Thief

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Thief with the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 shows a clear progression as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo delivers 128.1 FPS average. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops that to 100 FPS, a 28.1 FPS reduction. At 3840x2160 Low, the average falls further to 57.7 FPS. This pattern indicates that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor as pixel count rises.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings represents a 21.9% performance loss. The jump from 1440p to 4K at Low settings is steeper, with a 42.3 FPS drop. This non-linear scaling suggests the Radeon RX 6600's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus width begin to strain at higher resolutions, particularly when texture fill rates increase.

At High settings, the resolution scaling is more moderate in absolute terms. The combo produces 80.4 FPS at 1080p, 56.6 FPS at 1440p, and 33 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 23.8 FPS, while 1440p to 4K drops another 23.6 FPS. This near-linear scaling at High settings indicates the workload remains consistently GPU-bound across these resolutions.

Ultra settings tell a similar story. The measured averages are 76.6 FPS at 1080p, 56.3 FPS at 1440p, and 32.7 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 1440p reduction is 20.3 FPS, and 1440p to 4K loses another 23.6 FPS. The consistency between High and Ultra scaling suggests that Thief's Ultra preset does not introduce a dramatically different rendering path.

Medium settings show the largest absolute gap between 1080p and 1440p. The 105.7 FPS at 1080p falls to 72.9 FPS at 1440p, a 32.8 FPS difference. At 4K Medium, the average is 46 FPS. The 1440p to 4K drop is 26.9 FPS. This pattern reinforces that the Radeon RX 6600's compute resources, rated at 8.928 TFLOPS FP32, are the bottleneck when resolution scales.

The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where the combo consistently exceeds 60 FPS across all settings. At 1440p, only Low settings break the 60 FPS threshold, reaching exactly 100 FPS. At 4K, no preset reaches 60 FPS, with Low being the only option above 50 FPS at 57.7 FPS. This makes the resolution scaling behavior predictable: the Intel Core i5-10400F with 6 cores and 12 threads provides sufficient headroom, but the GPU's 1792 shading units and 64 ROPs define the ceiling.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 operates with a base clock of 1626 MHz and a boost clock of 2491 MHz. The game clock is listed at 2044 MHz, which represents the expected sustained frequency during gaming workloads. The memory runs at 1750 MHz with 14 Gbps effective speed, delivering 224.0 GB/s bandwidth across the 128-bit bus.

Thief's measured results show the GPU's memory subsystem matters at 4K. With 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, the card has enough capacity for the game's textures at all presets, but the bandwidth becomes the limiting factor at 3840x2160. The 224.0 GB/s figure is modest by current standards, and the data reflects this: at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 32.7, barely above the 4K High result of 33 FPS. The negligible difference between High and Ultra at 4K suggests the GPU is saturated regardless of the small settings delta.

The GPU's pixel rate of 159.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s provide context for the scaling. At 1080p, the card has ample fillrate headroom, which explains the 128.1 FPS Low result. As resolution increases, the pixel throughput demand scales quadratically, and the RDNA 2.0 architecture with 28 ray accelerators and 112 texture mapping units begins to show limits.

The Radeon RX 6600 sits at the 69th percentile among all GPUs in the benchmark database. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 890M with a deltaPct of 0, meaning they are statistically tied. The Radeon RX 580 2048SP trails by 0.2%, while the RX 6700M leads by 0.2% and the RTX 3060 Ti leads by 0.5%. These margins are negligible, indicating the RX 6600 performs in a tight cluster.

In Thief specifically, the GPU's VRAM capacity never becomes a hard limit. The 8 GB pool is sufficient even at 4K Ultra, as evidenced by the playable average of 32.7 FPS. However, the memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s appears to throttle performance at higher resolutions. The gap between 1440p Low at 100 FPS and 4K Low at 57.7 FPS — a 42.3% reduction — correlates with the bandwidth constraints rather than compute limits.

FAQ

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

A: At 1920x1080, all presets exceed 76 FPS, with Low reaching 128.1 FPS. At 2560x1440, only Low surpasses 60 FPS at exactly 100 FPS. At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS. The data indicates 1080p is the only resolution where the combo maintains high frame rates across all settings.

Q: How does the Radeon RX 6600 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RX 6600 scores 25235 on average benchmarks, placing it at the 69th percentile. The AMD Radeon 890M scores 25246 with a deltaPct of 0, making them effectively equivalent. The Radeon RX 580 2048SP trails at 25287 with -0.2% delta, while the RX 6700M and RTX 3060 Ti lead by 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively.

Q: Does the Intel Core i5-10400F bottleneck the GPU in Thief?

A: The CPU scores 14168 on average benchmarks with a 73rd percentile ranking. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, scores 14115 with a 0.4% delta. Given the GPU-bound scaling patterns observed in Thief, the 6-core, 12-thread processor with 4.30 GHz boost clock provides sufficient performance to keep the GPU as the limiting component.

Q: What is the difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra in Thief?

A: The measured difference is minimal. At 3840x2160, High averages 33 FPS while Ultra averages 32.7 FPS. This 0.3 FPS difference falls within typical margin of error and indicates the GPU is fully saturated at both settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the combo achieves 105.7 FPS. At 2560x1440 Medium, it drops to 72.9 FPS. This represents a 32.8 FPS reduction, which is the largest percentage drop among the Medium preset across resolutions.

Q: Is the Radeon RX 6600's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for Thief?

A: Yes. The game runs at 4K Ultra with 32.7 FPS average, which would not be possible if VRAM capacity were exceeded. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for Thief's texture requirements at all tested settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 produce the following averages: Low settings run at 128.1 FPS, Medium at 105.7 FPS, High at 80.4 FPS, and Ultra at 76.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 51.5 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High at 25.3 FPS. This suggests that High settings introduce significant shader complexity that taxes the 1792 shading units.

Moving to 2560x1440, the measured averages are 100 FPS at Low, 72.9 FPS at Medium, 56.6 FPS at High, and 56.3 FPS at Ultra. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 0.3 FPS at this resolution. The Low to Medium drop is 27.1 FPS, while Medium to High loses 16.3 FPS. This pattern indicates diminishing returns from Medium to High, with Ultra providing negligible gains over High.

At 3840x2160, the results are 57.7 FPS at Low, 46 FPS at Medium, 33 FPS at High, and 32.7 FPS at Ultra. The Low to Medium reduction is 11.7 FPS, Medium to High loses 13 FPS, and High to Ultra costs only 0.3 FPS. The 4K results show that even Low settings strain the GPU, with the 128-bit memory bus and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth becoming the limiting factor.

Comparing settings across resolutions reveals consistent behavior. Low settings at 1080p achieve 128.1 FPS, which is 28.1 FPS higher than 1440p Low and 70.4 FPS higher than 4K Low. Ultra settings range from 76.6 FPS at 1080p to 32.7 FPS at 4K, a 43.9 FPS total drop. Medium settings show the widest relative scaling, going from 105.7 FPS at 1080p to 46 FPS at 4K.

The 1080p results are the only set where all presets stay above 60 FPS. The 1440p results have only Low above 60 FPS. The 4K results have no preset above 60 FPS. This data supports the conclusion that the Radeon RX 6600 is a capable 1080p card for Thief, adequate at 1440p with reduced settings, and only marginal at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 ranks 1381 out of 1642 tested combos in Thief. This places the combo in the lower third of the database, at roughly the 84th percentile from the bottom. The rank reflects the measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings, weighted toward the full suite of presets.

The ranking context matters because Thief is a 2014 title with modest system requirements. The combo's rank of 1381 indicates that many other CPU-GPU pairings produce higher average frame rates. However, the data shows this is not a CPU limitation — the i5-10400F scores in the 73rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168. Instead, the Radeon RX 6600's 69th percentile GPU ranking, with an average score of 25235, places it mid-pack, and the combination of a mid-range GPU with a 2014 game results in this lower rank.

The nearest rival combos for the CPU include the AMD EPYC 7552 with a 0.4% delta, the Ryzen 3 7320C with -0.8%, and the Core i5-8500 with -1.1%. For the GPU, the nearest rivals are the Radeon 890M at 0% delta, RX 580 2048SP at -0.2%, RX 6700M at 0.2%, and RTX 3060 Ti at 0.5%. These tight deltas suggest that swapping either component for a close rival would produce similar Thief results.

The rank of 1381 out of 1642 implies that roughly 84% of tested combos outperform this pairing in Thief. This is consistent with the GPU's position at the 69th percentile, as game-specific performance can deviate from synthetic benchmarks. The data indicates that the RX 6600's strengths — 8.928 TFLOPS FP32 and 279.0 GTexel/s texture rate — are not fully leveraged by Thief's rendering engine, which prioritizes other GPU features.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings. At 1920x1080, Ultra settings deliver 76.6 FPS average, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This makes Ultra the recommended preset at 1080p, as it provides the highest visual quality while maintaining playable frame rates.

At 2560x1440, the situation changes. High settings produce 56.6 FPS, just below 60 FPS, while Medium produces 72.9 FPS. The recommendation is Medium for 1440p, as it comfortably exceeds 60 FPS and provides a 16.3 FPS advantage over High. Ultra at 1440p offers no benefit over High, with only a 0.3 FPS difference, so it should be avoided.

At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS. Low settings at 57.7 FPS is the only option above 50 FPS. Medium at 46 FPS is playable but noticeably less smooth. High and Ultra at 33 FPS and 32.7 FPS respectively are marginal. For 4K, Low settings provide the best experience, as the visual improvement from Medium to High does not justify the 13 FPS cost.

The optimal experience across the board is 1080p Ultra at 76.6 FPS. This combination delivers the highest settings with a frame rate that exceeds most display refresh rates. For users with 1440p monitors, Medium at 72.9 FPS is the recommended compromise between visual fidelity and performance. For 4K displays, the data suggests that the combo is not suitable beyond Low settings, and even then, 57.7 FPS is the ceiling.

The measured rows show that the Intel Core i5-10400F does not constrain any settings choice. All presets at all resolutions are GPU-limited, as evidenced by the consistent scaling patterns. Therefore, the settings recommendations are purely based on GPU capability. The Radeon RX 6600's 8 GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are the determining factors, and the data indicates that 1080p is the intended resolution for this GPU in Thief.