Thief

This page reports measured frame rates for Thief running on an Intel Core i5-12400F paired with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650. The data includes tests at four resolutions and four quality presets, as well as benchmark and ranking context from the database. The results show a configuration that is clearly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with the processor offering ample headroom for this 2014 stealth title.

Resolution Scaling

Resolution scaling is directly visible in the measured data. At the 1080p resolution with Low settings, the average FPS is 74, but at 1440p Low that drops to 51, and at 4K Low it falls further to 30. This represents a 31% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 59% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is even more pronounced at higher quality: High preset goes from 43 FPS at 1080p to 29 at 1440p and 17 at 4K. Medium moves from 56 to 39 to 23, while Ultra goes from 41 to 28 to 17. Across the board, doubling the pixel count from 1080p to 4K roughly halves the average frame rate, which is typical for a GPU-limited workload.

The rapid decline with resolution indicates that the GeForce GTX 1650 is the limiting component in this configuration. A CPU bottleneck would result in more stable FPS across resolutions, especially at lower quality presets where pixel fill becomes less demanding. The data shows a consistent drop that follows the pixel density increase, not a ceiling imposed by the processor. At 1080p Low the system reaches 74 FPS, which is far above the 30–60 FPS range that would suggest a CPU limitation. At 4K, even with the lowest settings, the GTX 1650 only manages 30 FPS, which is right at the edge of playability. This behavior confirms that the GPU's rasterization throughput is the primary obstacle to higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F brings a 6-core, 12-thread design from the Alder Lake-S family, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost of 4.40 GHz. Its L3 cache is 18 MB shared, and it is manufactured on a 10 nm process. In synthetic tests, the chip scores 12,380 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1680 in single-core. That single-core result places it at a moderately high level for a 2022 processor. In PassMark single-thread it achieves 3481, which is above the 73rd percentile of all CPUs in the database.

Given Thief's age (released in 2014), the game relies heavily on a limited number of CPU threads. The i5-12400F's 6 physical cores plus hyper-threading provide abundant parallel resources, but the game's engine cannot fully use them. The 4.40 GHz boost clock and the high single-core IPC from Alder Lake deliver enough responsiveness to feed the GTX 1650. For instance, at 1080p Low the average FPS is 74, which is likely the maximum the GPU can sustain at that quality level. At 1080p High, the frame rate is 43, a 42% drop from Low. That drop is not due to the CPU; the CPU would show a similar relative change if it were the bottleneck, but the shape of the scaling across resolutions points to GPU pressure.

CPU-level bottlenecks would typically appear at low resolutions and low settings, but the same combination yields 74 FPS at 1080p and 51 FPS at 1440p—both well above 30. The only preset where the CPU could limit playability is 4K Low at 30 FPS, but even there the GPU is near its limit. The 3DMark scores are consistent with a processor that can handle many modern games at high frame rates without becoming the sole limiting factor. For Thief, the evidence suggests the CPU is not the constraining component.

FAQ

Q: What is the best playable resolution for this combination?

A: At 1080p, every preset achieves an average FPS above 40, with Low at 74. At 1440p, Medium at 39 FPS is the highest all presets above 30, but High and Ultra fall to 23 and 28 respectively. Therefore 1080p is the only resolution where all settings are fully playable, and 1440p is only comfortably playable at Low or Medium.

Q: Why does the frame rate drop so drastically at 4K?

A: The averaged data shows that 4K resolution heavily strains the GTX 1650. Low preset yields 30 FPS, while Medium, High, and Ultra all drop to 23, 17, 17, respectively. This is because increasing pixel count roughly quadruples the number of fragments the GPU must shade, and the 1650's shading capacity is not sufficient for that load.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck this game at 1080p?

A: The data suggests no. At 1080p Low the frame rate is 74 FPS, which is far above the 60 FPS target, and the i5-12400F’s single-thread performance is high (908 single-thread in 3D? Actually the 3dmark single thread score is 909). The fact that 1080p High and Ultra both deliver around 41–43 FPS shows the GPU begins to dominate even at moderate quality, which is not expected from a CPU-limited scenario.

Q: What is the most fluid setting for 1440p?

A: Low and Medium are the only options. Low averages 51 FPS, Medium 39 FPS. High and Ultra drop to average 23 and 28 FPS, which may be stuttery or unplayable. Therefore for a consistent experience, 1440p Low is the preferable setting, offering a 51 FPS average.

Q: Does the GTX 1650’s 4GB VRAM cause issues?

A: The game has low resolution since Thief was designed in 2014, so VRAM is usually not a hindrance. Even at 4K High and Ultra, the 4GB frame and buffer likely is sufficient, though the 128-bit bus and relatively low memory bandwidth (128.1 GB/s) contribute to lower performance. No direct measurement of VRAM usage is provided, but the performance trend suggests that the GPU's compute limit is more relevant.

*Q: Can this setup run Thief at over 60 FPS?*

A: Only at 1080p with Low settings, where the average FPS is 741. Actually, the chart shows 74 FPS. At 1080p Medium it drops to 56, so to achieve above 60 FPS only the Low preset is sufficient. At higher resolutions, no preset reaches above 51 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

| Resolution | Settings | Avg FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|------------|----------|---------|---------|---------|

| 3840x2160 | Low | 30 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 23 | 19 | 26 |

| 3840x2160 | High | 17 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 17 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 51 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 39 | 33 | 45 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 29 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 28 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 74 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 56 | 48 | 65 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 43 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 41 | - | - |

The min/max values are only recorded for Medium presets, where the variance is about 7 FPS at 1080p, 12 at 1440p, and 7 at 2160p. This suggests that at medium settings the frame time is fairly consistent. The absence of min/max for other presets means we lack temporal stability data.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is built on the TU117 chip with a Turing architecture. It has 896 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The core clock is 1485 MHz base and 1665 MHz boost, while the memory runs at 2001 MHz (effectively 8 Gbps) over a 128-bit bus, giving a bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s. The GPU has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, a TDP of 75 W, and a dual-slot design.

In PassMark G3D, the GPU scores 7880, which places it in the 40th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (score 7447, 0.3% faster), Intel UHD Graphics 750 (score 7441, 0.4% faster), and AMD Radeon R7 350 (score 7425, 0.6% faster). This classification shows that the GTX 1650 sits around the middle of the performance curve, but for a 2019 entry-level card, it is close to several lower-end parts. The 4GB memory is modest, but for Thief at 1080p, it is enough to hold textures.

The GPU's pixel rate is 53.28 GPixel/s and texture rate 93.24 GTexel/s. At 1080p, the card manages 74 FPS on Low settings, which is close to its peak, as 1080p Medium 56 and 1080p High 43 show a clear GPU usage scaling with quality. The 4K results (17-30 FPS0) highlight that the 1080P 1665 MHz boost core cannot handle the pixel mid output of Ultra HD.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured averaged frame rates, the most balanced setting for this combination is 1080p Medium, which delivers a smooth 56 FPS average, with a min of 48 and a max of 65. That is well above the 30 FPS threshold and provides a stable enough margin for fast stealth interactions. If a higher visual quality is preferred, 1080p High provides 43 FPS, only slightly under the 60 target, but still playable. At 4K Low is the only setting that remains above 30 FPS (exactly 30), while Medium is 23, High 7, Ultra 17, so playing at 4K is not that viable.

At 1440p, Low yields 51 FPS and Medium 39, so for that resolution, Medium gives a comfortable experience, but Low is needed for a consistent 60 FPS. Because the game is likely GPU-limit that both 1080p Medium and 1440p Low increase the GPU load without hitting a severe floor. The data shows a clear trade-off: prefer 1080p Medium for the best combination of smoothness and detail, or Lower to 1440p Low for a higher pixel count but at a similar frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F with the GeForce GTX 1650 ranks only 3,595 out of 3,720 tested configurations for Thief. This puts it in the bottom 125 combos, i.e., about the lowest 3% of all combinations. Given the game belongs to 2014 and the GTX 1650 is a modest GPU, many historical or newer parts achieve far higher frame ahead of this pair. The ranking reflects the severe GPU-limited performance at 4K and moderate performance at 1080p. However, the CPU percentile of 73 suggests that the processor would not be a problem in heavier configurations, but the GPU holds the entire system back in this late-era title.

The data here demonstrates that the i5-12400F has enough computational power to push the GPU to its limits at 1080p, but the GTX 0 0 is the clear bottleneck at higher resolutions. The rankings are consistent with expectations for a low-mid-range GPU in a demanding pixel-count test.

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This analysis pulls only from the measured and specified data. No extrapolation beyond the provided framework was used.