Thief

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Thief, with the measured data showing that the game’s performance ceiling is tied more to the engine’s handling of preset levels than to the hardware’s raw limits. Across all three resolutions, the gap between the Low and Ultra presets is substantial, but the shape of that gap changes depending on the resolution, revealing where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p, the spread from Low to Ultra is 30.3 FPS, while at 4K that spread widens to 47.4 FPS, indicating that the GPU’s workload scales aggressively with both resolution and visual fidelity. The data suggests that the most balanced experience is found at the Medium preset, which offers a significant jump over Low without the steep performance penalty of Ultra. At 1080p, Medium produces 132.6 FPS, which is 13.5 FPS higher than High and only 16.6 FPS lower than Low, making it the sweet spot for maintaining high frame rates while preserving visual quality. At 1440p, Medium delivers 114.3 FPS, which remains comfortably above the 100 FPS threshold, and even at 4K, Medium’s 84.8 FPS is playable, though it requires a more forgiving mindset. The Ultra preset, while visually superior, incurs a disproportionate cost: at 4K it drops to 59.9 FPS, which is 24.9 FPS below Medium and 46.4 FPS below Low, suggesting that the preset’s additional effects are not optimized for this hardware combination. For users prioritizing smoothness, Medium is the recommended starting point, with High as a viable alternative at 1080p and 1440p where the frame rate remains above 100 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable at 1080p with this hardware?

A: The highest measured average at 1920x1080 is 146.3 FPS on the Low preset, with Medium at 132.6 FPS, High at 119.1 FPS, and Ultra at 116.0 FPS.

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide a playable experience at 4K?

A: Yes, but barely. At 3840x2160, Ultra averages 59.9 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS mark, while Medium offers 84.8 FPS and Low reaches 107.3 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K on the same settings?

A: The drop varies by preset: Low loses 39.0 FPS (from 146.3 to 107.3), Medium loses 47.8 FPS (from 132.6 to 84.8), High loses 52.3 FPS (from 119.1 to 66.8), and Ultra loses 56.1 FPS (from 116.0 to 59.9).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to limit performance at 1080p High?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary limiter. At 1080p High, the frame rate is 119.1 FPS, which is only 27.2 FPS below Low’s 146.3 FPS, suggesting the CPU can push higher but the GPU’s rendering load at High settings caps the output.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 131.9 FPS, while Ultra averages 102.5 FPS, a difference of 29.4 FPS.

Q: Does the 20 GB VRAM on the RX 7900 XT show any advantage in this game?

A: The measured rows show no VRAM-related bottlenecks at any resolution or preset, as even the highest settings at 4K maintain playable frame rates, implying that Thief’s memory footprint is well within the 20 GB capacity.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, and the measured FPS data reflects its capabilities. With a boost clock of 2394 MHz and a game clock of 2025 MHz, the GPU’s raw compute power is substantial, but Thief appears to be more sensitive to memory bandwidth than to raw shader throughput. The card’s 800.0 GB/s bandwidth and 20 GB of GDDR6 memory ensure that texture streaming and high-resolution assets do not cause stutters, which is evident in the consistent frame rates across all settings. The GPU’s 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs handle the game’s lighting and shadow effects efficiently, but the performance deltas between presets suggest that certain Ultra-level effects, such as advanced ambient occlusion or tessellation, disproportionately tax the render pipeline. At 1080p, the GPU is not fully utilized, as evidenced by the 30.3 FPS gap between Low and Ultra, which indicates that the CPU may be intercepting some of the workload. However, at 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, with Ultra dropping to 59.9 FPS, a 46.4 FPS reduction from Low, highlighting that the resolution scaling directly increases the GPU’s fill-rate demands. The 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs places this card in the upper tier, and its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile, has a nearly identical average score with a deltaPct of 0, suggesting that the RX 7900 XT is competitive with top-tier mobile parts in synthetic benchmarks, but its real-world performance in Thief is more nuanced.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a clear picture of performance across three resolutions and four presets. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are uniformly high, with Low at 146.3 FPS, Medium at 132.6 FPS, High at 119.1 FPS, and Ultra at 116.0 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is minimal at only 3.1 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset’s incremental effects at 1080p are not overly demanding. Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but begin to compress: Low drops to 131.9 FPS, Medium to 114.3 FPS, High to 107.8 FPS, and Ultra to 102.5 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows further to 5.3 FPS, indicating that the GPU’s headroom is diminishing. At 3840x2160, the performance curve becomes steeper: Low averages 107.3 FPS, Medium drops to 84.8 FPS, High falls to 66.8 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 59.9 FPS. The most striking observation is the 24.9 FPS difference between Medium and High at 4K, which is larger than the 12.6 FPS difference between Low and Medium, implying that the High preset introduces a significant rendering cost. Across all resolutions, the Low preset always provides the highest frame rate, but the relative drop from Low to Ultra increases from 20.7% at 1080p to 44.2% at 4K, showing that the Ultra preset’s effects scale non-linearly with pixel count.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals how the system’s performance scales with pixel count, and the data shows that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 146.3 FPS at 1080p to 131.9 FPS at 1440p, a 14.4 FPS reduction, and then to 107.3 FPS at 4K, a further 24.6 FPS drop. This pattern indicates a relatively gentle scaling curve, with the GPU handling the additional pixels efficiently. However, at Ultra settings, the drops are more severe: from 116.0 FPS at 1080p to 102.5 FPS at 1440p (13.5 FPS reduction), and then to 59.9 FPS at 4K (42.6 FPS reduction). The 4K Ultra frame rate is less than half of the 1080p Ultra frame rate, which is a clear sign that the GPU’s compute units are saturated by the combination of high resolution and maximum visual effects. The resolution scaling also affects the CPU’s role: at 1080p, the frame rates are high enough that the CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads might be a secondary consideration, but at 4K, the GPU’s rendering time dominates, making the CPU’s workload less impactful. The measured data shows that the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is relatively consistent across presets when expressed as a percentage, ranging from a 26.7% reduction for Low to a 48.4% reduction for Ultra, which suggests that the game’s engine has a predictable scaling model but that Ultra effects have a multiplicative cost.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, provides a solid foundation for this GPU, but the measured FPS data suggests that it is not the primary bottleneck in Thief. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.40 GHz and base clock of 2.60 GHz, combined with a 12 MB shared L3 cache, are sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 146.3 FPS, which is close to the CPU’s practical limit for this game, as indicated by the 3dmark_single_thread score of 868 and the passmark_single_thread score of 2981. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 75 places it above average, and its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, has an identical average score with a deltaPct of 0, suggesting similar single-threaded performance. However, at 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 116.0 FPS, which is still high, implying that the GPU is handling the increased visual load without the CPU becoming a limiting factor. The CPU’s role becomes more evident when comparing the FPS at 1080p versus 1440p: at 1080p High, the system produces 119.1 FPS, while at 1440p High, it produces 107.8 FPS, a 9.5% reduction that is attributable to the GPU’s increased workload rather than CPU limitations. The 3dmark_16_threads score of 5619 and the cinebench_r23_multicore score of 14372 indicate that the CPU has ample multi-threaded headroom, but Thief likely does not utilize all 12 threads effectively, given its 2014 release date. The CPU’s 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and dual-channel DDR4 support are adequate, as the game’s data streaming does not appear to cause frame drops, even at 4K where the GPU is fully engaged.

How This Combo Ranks

In the context of all tested combinations for Thief, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT holds a rank of 556 out of 1642 combos, placing it in the upper third of results. This ranking is notable because the GPU alone sits in the 82nd percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU is in the 75th percentile, suggesting that the combo’s ranking is slightly lower than what the individual components might imply. The data shows that the GPU is the dominant contributor to performance, as its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile, has a nearly identical average score with a deltaPct of 0, yet the overall combo rank is not in the top 500. This discrepancy suggests that Thief may be somewhat CPU-sensitive at lower resolutions, or that other combos with higher-end CPUs achieve better frame rates despite having less powerful GPUs. The combo’s rank of 556 out of 1642 means that there are 1086 other combos that perform worse, which is a strong result, but it also indicates that the i5-11400F is not the ideal partner for the RX 7900 XT in this specific game. The measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (116.0 FPS) is impressive, but it is likely that combos with faster CPUs, such as those with higher single-thread scores, would push this number higher. The data implies that the GPU is underutilized at 1080p, as the frame rates are well above 100 FPS even at Ultra, and the combo’s ranking could be improved by pairing the RX 7900 XT with a CPU that has a higher 3dmark_single_thread score. Overall, this combo delivers a very playable experience across all settings, but its mid-tier ranking reflects that the CPU is a limiting factor in extracting maximum performance from the GPU.