Thief

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT delivers a strong 1080p experience in Thief, but the data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior as resolution increases. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 136.6 FPS, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 58.6 FPS, indicating that the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is modest—about 26% slower at Ultra settings—but the jump to 4K is severe, with the Ultra preset falling 57% below its 1080p counterpart. This pattern confirms that while the CPU has ample headroom at lower resolutions, the RX 7900 XT’s rendering load dominates at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a predictable but pronounced resolution penalty. At Low settings, the combo runs 173.8 FPS at 1080p, 153.6 FPS at 1440p, and 110 FPS at 4K—a 37% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The High preset follows a similar trajectory: 138.1 FPS at 1080p, 110.9 FPS at 1440p, and 62.7 FPS at 4K, with the 4K figure representing a 55% drop. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, starting at 136.6 FPS at 1080p, falling to 101.4 FPS at 1440p, and bottoming out at 58.6 FPS at 4K. These numbers indicate that the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth (800.0 GB/s) are sufficient for 1440p but stretch thin at 4K, especially with higher graphical details. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads boosting to 4.40 GHz, does not appear to be the constraint—even at 1080p Low, the 173.8 FPS figure suggests the processor can feed the GPU without issue.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Thief?

A: The best result is 173.8 FPS at 1080p with Low settings, according to the measured data.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Medium settings or lower. The 4K Medium preset averages 86.4 FPS, while 4K High averages 62.7 FPS; 4K Ultra falls below 60 FPS at 58.6 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221, placing it 0.1% above the Intel Core i7-8700K and 0.3% above the Intel Core i5-1335U, but 0.7% below the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS.

Q: What is the GPU’s standing among all tested graphics cards?

A: The RX 7900 XT ranks in the 82nd percentile for all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 38358. It performs nearly identically to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile, which has a deltaPct of 0.

Q: Is the 1440p Ultra experience playable?

A: Yes, 1440p Ultra averages 101.4 FPS, which is well above typical playability thresholds and only 26% slower than the 1080p Ultra result.

Q: Does the game scale better with settings changes at 1080p or 4K?

A: At 1080p, dropping from Ultra to Low yields a 27% FPS increase (136.6 to 173.8). At 4K, the same settings change produces an 88% increase (58.6 to 110 FPS), showing that GPU load dominates more at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, the Medium preset is the clear recommendation. At 1080p, Medium delivers 154.3 FPS, which is 13% faster than High and only 19 FPS below Low, while providing significantly better graphics than Low. At 1440p, Medium hits 135.1 FPS, keeping the experience smooth on high-refresh monitors. Even at 4K, Medium remains playable at 86.4 FPS, making it the only preset that exceeds 60 FPS at both 1440p and 4K without dropping to Low. The High preset is viable at 1080p (138.1 FPS) and 1440p (110.9 FPS), but at 4K it falls to 62.7 FPS, which is borderline for demanding scenes. Ultra should be reserved for 1080p and 1440p users who prioritize image quality over frame rate, as 4K Ultra at 58.6 FPS will exhibit occasional stutter. Low settings are unnecessary at 1080p and 1440p given the headroom, but at 4K they provide a high-FPS option (110 FPS) for competitive play.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 173.8 FPS on Low, 154.3 FPS on Medium, 138.1 FPS on High, and 136.6 FPS on Ultra. The gap between High and Ultra is minimal—only 1.5 FPS—indicating that Ultra’s extra effects cost little at this resolution. At 2560x1440, results are 153.6 FPS (Low), 135.1 FPS (Medium), 110.9 FPS (High), and 101.4 FPS (Ultra). The Medium-to-High drop is 24.2 FPS, a more significant step than at 1080p. At 3840x2160, performance falls to 110 FPS (Low), 86.4 FPS (Medium), 62.7 FPS (High), and 58.6 FPS (Ultra). The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration below 60 FPS, and the Low-to-Medium gap (23.6 FPS) suggests that texture memory and bandwidth are heavily taxed. Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently shows the highest headroom, but the Medium preset offers the most consistent scaling, with only a 44% drop from 1080p to 4K compared to 45% for High and 57% for Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

In the full benchmark database for Thief, this CPU-GPU combination ranks 353rd out of 1642 tested combos, placing it in the top 21.5% of all configurations. The rank reflects the balanced pairing of a mid-range CPU with a high-end GPU. The i5-12400F’s average benchmark score of 19221 puts it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, while the RX 7900 XT’s score of 38358 places it in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. The combo’s rank is likely held back by the CPU’s 6-core/12-thread configuration, which may limit frame pacing in CPU-bound scenarios, though the measured FPS shows no obvious CPU bottleneck. Compared to the GPU’s nearest rivals—the RTX 5080 Mobile (deltaPct 0) and RTX 4080 Mobile (deltaPct 0.6)—the RX 7900 XT performs nearly identically, but the CPU’s rivals show a tighter spread, with the Ryzen 5 7533HS being 0.7% faster. This suggests that swapping the CPU for a slightly faster model could improve the combo’s rank, but the current position already indicates strong overall performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F features 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache support its 3DMark scores, which show strong scaling from 2 threads (1699) to 8 threads (4779) and near-linear gains up to max threads (5912). In Thief, the CPU’s role appears secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but at 1080p Low, the 173.8 FPS result demonstrates that the processor can handle high frame rates without being a bottleneck. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16518 and single-core score of 2332 indicate solid per-thread performance, which is crucial for a game from 2014 that may not fully utilize all 12 threads. The CPU’s 77th percentile ranking and its proximity to the i7-8700K (deltaPct 0.1) suggest that it provides adequate compute for Thief’s engine, which relies more on single-thread performance than multi-core scaling.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, with 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus delivering 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs drive a pixel rate of 459.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 804.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 51.48 TFLOPS. The GPU’s 82nd percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 38358 place it just above the RTX 5080 Mobile (deltaPct 0) and RTX 4080 Mobile (deltaPct 0.6). In Thief, the GPU’s memory bandwidth is critical at 4K, where the Ultra preset requires substantial texture throughput—the 58.6 FPS result at 4K Ultra versus 110 FPS at 4K Low highlights how settings affect memory pressure. The boost clock of 2394 MHz and game clock of 2025 MHz provide ample compute, but the data shows that at 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor, as FPS drops sharply with higher settings regardless of CPU performance. The 20 GB VRAM capacity is more than sufficient for this game, as even at 4K Ultra, the bottleneck is raw shading and bandwidth rather than memory capacity.