Thief

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580 produces a playable but constrained experience in Thief, with performance heavily dictated by resolution and graphics presets. The data indicates a system where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as resolution climbs, while the CPU provides ample headroom for the game’s older engine. This combination ranks in the lower tier of tested configurations, reflecting its age but still offering a functional path to 1080p gaming.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, a classic sign of GPU-bound rendering. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers 83.4 FPS, which drops to 56.8 FPS at 1440p and further to 34 FPS at 4K. This represents a 59% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that the Radeon RX 580’s pixel-pushing capabilities are the limiting factor. The scaling is consistent across all presets: at High settings, the frame rate falls from 49.2 FPS at 1080p to 35.5 FPS at 1440p, then to 21.8 FPS at 4K.

The pattern suggests that Thief's rendering load scales aggressively with pixel count, and the RX 580’s 256-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient to maintain fluid frame rates beyond 1440p. At 4K, even the lowest preset only manages 34 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is notable—roughly a 30% drop at most settings—while the leap to 4K brings another 40% reduction. This steep curve points to the GPU’s raw fillrate and shading capacity, not the CPU, as the decisive constraint. The 6.175 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 42.88 GPixel/s pixel rate simply cannot feed enough pixels at 4K for a playable experience.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a modern six-core, twelve-thread processor with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its architecture, Alder Lake, provides strong single-thread performance, as reflected in its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2249 and 3DMark single-thread score of 910. In Thief, a 2014 title, this CPU is likely underutilized, as the game’s engine does not scale well beyond a few cores. The processor’s 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample bandwidth for game logic, but the data shows the CPU is not the bottleneck.

Evidence for this lies in the frame rate scaling: when moving from 1080p Low (83.4 FPS) to 1080p Ultra (46.6 FPS), the CPU’s workload remains similar, yet the frame rate drops by 44%. This suggests the GPU is the limiting component even at 1080p. The CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15935 and PassMark multi-thread score of 18747, far exceed what Thief requires. The 65W TDP and 10 nm process node also indicate efficiency, but these specs do not translate into higher frame rates in this title. The core count of six and thread count of twelve are more than adequate for a game released in 2014, which likely uses only a handful of threads. The i5-12400’s nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i7-9700 (0.1% higher average score) and the Intel Core i5-11600K (0.4% higher), show that this CPU is competitive in synthetic benchmarks, but in Thief, the GPU dominates the performance narrative.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Thief, this pairing ranks 1518 out of 1642 combos, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. This low rank is unsurprising given the GPU’s age and the fact that the RX 580 was released in 2017, while the game launched in 2014. The combo’s percentile versus all GPUs sits at 53, meaning the RX 580 is roughly average among all graphics cards, but its performance in Thief is dragged down by the game’s demanding rendering at higher resolutions.

The rank of 1518 indicates that the majority of tested combos deliver higher average frame rates, but this position is not catastrophic. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 83.4 FPS, which is respectable for a last-generation GPU. However, the rank is skewed by the fact that many modern GPUs can handle 4K Ultra easily, while this combo struggles at 21.8 FPS. The CPU’s rank among all processors is 77th percentile, but the GPU’s rank is only 53rd percentile, highlighting that the graphics card is the weak link. The combo’s overall rank of 1518/1642 suggests that users seeking 4K or high-refresh-rate 1440p gameplay should look elsewhere, but for 1080p gaming at medium settings, this combo remains viable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the data shows a clear hierarchy across settings. Low settings produce an average of 83.4 FPS, which is smooth and playable. Medium settings drop to 63 FPS, still a comfortable frame rate for most displays. High settings yield 49.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 46.6 FPS, both of which are playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The range from Low to Ultra represents a 44% performance penalty, indicating that Thief’s ultra preset is demanding but not unoptimized.

Moving to 1440p, the frame rates drop significantly. Low settings average 56.8 FPS, which is playable, but Medium falls to 42.7 FPS, High to 35.5 FPS, and Ultra to 31 FPS. These numbers suggest that 1440p is only viable at Low or Medium settings for a consistent experience. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings is 32%, from 63 to 42.7 FPS, showing that the GPU’s memory bandwidth becomes a limiting factor.

At 4K, the performance collapses. Low settings average 34 FPS, Medium 23.7 FPS, High 21.8 FPS, and Ultra 22 FPS. These figures are all below the 30 FPS threshold typically considered the minimum for playable gaming, and the data suggests that 4K is not a realistic option for this combo. The difference between Medium and Ultra at 4K is negligible (23.7 vs 22 FPS), indicating that the GPU is completely saturated. The measured FPS breakdown reveals a system that excels at 1080p Low to Medium, struggles at 1440p, and fails at 4K. The data shows no min or max FPS values, so the analysis is based solely on averages, but the trend is consistent across all resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is built on the Polaris 20 chip with a 14 nm process node and GCN 4.0 architecture. It features 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs, with a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz. These specs place it in the mid-range of GPUs from its era, and its benchmark scores reflect that. The PassMark G3D score is 8813, and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 1005, indicating moderate DirectX 12 performance. However, Thief was released in 2014, before DX12 was widely adopted, so the game likely uses DirectX 11, where the RX 580’s PassMark DirectX 11 score of 60 is more relevant.

The GPU’s role in this combo is decisive. The data shows that frame rates are consistently GPU-bound, as evidenced by the steep resolution scaling. The RX 580’s texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s are sufficient for 1080p but insufficient for higher resolutions. The 8 GB VRAM is ample for Thief’s textures, but the memory bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s becomes a bottleneck at 1440p and 4K. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (0% delta) and GTX 950 (0.1% delta), which show that the RX 580 is closely matched to older NVIDIA cards in synthetic benchmarks. Its percentile versus all GPUs is 53, placing it just above average, but in Thief, it performs like a lower-tier card due to the game’s specific rendering demands. The GPU’s TDP of 185 W and suggested PSU of 450 W are notable, but the performance data is what matters: this card cannot deliver playable frame rates beyond 1440p in Thief. The launch MSRP was 229 USD, but the card is now end-of-life, and its performance in this title reflects its age.