Thief

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D in Thief ranks 242nd out of 2,851 tested combos, placing it in the top 8.5% of all configurations evaluated for this title. That rank reflects a system with enormous GPU headroom and a capable mid-range CPU that, while not the fastest available, does not meaningfully constrain performance at the settings and resolutions measured. The data shows a combination that delivers a smooth, high-refresh-rate experience across 1080p, 1440p, and even 4K, with the RTX 5090 D providing the overwhelming majority of the rendering muscle. The i5-13400F, with its 10 cores and 16 threads, handles the game’s CPU demands without becoming the primary bottleneck, though its influence becomes more visible at lower resolutions and higher frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 242 out of 2,851 tested combinations places it well within the top decile of all systems benchmarked for Thief. This is a strong showing, driven almost entirely by the RTX 5090 D’s raw performance, which sits at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs in the database. For context, the GPU’s average benchmark score is 77,712, and its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (average score 78,940, delta -1.6%) and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (average score 79,605, delta -2.4%). The RTX 5090 D is effectively within 2.4% of those scores, meaning its compute potential is comparable to those parts, though its game-specific performance here is what matters most.

The CPU, by contrast, is a more modest contributor. The Intel Core i5-13400F has an average benchmark score of 25,292 and sits at the 77th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (average score 25,284, delta 0%), the Intel Core 5 120 (average score 25,362, delta -0.3%), and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (average score 25,365, delta -0.3%). These delta values are all within half a percentage point, indicating that the i5-13400F is essentially tied with those processors in synthetic multi-threaded workloads. In Thief, this CPU-GPU pairing produces an average frame rate that is competitive with far more expensive combinations, but the rank is not higher because the CPU limits the GPU from reaching its absolute maximum in lighter scenes.

The rank of 242 out of 2,851 means that roughly 2,600 other combos score lower, and only 241 score higher. Given that the RTX 5090 D is one of the most powerful GPUs available, the fact that this combo does not crack the top 100 suggests that the i5-13400F’s single-thread and multi-thread scores—3,191 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 22,604 in multi-core—are sufficient for Thief but not optimal for pushing the GPU to its limits at 1080p. At 4K, the rank would likely be higher because the GPU becomes the dominant factor, but the aggregate rank reflects all resolutions and settings tested.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this pairing. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, which is more than enough for Thief’s textures and geometry, even at 4K Ultra settings. The GPU’s base clock is 2017 MHz, with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and it has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operation units. These specs translate to a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, figures that explain why the GPU can push frame rates well above 100 in most scenarios.

In Thief, the GPU’s role is most evident at 4K, where it is the clear bottleneck. At 3840x2160 with High settings, the combo averages 92 FPS, and at Ultra it drops to 87 FPS. These numbers are respectable for a 2014 title, but they show that even a top-tier GPU like the RTX 5090 D is not immune to the demands of 4K rendering. The GPU’s 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is overkill for this game, yet the data shows that the RTX 5090 D still has headroom, because at 1080p High it reaches 146 FPS, and at 1080p Low it hits 178 FPS. That spread from 178 FPS at 1080p Low to 87 FPS at 4K Ultra indicates that the GPU is scaling with resolution, but the CPU is starting to limit it at lower resolutions.

The RTX 5090 D’s 92nd percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 77,712 place it well above the median GPU, and its nearest rivals in the database—the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904, delta 1.1%) and RX 6850M XT (78,940, delta -1.6%)—are all within a few percentage points. This means that while the RTX 5090 D is powerful, it is not uniquely so in synthetic tests, but its 32 GB of VRAM and 512-bit bus give it an edge in memory-heavy scenarios. For Thief, the GPU’s 32 GB VRAM is never fully utilized, as the game’s assets are modest by modern standards, but the sheer compute power ensures that frame rates remain high even at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern: as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, average frame rates drop, but the drop is not uniform across settings. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo averages 178 FPS. At 2560x1440 Low, it drops to 157 FPS, a 11.8% decrease. At 3840x2160 Low, it falls to 132 FPS, a further 15.9% decrease from 1440p. This scaling suggests that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor at higher resolutions, but the CPU is still contributing at 1080p, where the frame rate is high enough that the i5-13400F’s single-thread performance (960 in 3DMark single-thread, 3,191 in Cinebench R23 single-core) starts to matter.

Looking at High settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is from 146 FPS to 129 FPS, a 11.6% reduction. From 1440p to 4K, it drops to 92 FPS, a 28.7% reduction. This larger drop at 4K indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at that resolution, as the RTX 5090 D’s rendering load increases significantly with pixel count. At Medium settings, the pattern is similar: 161 FPS at 1080p, 142 FPS at 1440p (11.8% drop), and 119 FPS at 4K (16.2% drop from 1440p). At Ultra, the numbers are 144 FPS at 1080p, 127 FPS at 1440p (11.8% drop), and 87 FPS at 4K (31.5% drop from 1440p).

The data shows that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU’s influence is more pronounced, as the frame rates are high enough (144-178 FPS) that the i5-13400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads may not keep up with the GPU’s output in every frame. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the frame rates drop to 87-132 FPS, and the CPU’s role diminishes. This is typical for a game like Thief, which is not heavily multi-threaded, but the data indicates that the RTX 5090 D has enough headroom at 1080p to be held back by the CPU, while at 4K it is fully utilized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. With Low settings, the average FPS is 178, which is the highest measured in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 161 FPS, with a minimum of 137 and a maximum of 186. High settings produce 146 FPS, and Ultra settings result in 144 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 34 FPS, or 19.1%, indicating that the GPU is capable of handling even the most demanding settings at this resolution without significant drops.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a clear reduction. Low settings average 157 FPS, which is 21 FPS lower than at 1080p. Medium settings average 142 FPS, with a minimum of 121 and a maximum of 164. High settings average 129 FPS, and Ultra settings average 127 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 30 FPS, or 19.1%, which is similar to the 1080p spread. This consistency suggests that the GPU is scaling linearly with resolution at these settings, and the CPU is not yet a major constraint.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop more substantially. Low settings average 132 FPS, Medium settings average 119 FPS (with a minimum of 101 and a maximum of 137), High settings average 92 FPS, and Ultra settings average 87 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 45 FPS, or 34.1%, which is larger than at 1080p or 1440p. This indicates that the GPU is becoming the dominant bottleneck at 4K, as the RTX 5090 D’s rendering load increases with pixel count, and the CPU’s role diminishes. The minimum FPS of 101 at 4K Medium is still well above the 60 FPS threshold, so the experience remains smooth even in the most demanding scenario tested.

The data shows that the combo is capable of maintaining high frame rates at all resolutions and settings, with the lowest average being 87 FPS at 4K Ultra. This is a strong result for a game released in 2014, and it demonstrates that the RTX 5090 D has more than enough power to handle Thief’s requirements. The CPU, while not the primary driver, still contributes to the overall performance, as evidenced by the fact that at 1080p Low, the frame rate of 178 FPS is higher than at 1440p Low, suggesting that the CPU is able to feed the GPU enough data to reach those numbers.

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 has 20 MB of shared L3 cache, and its memory support includes DDR4 and DDR5, though the measured FPS data does not specify which was used. The CPU’s synthetic benchmarks show a balanced performance profile: a single-thread score of 960 in 3DMark, 3,191 in Cinebench R23, and 1,996 in Geekbench, while multi-thread scores are 7,307 in 3DMark max threads, 22,604 in Cinebench R23, and 11,068 in Geekbench. These numbers place it at the 77th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25,292.

In Thief, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls, which are not particularly demanding for a 2014 title. The i5-13400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads are more than sufficient for this workload, and the data shows that the CPU does not become a major bottleneck until frame rates reach very high levels. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 178 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s limit for this game, as the GPU is capable of much higher frame rates. At 1080p Ultra, the average drops to 144 FPS, which is still high but indicates that the CPU is limiting the GPU’s output in less demanding scenes.

Comparing the i5-13400F to its nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (average score 25,284, delta 0%) is essentially identical in performance, while the Intel Core 5 120 (25,362, delta -0.3%) and AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (25,365, delta -0.3%) are slightly faster. These deltas are negligible in real-world terms, so the CPU’s performance in Thief is representative of a mid-range desktop processor. The CPU’s 16 threads are not fully utilized by Thief, which is a single-threaded title at its core, but the high boost clock of 4.60 GHz ensures that single-thread performance is adequate for the game’s requirements.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the primary limiting factor in this combo at 4K, where the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. However, at 1080p, the CPU’s influence is more visible, as the frame rates of 144-178 FPS are high enough that the i5-13400F’s single-thread performance (3,191 in Cinebench R23 single-core) may occasionally limit the GPU’s output. This is not a significant issue, as the frame rates remain well above 60 FPS, but it explains why the combo’s rank of 242 out of 2,851 is not higher. A faster CPU, such as one with higher single-thread scores, could push the frame rates at 1080p higher, but the RTX 5090 D’s dominance means that the difference would be small.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience for this combo depends on the user’s priority: maximum frame rate or maximum visual quality. For players with a 1080p or 1440p monitor who prioritize high refresh rates, Low settings offer the highest average FPS: 178 at 1080p and 157 at 1440p. These settings eliminate most visual effects but provide frame rates that are well above 144 Hz, making them ideal for competitive play or for users with high-refresh-rate displays. However, the difference between Low and Medium is small in terms of frame rate—17 FPS at 1080p (178 vs 161) and 15 FPS at 1440p (157 vs 142)—so Medium settings may be a better choice for those who want a balance between visuals and performance.

For users with a 4K monitor, the data shows that Medium settings are the sweet spot. At 3840x2160 Medium, the combo averages 119 FPS, with a minimum of 101 and a maximum of 137. This is a smooth experience, and the minimum FPS of 101 ensures that there are no noticeable stutters. High settings at 4K drop the average to 92 FPS, which is still playable, but the 27 FPS difference between Medium and High (119 vs 92) is significant, and the visual improvements from Medium to High may not justify the frame rate loss. Ultra settings at 4K yield 87 FPS, which is close to High but offers marginal visual gains.

For users who want the best visual quality without sacrificing too much performance, Ultra settings at 1080p (144 FPS) or 1440p (127 FPS) are excellent choices. These settings deliver frame rates that are still well above 60 FPS, and the visual enhancements are noticeable in a stealth game like Thief, where lighting and shadows play a key role. At 1440p Ultra, the average of 127 FPS is particularly strong, as it provides a high-quality experience that remains smooth on most displays.

In summary, the recommended settings are as follows: for 1080p, Medium or High settings provide a good balance, with 161 and 146 FPS respectively. For 1440p, High settings at 129 FPS are ideal, as they offer strong visuals without a significant frame rate penalty. For 4K, Medium settings at 119 FPS are the best choice, as they maintain a high frame rate while still looking good. Ultra settings are only recommended at 1080p or 1440p, where the frame rates remain above 120 FPS. The data clearly shows that this combo is powerful enough to handle any settings at 1080p and 1440p, and at 4K, Medium is the optimal choice for a smooth experience.