Thief

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti delivers a compelling 1080p and 1440p experience in Thief, but the data reveals a clear shift in system bottleneck as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080, the combination produces an average of 178.1 FPS on Low settings, a figure that drops to 119.4 FPS on Ultra, indicating a substantial performance range driven by graphical load. Moving to 2560x1440, the averages scale to 149.7 FPS on Low and 82.3 FPS on Ultra, showing a predictable decline. At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically: the average on Low falls to 87.8 FPS, while Ultra settings yield just 49.9 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a 50.7% reduction in average FPS on Low settings, but the drop is more pronounced on higher presets, with Ultra seeing a 58.2% reduction. This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the CPU has ample headroom, while at 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting component, as the performance gap between presets narrows and absolute FPS figures converge toward the GPU's rendering ceiling.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across the three resolutions tells a methodical story about where the bottleneck lies in this configuration. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are exceptionally high, ranging from 119.4 FPS on Ultra to 178.1 FPS on Low. The spread between the lowest and highest presets at this resolution is 58.7 FPS, indicating that the GPU is capable of handling the workload with room to spare. When the resolution increases to 2560x1440, the averages shift to a range of 82.3 FPS on Ultra to 149.7 FPS on Low, with a spread of 67.4 FPS. The larger gap at 1440p suggests that the GPU is starting to feel the pressure, but the CPU still has enough performance headroom to respond to settings changes. At 3840x2160, the range compresses to 49.7 FPS on High and 49.9 FPS on Ultra, with Low achieving 87.8 FPS and Medium at 70.3 FPS. The compression between High and Ultra at 4K (a difference of only 0.2 FPS) is a strong indicator that the GPU is saturated. The data shows that moving from 1080p to 4K on Low settings results in a 50.7% FPS drop, while on Ultra settings the drop is 58.2%. This divergence in scaling percentages points to the GPU becoming the primary constraint at higher resolutions, as the CPU's role diminishes when the pixel count rises.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti brings 8 GB of GDDR6X memory to the table, with a memory bus width of 256 bit and a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s. The GPU's base clock is 1575 MHz, with a boost clock of 1770 MHz, and it features 6144 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. In Thief, the GPU's role is most apparent in the 4K results, where the average FPS on High and Ultra presets sits at 49.7 and 49.9 respectively. The near-identical figures for High and Ultra at 4K suggest that the game's Ultra preset introduces graphical features that heavily tax the GPU's compute resources, while the High preset is already pushing the hardware to its limits. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is likely sufficient for this 2014 title, as the data does not show any anomalous performance collapses that would indicate memory swapping. The GPU's benchmark scores support its mid-to-high-tier positioning: it achieves a Passmark G3D score of 23356 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3478. Its percentile ranking against all GPUs is 74, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700, which is 0.8% behind, and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000, which is 0.9% ahead. These comparisons highlight that the RTX 3070 Ti is a solid performer, but its 4K capabilities in Thief are limited, as evidenced by the sub-60 FPS averages on the higher presets.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. In this game, the CPU's impact is most visible at 1080p, where the average FPS on Low settings reaches 178.1. This high figure indicates that the processor is not a limiting factor at lower resolutions, as it can feed frames to the GPU quickly enough. The CPU's synthetic benchmarks reinforce its strong single-threaded and multi-threaded performance: it scores 3004 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 21279 in multi-core, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2301 and multi-core score of 10971. Its 3DMark scores show scaling from 960 in single-thread to 7314 in 16-thread tests, suggesting good multi-threading efficiency. The processor's percentile ranking against all CPUs is 82, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13620H (0.1% ahead) and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (0.5% behind). At 1440p, the CPU still provides sufficient headroom, as the FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p on Low settings is 15.9%, which is less than the 41.3% drop seen from 1440p to 4K on the same preset. This data indicates that the CPU's role diminishes as resolution increases, with the GPU taking over as the dominant performance driver.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ranks 577 out of 1642 tested combos in Thief. This places the configuration in the upper-middle tier of the database, indicating that it outperforms a majority of other pairings but is not at the absolute top. The rank of 577 suggests that while the CPU and GPU are both capable components, there are many other combinations that deliver higher frame rates in this specific title. The CPU's 82nd percentile ranking against all CPUs and the GPU's 74th percentile ranking against all GPUs provide context for this overall position. The data shows that the combo's performance is balanced, with neither component severely dragging down the other. In comparison to its nearest rivals, the CPU is nearly identical in average benchmark score to the Intel Core i7-13620H (deltaPct of 0.1), and the GPU is similarly close to the AMD Radeon RX 590 GME (deltaPct of 0.3). These small deltas suggest that swapping either component for a direct rival would yield minimal performance changes in Thief, reinforcing the idea that this combo is a well-matched pairing for the game's requirements.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, all presets deliver playable frame rates, with the Ultra preset averaging 119.4 FPS. This is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay, so players can comfortably use Ultra settings for the best visual quality. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 82.3 FPS, which remains smooth, but the High preset at 86.7 FPS offers nearly the same performance with potentially better stability. The data shows that the gap between High and Ultra at 1440p is only 4.4 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional graphical features are not excessively taxing. At 3840x2160, the situation changes significantly. The High preset averages 49.7 FPS and Ultra averages 49.9 FPS, both of which are below the 60 FPS mark that is often considered the target for fluid gameplay. The Medium preset at 70.3 FPS provides a more comfortable margin, while Low at 87.8 FPS offers the best performance. For 4K gaming, the Medium preset represents the best trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, as it delivers a 41.5% improvement over High settings. For players prioritizing smoothness over visuals, the Low preset is the clear choice, with its 87.8 FPS average being 76.8% higher than Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at the combo's performance across all resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the average FPS values are 178.1 on Low, 163 on Medium, 126.6 on High, and 119.4 on Ultra. This shows a stepwise decline as settings increase, with the largest drop occurring between Medium and High (a 22.3% reduction). At 2560x1440, the averages are 149.7 on Low, 116.8 on Medium, 86.7 on High, and 82.3 on Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 22.0%, while the drop from High to Ultra is only 5.1%, indicating that the Ultra preset is not significantly more demanding than High at this resolution. At 3840x2160, the averages are 87.8 on Low, 70.3 on Medium, 49.7 on High, and 49.9 on Ultra. The most notable observation here is the negligible difference between High and Ultra (0.2 FPS), which strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. Comparing the same settings across resolutions, the Low preset shows a scaling pattern of 178.1 FPS at 1080p, 149.7 FPS at 1440p, and 87.8 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset scales from 163 FPS to 116.8 FPS to 70.3 FPS, while the High preset goes from 126.6 FPS to 86.7 FPS to 49.7 FPS. The Ultra preset follows a similar trajectory, with 119.4 FPS, 82.3 FPS, and 49.9 FPS across the three resolutions. This data confirms that the combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K requiring a reduction in settings to achieve playable frame rates.