Thief

Thief, a stealth game released on 2014-02-24, pairs the Intel Core i5-12600KF with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 in this tested configuration. Measured FPS spans from 33 at 4K Ultra to 142 at 1080p Low, with the combo ranking 2927 out of 3720 tested combinations. The CPU, part of the Alder Lake generation, uses 10 cores and 16 threads with a 3.70 GHz base clock and 4.90 GHz boost, while the GPU is a 12 nm Turing chip with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus. Benchmarks place the CPU in the 79th percentile of all CPUs and the GPU in the 53rd percentile of all GPUs.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Medium settings?

A: The recorded average is 108 FPS, with a minimum of 91 and a maximum of 124 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank in the database?

A: It ranks 2927th out of 3720 combos, which places it in the lower half of all tested configurations.

Q: What are the CPU's core count and boost clock?

A: The Intel Core i5-12600KF has 10 cores, 16 threads, and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz.

Q: What is the GPU's memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 2060 has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, a 192-bit bus, and a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s.

Q: At which resolution and setting does the combo reach its highest average FPS?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS is 142.

Q: Is there any data on minimum FPS for 4K Medium?

A: Yes, for 3840x2160 Medium, the minimum FPS is 37 and the maximum is 50.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture using the TU106 chip, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. The transistor count is 10,800 million, and the die size is 445 mm². Core clocks are 1365 MHz base and 1680 MHz boost, while the memory is 1750 MHz, translating to 14 Gbps effective. The 6 GB VRAM is connected via a 192-bit bus with a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s — a configuration that supports the texture loads of a game released in 2014. Compute resources include 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, along with 30 ray-tracing cores and 240 tensor cores. Theoretical throughput readings from this silicon show a pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s, a texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s, and FP32 performance at 6.451 TFLOPS.

In measured performance, the effect of these parameters is visible in the FPS scaling. At 1080p High, the GPU delivers 82 FPS on average; the same setting drops to 56 FPS at 1440p and further to 33 FPS at 4K. These numbers indicate a strong dependence on resolution, with the GPU becoming the limiting hardware because the CPU is high-end for its age. The 6 GB VRAM appears sufficient for all tested settings, as no over-usage artifacts are reported in the data; the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K follows a consistent trend across all quality presets, and the memory bandwidth of 336 GB/s likely supports the geometry and shadows that dominate the game's visuals.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS demonstrates a clear, consistent depreciation as resolution increases, for every preset. At 1080p, all settings produce averages well above 60 FPS: Low yields 142, Medium 108, High 82, and Ultra 78. Moving to 1440p, those numbers fall to 97, 74, 56, and 54 respectively, meaning only Low and Medium keep the average above 60. At 4K, the scale continues to decrease: Low reaches 57, Medium 43, High 33, and Ultra 31. None of the 4K presets hit 60 FPS; the fastest setting, Low, produces 57, which is 3 frames short of the typical target.

The magnitude of the resolution penalty is largest when going from 1440p to 4K. For High, the drop is from 56 to 33 FPS, a reduction of 23 FPS. For Low, it drops from 97 to 57, a reduction of 40 FPS. Even Medium drops from 74 to 43, a 31-frame loss. This pattern suggests that the compute limitations of the RTX 2060, particularly its pixel fill rate and texture throughput, are taxed heavily as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K. The cardinality of the GPU is fixed by its 336 GB/s bandwidth and 48 ROPs; those hardware units define the upper bound of scenes at high resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The comprehensive listing of average FPS (and where available, min/max) across all tested resolutions and settings is as follows:

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

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

| 3840x2160 | High | 33 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 57 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 43 | 37 | 50 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 31 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | High | 56 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 97 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 74 | 63 | 85 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 54 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | High | 82 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 142 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 108 | 91 | 124 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 78 | - | - |

Two patterns stand out from this data. First, the minimum FPS values align closely with the average for Medium quality at any resolution: at 4K, the average is 43 with a minimum of 37, while at 1080p it is 108 with a minimum of 91. This indicates that the frame delivery is consistent and not prone to large spikes. Second, the High and Ultra presets are very similar in performance; at 1080p, High average is 82 and Ultra is 78, a difference of only 4 FPS. At 4K, High is 33 and Ultra is 31, a 2 FPS difference. This suggests the Ultra preset adds only a small visual quality jump but with a measurable performance cost.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of Intel i5-12600KF and RTX 2060 sits at rank 2927 out of 3720 configured sets in the Thief database. This places it near the bottom third of the tested population, with roughly 793 combinations performing better. The CPU shows a percentile of 79, meaning it outperforms 79% of all CPUs in the database, while the GPU has a percentile of 53, meaning it sits slightly above the middle when compared to all GPUs. This disparity indicates that the GPU is the computational bottleneck for this game rather than the CPU.

Turning to the nearest rivals from the benchmark suite, the CPU's competitor is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which has an average score of 27896, a delta of -0.3% from the i5-12600KF's 27799. The Intel Core i9-10900K is within 0.3%, and the Ryzen 7 6800U also within 0.3%. Only the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE is slightly faster at +0.3%. For the GPU, the closest comparison is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 with an identical score (delta 0.1%) and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 at +0.8%. This placement means the i5-12600KF performs on par with top-tier chips from a few generations ago, while the RTX 2060 outputs like much older hardware.

The rank is also influenced by the fact that Thief is an older title; modern GPUs often deliver better per-pixel efficiency, and the 53rd percentile shows that many other cards far outperform the 2060. Because the game is largely frame-rate bound by the GPU, the low GPU percentile explains why the overall combo rank falls below the CPU percentile.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests which settings to use based on the desired frame rate. If the target is 60 FPS, the user should stick to 1080p or 1440p but avoid Ultra. At 1080p, all settings produce an average above 78 FPS, so even Ultra is viable; Ultra gives 78 FPS, which is above 60. Medium gives an even higher 108 FPS, and Low isn't recommended because it exceeds the refresh rate of many monitors but is still useful for high refresh-rate screens. At 1440p, only the Low and Medium presets maintain an average above 60; Low yields 97 FPS, Medium 74 FPS. High and Ultra sit below 60 at 56 and 54 FPS, so careful selection is needed. For 4K, no preset provides 60 FPS; Low gives 57, which is the closest. If one must use 4K, reducing the graphics to Low is the best option according to the measured data, but the experience will be substantially slower than 1080p.

In cases where users are willing to trade some fidelity for a high frame rate, the Medium preset at 1440p offers 74 FPS and hits the 60+ mark. At 1080p, Medium gives 142 FPS, which is more than double the critical threshold. For console-like 30 FPS, the 4K Ultra preset still holds at 31 FPS, so it is at the edge of playable. Given the data, the default choice can be guided by the exact numbers: for 1080p, High or Ultra (82/78 FPS) are all playable; for 1440p, Medium is the only way to get over 60 with an okay quality; for 4K, Low is the only preset that gets close to 60.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Alder Lake series, built on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz and a boost of 4.90 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache layout includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 20 MB L3. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU produces strong numbers: the Geekbench multicore score is 12137, and the single-core is 2157; Cinebench R20 shows 9824 multicore and 1386 single-core; PassMark multithread is 27575 and single-thread 3925. These scores place the CPU at the 79th percentile of all CPUs.

For a game released in 2014, the i5-12600KF provides enormous headroom. Even when the GPU is running at lower resolutions such as 720p, the CPU is unlikely to be the limiting factor. The highest FPS seen in the measured preset, 142 at 1080p Low, likely still leaves CPU headroom because the core count and clock rate are well above what the game's engine can exploit. The nearest rivals in the benchmark table, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Intel Core i9-10900K, are within 0.3% of the i5's average score, further confirming that the processor is not the contributing cause of the low combo rank. Instead, the data points to the GPU as the primary component dictating frame rates.