be approaching its limit at this extreme frame rate, though the data does not confirm a hard bottleneck.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: The measured FPS drops from 139.9 at 1080p to 95 at 1440p and then to 56.1 at 4K, representing a total reduction of 83.8 FPS or approximately 60% from the 1080p result.

Q: What does the combo's rank of 892 out of 1642 indicate about its overall performance?

A: It places the system slightly above the median of all tested combinations in Thief, suggesting that while individual components perform above average (GPU at 66th percentile, CPU at 72nd percentile), the combination does not achieve top-tier results in this specific game.