Thief

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a high-refresh-rate experience in Thief, but the data reveals a clear shift in system bottleneck as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080, the average frame rate across all settings is exceptionally high, with the Low preset reaching 177.1 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains robust; the High preset produces 131.7 FPS, which is a notable but manageable reduction from the 144.5 FPS seen at 1080p. The scaling becomes more aggressive when jumping to 3840x2160, where the High preset drops to 73.3 FPS. This represents a significant 49.3% decrease from the 1440p result, highlighting that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor at 4K.

The pattern across the settings tiers reinforces this interpretation. At 1080p, the difference between Low (177.1 FPS) and Ultra (141.5 FPS) is a 35.6 FPS gap, suggesting the CPU has enough headroom to keep up with the graphics card even at lower settings. However, at 4K, the spread between Low (129.3 FPS) and Ultra (70.4 FPS) widens to 58.9 FPS. The data indicates that the RTX 4080 SUPER’s rendering workload scales directly with resolution, while the i5-13400F’s frame-pushing capability saturates earlier. In short, this combo is CPU-limited at 1080p and increasingly GPU-limited as resolution increases, with 4K Ultra being the only configuration where the graphics card is unequivocally the bottleneck.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data provides a clear trajectory for how this combination handles increasing pixel counts. At the 1920x1080 resolution, the system operates in a performance-rich environment where even the Ultra preset achieves 141.5 FPS. The jump to 2560x1440 produces a more moderate decline; the High preset moves from 144.5 FPS to 131.7 FPS, a reduction of 8.9%. This modest drop suggests that the processor still has ample capacity to feed the GPU, and the graphics card is not yet fully saturated.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is where the scaling curve steepens dramatically. The High preset at 3840x2160 yields 73.3 FPS, which is 44.4% lower than the 131.7 FPS recorded at 2560x1440. Similarly, the Medium preset falls from 139.6 FPS at 1440p to 99 FPS at 4K, a 29.1% decline. The Low preset shows the most resistance to resolution scaling, dropping from 158.4 FPS at 1440p to 129.3 FPS at 4K, a smaller 18.4% decrease. This disparity indicates that the lower settings reduce the GPU’s pixel-shading workload, allowing the CPU to maintain a higher proportion of its maximum frame output. The data strongly suggests that for 4K gaming, the RTX 4080 SUPER is the limiting component, whereas at 1080p, the Intel Core i5-13400F caps the achievable frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER achieves a combo rank of 183 out of 1,642 tested combinations. This places the system in the top 11.1% of all configurations tested for Thief, indicating a high-performing setup relative to the broader field. The CPU itself sits at the 82nd percentile among all processors, while the GPU is at the 88th percentile among all graphics cards, suggesting that both components are well above average.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in the aggregate benchmark scores provide context for its contribution to this rank. The Intel Core i7-13620H posts an average score of 25,201, which is a 0.1% delta from the i5-13400F’s 25,236. Similarly, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D scores 25,365, a -0.5% difference, and the AMD EPYC 9474F scores 25,103, a 0.5% difference. These figures show that the i5-13400F is performance-equivalent to its closest competitors, meaning the high combo rank is largely attributable to the strength of the RTX 4080 SUPER. The GPU’s nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, has an average score of 53,489, a 0.2% delta from the RTX 4080 SUPER’s 53,610, confirming that this graphics card is at the peak of its performance class.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows allow for a direct comparison of the four available presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—across three resolutions. For players targeting a 60 FPS baseline, the data shows that every setting at every resolution exceeds this threshold, with the sole exception being the 4K Ultra preset, which still manages 70.4 FPS. However, for high-refresh-rate displays, the choice of preset becomes more critical.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers 141.5 FPS, which is sufficient for most 144Hz monitors. The High preset offers a marginal 3 FPS improvement over Ultra, making it a slightly better option if the visual difference is negligible. The Medium preset at 162 FPS provides a more comfortable margin above 144Hz, while the Low preset at 177.1 FPS is the only configuration that can fully saturate a 165Hz or 180Hz panel. For 2560x1440, the High preset at 131.7 FPS is the recommended sweet spot, as it balances visual fidelity with a frame rate that remains playable on 120Hz displays. The Ultra preset at 123.2 FPS is also viable, but the drop to 4K makes the High preset the better choice for maintaining smooth motion. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 99 FPS provides the best experience for 4K60 displays, as it offers a significant uplift over High’s 73.3 FPS while keeping the frame rate well above the refresh rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset reveals the full performance envelope of this combo. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 177.1 FPS, Medium reaches 162 FPS, High produces 144.5 FPS, and Ultra delivers 141.5 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 35.6 FPS, with the largest single-step drop occurring between Medium and High at 17.5 FPS. This indicates that the High preset introduces a substantial increase in graphical load compared to Medium.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset posts 158.4 FPS, Medium records 139.6 FPS, High yields 131.7 FPS, and Ultra reaches 123.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 35.2 FPS, but the relative difference between Medium and High shrinks to 7.9 FPS. This suggests that at 1440p, the GPU is beginning to feel the pressure of higher pixel counts, flattening the performance curve between the middle presets. At 3840x2160, the numbers shift more dramatically: Low achieves 129.3 FPS, Medium drops to 99 FPS, High falls to 73.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 70.4 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 58.9 FPS, and the step from Medium to High is a steep 25.7 FPS decline, showing that the High preset’s additional effects have a disproportionate cost at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER’s specifications directly explain its behavior in Thief’s measured results. The card is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process and features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. This memory configuration provides ample headroom for the game’s textures at 4K resolution, as evidenced by the 129.3 FPS result on the Low preset, which suggests that memory capacity is not a limiting factor even at the highest pixel counts.

The GPU’s clock speeds—2295 MHz base and 2550 MHz boost—contribute to its raw compute throughput of 52.22 TFLOPS FP32. This compute capability is what drives the 4K Medium preset to 99 FPS, a result that would be unattainable for lower-tier cards. The card’s 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are present, though Thief is a 2014 title that does not leverage ray tracing or DLSS, so these features have no direct impact on the measured frame rates. The GPU’s 88th percentile ranking among all graphics cards underscores its position as a high-end part, and the data confirms that it is not the bottleneck until the resolution reaches 4K with higher presets. The 16 GB frame buffer is more than sufficient for the game’s demands, as the minimum FPS never drops below 70.4 FPS even at Ultra settings.

FAQ

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

A: The highest recorded average frame rate is 177.1 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

*Q: Is this system capable of 4K gaming in Thief?*

A: Yes, the data shows that all 4K presets exceed 60 FPS, with the Low preset reaching 129.3 FPS and the Ultra preset still delivering 70.4 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i5-13400F scores 25,236 on the average benchmark, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-13620H’s 25,201 but 0.5% lower than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D’s 25,365.

Q: What is the largest performance drop between presets at 4K?

A: The largest single-step decline at 3840x2160 is the 25.7 FPS drop from Medium (99 FPS) to High (73.3 FPS).

Q: Does the GPU’s memory bandwidth affect the results?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER’s 736.3 GB/s bandwidth supports its strong 4K performance, as the frame rates remain high even when the resolution increases, indicating no memory bottleneck.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This pairing ranks 183rd out of 1,642 tested combos, placing it in the top 11.1% of all systems benchmarked for Thief.