Thief

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT delivers a solid 1080p and 1440p experience in Thief, with the data indicating a clear GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions and settings. The 10-core, 16-thread Raptor Lake CPU provides ample headroom, while the Navi 23-based GPU with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and a 128-bit bus becomes the limiting factor as the resolution scales.

Resolution Scaling

Scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a significant performance drop, with the average FPS at each preset showing a consistent pattern of the GPU becoming the primary bottleneck. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 155 FPS, dropping to 107 FPS at 1440p and 63 FPS at 4K—a reduction of 31% and 59% from the 1080p figure, respectively. The Medium preset scales from 118 FPS at 1080p to 81 FPS at 1440p, then 48 FPS at 4K, with the 4K result representing a 59% decrease. The High preset shows a 62 FPS at 1440p and 36 FPS at 4K, a 42% drop from the 90 FPS at 1080p. The Ultra preset at 4K yields just 34 FPS, a 60% reduction from the 85 FPS at 1080p.

The scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting component across the board, as the FPS drops proportionally with the pixel count increase. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the drop from 1440p to 4K, suggesting that the CPU can still feed the GPU at 1440p but the GPU is fully saturated at 4K. The data shows that for consistent playable frame rates above 60 FPS, the 1080p and 1440p resolutions are the target, with 4K playable only at Low settings (63 FPS average). The transition from 1080p to 1440p at the same preset reduces the average FPS by roughly a third, while the move from 1440p to 4K nearly halves the performance again.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT features a base clock of 1968 MHz and a boost clock of 2589 MHz, with a game clock of 2359 MHz. The 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s, which is a key factor for the 4K performance. The benchmark results show the GPU's PassMark G3D score of 16461, placing it in the 70th percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 24442. The nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 with a deltaPct of 0.7, the Intel Arc A350M at -0.8, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti at 0.8, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER at 1.1. These comparisons indicate the RX 6600 XT sits within a tight performance band relative to these cards in synthetic benchmarks.

In Thief, the GPU's role is most evident in the 4K resolution measurements, where the Ultra preset averages 34 FPS, and the High preset averages 36 FPS. The 4K Low setting reaches 63 FPS, suggesting that the memory bandwidth and compute resources are sufficient for lower quality settings but are stretched at higher detail levels. The 1080p Medium preset averages 118 FPS with a reported min of 100 and max of 136, showing the GPU can maintain high frame rates with some headroom. The 1440p Medium preset averages 81 FPS with a min of 69 and max of 93, indicating that the GPU is still capable of delivering smooth performance at this resolution with moderate settings.

The data implies that the RX 6600 XT is a mid-range GPU that excels at 1080p and 1440p gaming but struggles to maintain 60 FPS at 4K on higher settings, with the Ultra preset at 4K being the only configuration below 40 FPS average. The GPU's 7nm process node from TSMC, with 11,060 million transistors on a 237 mm² die, and its RDNA 2.0 architecture, provide a balanced set of features for this game's DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) support.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F has 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It features 20 MB of shared L3 cache, 1.25 MB per core of L2, and 80 KB per core of L1 cache. The CPU's benchmark results include a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22604 and a single-core score of 3191, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 11068 and single-core score of 1996. The PassMark multithread score is 25032, and the single-thread score is 3634. The CPU sits in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25292.

In Thief, the CPU's influence is most apparent at the lower resolutions where the GPU is less stressed. The 1080p Low preset achieves 155 FPS, which is the highest measured in the dataset, suggesting that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to reach high frame rates. The 1080p Ultra preset still yields 85 FPS, indicating the CPU does not bottleneck the gameplay at that resolution. The 1440p results also show the CPU maintaining performance, with the Low preset reaching 107 FPS and the Ultra preset at 59 FPS.

The closest CPU rivals in terms of average benchmark score are the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS with a deltaPct of 0, the Intel Core 5 120 with -0.3, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D with -0.3, and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H with 0.4. This indicates the i5-13400F's performance is within a few percentage points of these comparable CPUs. The high core and thread count, combined with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, shows that the CPU can handle the game's threading demands, as evidenced by the 16-thread 3DMark score of 7314 and the max-thread score of 7307. The CPU's TDP of 65W and a dual-channel memory bus are typical for this class, and the data suggests no significant CPU bottleneck in Thief, as the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1440p with High settings?

A: The average FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings is 62 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-core performance compare to its rivals?

A: The i5-13400F has an average benchmark score of 25292, with the nearest rival being the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS at 25284 (deltaPct 0), and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H at 25201 (deltaPct 0.4).

Q: Which preset provides the highest average FPS at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 gives the highest average FPS of 155, followed by the Medium preset at 118 FPS.

Q: What is the performance gap between the Medium and Ultra presets at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset averages 48 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 34 FPS, a difference of 14 FPS.

Q: Is the RX 6600 XT's memory bandwidth sufficient for 4K gameplay?

A: With a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s and 8GB of GDDR6 memory, the 4K High preset averages 36 FPS, and the Low preset averages 63 FPS, indicating the memory is sufficient for lower settings but limiting for higher ones.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The RX 6600 XT ranks in the 70th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24442.

Settings Recommendations

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the best balance for most resolutions, as it maintains an average FPS above 60 at both 1080p (118 FPS) and 1440p (81 FPS), and remains playable at 4K with 48 FPS. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 155 FPS, but the Medium preset offers a significant visual improvement for a 24% performance reduction. At 1440p, the Medium preset provides a 41 FPS advantage over the Ultra preset (81 vs 59 FPS), making it the recommended choice for a smooth experience. For 4K, the Low preset with 63 FPS is the only playable option that averages above 60 FPS, as the Medium preset dips to 48 FPS and the High and Ultra presets fall below 40 FPS. The 1080p Ultra preset still delivers 85 FPS, which is playable, but the Medium preset at that resolution offers a better trade-off with 118 FPS and higher detail fidelity than Low. At 1440p, the Low preset achieves 107 FPS, and the Medium preset at 81 FPS is still well above the 60 FPS threshold, making it the optimal choice for this resolution. The 4K Medium preset's average of 48 FPS is below the 60 FPS target, so the Low preset is the only viable option for 4K gaming.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 155 FPS, the Medium preset averages 118 FPS with a range of 100-136 FPS, the High preset averages 90 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 85 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 107 FPS, the Medium preset averages 81 FPS with a range of 69-93 FPS, the High preset averages 62 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 59 FPS. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 63 FPS, the Medium preset averages 48 FPS with a range of 40-55 FPS, the High preset averages 36 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 34 FPS.

The data shows that the 1080p resolution provides the highest frame rates across all settings, with the Low preset reaching 155 FPS and the Medium preset at 118 FPS. The 1440p Medium preset is the only configuration that provides a consistent 60+ FPS experience with a reported minimum of 69 FPS, whereas the High and Ultra presets at 1440p dip below 62 FPS. The 4K resolution, regardless of the setting, struggles to maintain high frame rates, with the Low preset being the only one at or above 60 FPS. The Medium presets at all resolutions provide a playable frame rate, with the 1080p Medium being the most favorable for high refresh-rate displays.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT ranks 2625 out of 3720 tested combos in Thief. This places the combo in the lower half of tested systems, with about 70% of all combinations performing better. The ranking suggests that while the CPU and GPU are individually capable, the combined system does not place in the top tier for this game. The CPU's performance percentile of 79 and the GPU's percentile of 70 indicate that the system is built from components that are slightly above average in their respective categories, but the game's optimization and the 4K resolution results pull the overall ranking down. The data shows that the system is better suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can achieve high frame rates, but the 4K Ultra performance of 34 FPS and the 4K High performance of 36 FPS are below playable thresholds for many. The ranking reflects the fact that Thief is a 2014 title, and the hardware is capable of handling the game well at lower resolutions, but the combination is not among the top performers, likely due to the 8GB VRAM limitation and the 128-bit memory bus at 4K. The combo's ranking of 2625 out of 3720 shows it is in the 70th percentile for performance in this game, which aligns with the GPU's 70th percentile ranking but is slightly below the CPU's 77th percentile.