Thief

# Thief Performance Analysis: Intel Core i5-12400 + AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT delivers a remarkably consistent experience across Thief's four quality presets, with the data revealing a system that scales predictably from 1080p through 4K. The combo ranks 531st out of 1,642 tested combinations, placing it in the upper third of all configurations while demonstrating that this pairing hits a sweet spot for a 2014 stealth title running on modern hardware. The measured frames per second across all twelve resolution-settings combinations show no anomalies, suggesting a well-balanced system where neither component consistently bottlenecks the other.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium settings at 2560x1440 as the optimal balance point, delivering 120.2 FPS while maintaining visual fidelity that remains meaningfully above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1920x1080, Medium produces 155.2 FPS, which represents a 22.6% improvement over High settings at the same resolution (133.8 FPS), while the jump from Medium to Low only yields 14.0 FPS more (169.2 FPS versus 155.2 FPS). This diminishing return pattern suggests Medium captures nearly all available performance headroom without sacrificing the visual quality that Low settings strip away.

For users prioritizing maximum smoothness over visual detail, Low settings at 2560x1440 produce 151.5 FPS, which is 58.3% higher than High settings at the same resolution (93.7 FPS). The Ultra preset, while visually demanding, still maintains playable frame rates across all resolutions, with 127 FPS at 1080p and 54.1 FPS at 4K. The data indicates that High settings at 1920x1080 (133.8 FPS) offer the most balanced experience for users with standard monitors, while 4K users should consider Medium (71.3 FPS) as the practical ceiling, since Ultra at 4K drops to 54.1 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT brings substantial memory resources to this pairing, with 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus delivering 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock of 2430 MHz and game clock of 2124 MHz, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, provide the computational foundation for Thief's performance. The 3,840 shading units and 96 ROPs handle the game's DirectX 12 Ultimate workloads efficiently, as evidenced by the passmark DirectX 12 score of 93 and DirectX 11 score of 249.

The GPU's 37.32 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 583.2 GTexel/s texture rate explain why the card maintains respectable frame rates even at 4K Ultra (54.1 FPS). The 60 ray-tracing cores, while not heavily utilized in a 2014 title, contribute to the card's architectural completeness. The GPU's benchmark profile shows a passmark G3D score of 24,176 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 139,381, placing it in the 76th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD FirePro S9300 X2, scores 32,540 in average benchmarks, a mere 0.2% difference, indicating the RX 7800 XT sits at a crowded performance tier.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals clear scaling patterns that illuminate where the system's limiting factors reside. At Low settings, performance drops from 169.2 FPS at 1080p to 151.5 FPS at 1440p (a 10.5% decrease) and further to 93.3 FPS at 4K (a 38.4% decrease from 1440p). This steep 1440p-to-4K drop suggests the GPU becomes increasingly taxed as pixel count rises, even at minimal settings.

High settings show a similar trajectory: 133.8 FPS at 1080p, 93.7 FPS at 1440p (30.0% decrease), and 50.4 FPS at 4K (46.2% decrease from 1440p). The Ultra preset demonstrates the most dramatic scaling, with 127 FPS at 1080p dropping to 88.7 FPS at 1440p (30.2% decrease) and finally 54.1 FPS at 4K (39.0% decrease from 1440p). The consistent pattern of roughly 30% drops between 1080p and 1440p, followed by 38-46% drops between 1440p and 4K, points to the GPU as the primary scaling bottleneck, while the CPU maintains sufficient headroom to avoid becoming a limiting factor at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The 531st rank out of 1,642 tested combinations places this pairing in the 67.7th percentile of all system configurations tested for Thief. This positioning indicates that while the combination is by no means at the top of the leaderboard, it substantially outperforms the median system. The CPU's 77th percentile ranking among all processors (with an average benchmark score of 19,850) and the GPU's 76th percentile ranking complement each other well, creating a system that is neither CPU-limited nor GPU-limited in a way that would drag the overall combo ranking down.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution: the Intel Core i7-9700 scores 19,831 (0.1% slower), while the Intel Core i7-8700 scores 19,894 (0.2% faster), indicating that the i5-12400 performs essentially identically to these older i7 parts in general benchmarks. The GPU's rival comparison shows the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 trailing by 0.2% and the NVIDIA P104-100 leading by 0.4%, suggesting the RX 7800 XT sits in a tightly contested performance envelope. This combo's rank reflects the sum of these solid, if not spectacular, individual performances.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest playable frame rate this combo achieves at 4K?

A: At 4K with Low settings, the system achieves 93.3 FPS, while Medium produces 71.3 FPS, High delivers 50.4 FPS, and Ultra drops to 54.1 FPS. For 4K gaming, Low settings provide the only frame rate comfortably above 60 FPS.

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

A: The average frame rate drops from 133.8 FPS at 1920x1080 to 93.7 FPS at 2560x1440, representing a 30.0% decrease. This is the same percentage drop seen when moving from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra settings (127 FPS to 88.7 FPS).

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide better frame rates than High at any resolution?

A: No. At every resolution, High settings outperform Ultra. At 1080p, High delivers 133.8 FPS versus 127 FPS for Ultra; at 1440p, High produces 93.7 FPS versus 88.7 FPS; and at 4K, High achieves 50.4 FPS versus 54.1 FPS for Ultra.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Medium settings at 1440p?

A: Low settings produce 151.5 FPS at 2560x1440, while Medium settings deliver 120.2 FPS. The 31.3 FPS difference represents a 26.0% performance gain from Medium to Low at this resolution.

Q: How does this combo's rank in Thief compare to its component percentiles?

A: The combo ranks 531st out of 1,642 tested (67.7th percentile), while the CPU sits in the 77th percentile and the GPU in the 76th percentile. The combo ranking is slightly lower than either component's individual percentile.

Q: Which settings preset shows the smallest FPS gap between 1440p and 4K?

A: Ultra settings show the smallest relative drop, with 88.7 FPS at 1440p falling to 54.1 FPS at 4K, a 39.0% decrease. This is slightly smaller than the 46.2% drop seen with High settings between these same resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets: Low achieves 169.2 FPS, Medium reaches 155.2 FPS, High produces 133.8 FPS, and Ultra delivers 127 FPS. The spread between lowest and highest settings at 1080p is 42.2 FPS, with Ultra being 24.9% slower than Low.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance envelope tightens: Low produces 151.5 FPS, Medium delivers 120.2 FPS, High achieves 93.7 FPS, and Ultra reaches 88.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra expands to 62.8 FPS at this resolution, with Ultra delivering 41.5% less performance than Low.

At 3840x2160, the system shows its most constrained performance: Low produces 93.3 FPS, Medium delivers 71.3 FPS, High achieves 50.4 FPS, and Ultra reaches 54.1 FPS. Notably, Ultra outperforms High at 4K by 3.7 FPS, an anomaly not seen at lower resolutions. The total spread from Low to High at 4K is 42.9 FPS, with High delivering 46.0% less performance than Low.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 provides six cores and twelve threads across its Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. The 18 MB of shared L3 cache, paired with 1.25 MB of L2 per core, offers ample data locality for Thief's stealth gameplay mechanics. The CPU's 3DMark scores show strong scaling from single-thread (910) to max-threads (5,890), indicating efficient multi-core utilization that benefits the game's background simulation systems.

The Cinebench R23 results of 15,935 multi-core and 2,249 single-core place this CPU well within its competitive tier, while the Passmark single-thread score of 3,456 demonstrates the per-core strength that older games like Thief often rely upon. The CPU's 77th percentile ranking against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 19,850, puts it within 0.1% of the Intel Core i7-9700 (19,831) and 0.4% of the Intel Core i5-11600K (19,771). This close grouping suggests that the i5-12400's performance is well understood and consistent across workloads, providing a stable foundation for the GPU to operate without being starved for data at any of the tested resolutions.