Thief

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers a surprisingly capable experience in Thief, a 2014 stealth title whose performance profile is heavily dictated by settings and resolution. The measured frame rates show a system that can comfortably handle 1080p and 1440p, with 4K playable only at lower presets. The data reveals a clear scaling pattern where the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU's strong single-core performance ensures no bottleneck at lower settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS data, ranks the combo among all tested configurations, and interprets the CPU and GPU specifications as they relate to this specific game.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a dramatic and consistent performance drop as resolution scales up, a pattern that highlights the GPU's role as the primary constraint. At the "Low" settings preset, the average frame rate declines from 182 FPS at 1920x1080 to 128 FPS at 2560x1440, then falls further to 75 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 59% reduction from 1080p to 4K at the lowest settings, indicating that the RX 6700 XT is being pushed much harder as pixel count increases. The trend is consistent across all settings presets. For example, at "High" settings, the average drops from 108 FPS at 1080p to 74 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 43 FPS at 4K. The "Medium" preset shows a similar slope, with averages of 141 FPS at 1080p, 97 FPS at 1440p, and 57 FPS at 4K. The "Ultra" preset, which is the most demanding, sees averages of 103 FPS at 1080p, 70 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep. For instance, moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at "Medium" settings results in a drop from 97 FPS to 57 FPS, which is a 41% reduction. This suggests that the RX 6700 XT's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth are sufficient for data throughput, but the raw compute power required to fill 4K pixels is the limiting factor. The data implies that a user aiming for consistent 60+ FPS in Thief will need to stay at 1440p or lower, as the only preset achieving an average above 60 FPS at 4K is "Low" settings (75 FPS). The fact that even "Low" settings drop by 41% from 1080p to 4K reinforces that resolution scaling is heavily GPU-bound, with the processor not being the primary bottleneck in this scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

Out of 3,720 tested combos in Thief, the Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination ranks at position 1,827. This places it in the 49th percentile of all tested system pairings, which is a middle-of-the-pack standing for this game. It indicates that while this combo is far from the top of the leaderboard, it is not an outlier on the low end either; the performance is adequate for a wide range of playable settings, but it is not a top-tier configuration. The rank is a single summary number for all measured settings, and the FPS data shows that the system's performance is competitive at 1080p and 1440p, but its rank is pulled down by the less playable 4K presets. The rank of 1,827 out of 3,720 means that 1,826 other combos achieved higher average frame rates in this game, which is understandable given the RX 6700 XT's position as a mid-range GPU.

The CPU's performance relative to its peers is also worth noting. The Core i5-14400F's average benchmark score is 32,279, which is marginally higher than its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database. For instance, it sits 0.1% above the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U, which has an average score of 32,233, and 0.2% above the Intel Core i9-11900 (32,226). It is 0.5% above the Intel Core i7-12800H's score of 32,121, but falls 0.2% short of the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS, which scores 32,354. These deltas are extremely small, indicating that the i5-14400F's raw computational output is nearly identical to several competing mobile and desktop parts from the same era. In Thief, this ties into the CPU's ability to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, as the game is not particularly CPU-intensive at 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 22 chip and is manufactured on a 7 nm process, which explains its overall capability. It has 2,560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, giving it a pixel rate of 165.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 413.0 GTexel/s. These specifications align with the frame rates observed in the measured data. The card's memory configuration is a 12 GB GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, which yields a bandwidth of 384.0 GB/s. This memory bandwidth is sufficient for the 4K resolutions, as the FPS drop is more strongly tied to the pixel fill rate and shading compute rather than a lack of VRAM, which is ample for this 2014 game.

The card's clock speeds are also relevant to the FPS results. The base clock is 2321 MHz, the boost clock is 2581 MHz, and the game clock is 2424 MHz. The measured FPS shows a clear scaling with settings, which suggests that the card's boost clock is maintained under load, as the average FPS at 1080p "Low" (182 FPS) is high enough to indicate the GPU is not throttling at lower loads. The card's FP32 performance is 13.21 TFLOPS, and its FP16 performance is 26.43 TFLOPS (2:1). These raw compute figures explain why the card can handle 1080p Ultra at 103 FPS, but its ROP count and pixel rate become the constraint at 4K Ultra, where it only manages 41 FPS. The GPU's percentile vs all GPUs is 72, placing it in the upper-middle segment, and its average benchmark score is 27,425, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile (27,435, a delta of 0%). It is just 0.5% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (27,565) and 1.1% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell (27,135). These comparisons show that in raw compute, the RX 6700 XT is in the same performance tier as the RTX 3090, but the 4K data in this specific game shows a different story, where the high preset rasterization is bottlenecked by the GPU's pixel throughput.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS values are the core of this analysis, and they are broken down here by resolution and settings. At 1920x1080, the "Low" settings preset delivers an average of 182 FPS, which is the highest recorded in the entire dataset. The "Medium" preset, which has a min FPS of 120 and a max of 163, averages 141 FPS. The "High" preset achieves 108 FPS, and "Ultra" drops to 103 FPS. This shows that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound at "Low" settings, but the GPU still has headroom as the settings scale up, with a 38% drop from Low to Ultra (182 to 103 FPS).

Moving to 2560x1440, the average FPS values are expectedly lower. The "Low" preset averages 128 FPS, which is still very playable. The "Medium" preset averages 97 FPS, with a min of 82 and max of 112. The "High" preset manages 74 FPS, and "Ultra" settles at 70 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is a 30% reduction at "Low" settings, but only a 24% reduction at "High" (108 to 74) and a 32% reduction at "Ultra" (103 to 70). This suggests that the GPU is still the primary factor, but the CPU is starting to become less relevant as the resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the data shows a significant drop. The "Low" preset is the only one that breaks the 60 FPS mark, averaging 75 FPS. The "Medium" preset averages 57 FPS, with a min of 48 and max of 66. The "High" preset falls to 43 FPS, and "Ultra" drops to 41 FPS. The jump from 1440p to 4K at "Medium" is a 41% decrease (97 to 57), and at "High" it is a 42% decrease (74 to 43). The gap between "Low" and "Medium" at 4K is also large: 75 to 57, a 24% drop. This indicates that the game's "Medium" preset at 4K is the edge of playability, and "High" and "Ultra" are not recommended for a smooth experience. The data points are consistent, as the "Medium" preset is the only one with reported min and max FPS values, but the averages are not of the other, and the relative differences are enough to draw clear conclusions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience for a 60 Hz monitor is the "Medium" preset at 2560x1440, which averages 97 FPS, or the "High" preset at 1080p, which averages 108 FPS. If a player has a high refresh rate monitor (144 Hz), the "Low" preset at 1080p is the only one that can push above 144 FPS, averaging 182 FPS, though that is far above the refresh rate of most displays. For a 1440p monitor, the "Medium" preset is a safe choice for 60+ FPS, as it averages 97 FPS, and the "High" preset still hits 74 FPS. The "Ultra" preset at 1440p averages 70 FPS, which is still playable, but the visual gains over "High" may not justify the 5% performance drop (74 to 70.

At 4K, the "Low" preset is the only one that achieves a smooth 60+ FPS, with an average of 75 FPS. The "Medium" preset is a borderline playable at 57 FPS, but the min FPS of 48 suggests that there are stutters. If a player wants to play at 4K with higher visual quality, they would need to accept sub-60 FPS, as "High" averages 43 FPS and "Ultra" averages 41 FPS. The data shows that the "Medium" preset at 4K is a good compromise of 57 FPS, but the min FPS of 48 indicates that it is not a locked 60. Overall, the "Medium" preset is the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions, as it offers a clear step up from "Low" while maintaining playable frame rates. The "High" and "Ultra" presets are best reserved for 1080p or 1440p monitors, where the FPS drop is not as punishing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. It has a 20 MB shared L3 cache and an 80 KB L1 and 1.25 MB L2 per core. The CPU's benchmark scores are notable: it achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,645 and a single-core score of 3,055. In the context of Thief, which is a game from 2014, these scores are more than sufficient to avoid CPU bottlenecks. The game engine is not heavily threaded, so the i5-14400F's high single-core performance is the most critical factor. The strong single-core speed is evidenced by the 1080p "Low" settings result of 182 FPS, which is likely limited by the CPU's ability to feed the GPU, but still very high.

The CPU's performance relative to its nearest rivals is almost identical, with a delta of only 0.1% to 0.5% against the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U, Intel Core i9-11900, and Intel Core i7-12800H. This means that in a CPU-limited scenario, any of these processors would produce nearly the same frame rate. In Thief, the CPU is not the bottleneck at resolutions above 1080p, as the GPU's 4K performance drops to 40-70 FPS, which is far below the CPU's capacity. The CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads are relevant for multi-threaded tasks, but the game likely only uses a few threads, so the individual core speed is more important than the core count. The i5-14400's boost clock of 4.70 GHz is what allows the high FPS at 1080p, and the L3 cache size of 20 MB helps with data locality, though the game's data set is small. The CPU's overall percentile vs all CPUs is 83, meaning it is faster than 83% of tested processors, but its average of 32,279 is only 0.1% above the nearest rival, so the differences are negligible in real gameplay.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo can achieve in Thief?

A: The highest recorded average is 182 FPS at 1920x1080 with the "Low" settings preset.

Q: Can this combo run Thief at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: At 4K, the "Low" preset averages 75 FPS, which is playable. The "Medium" preset averages 57 FPS, which is borderline, and "High" and "Ultra" drop to 43 and 41 FPS, respectively.

Q: What is the most balanced settings preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The "Medium" preset at 2560x1440 averages 97 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and smoothness. The "High" preset is also viable at 74 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 6700 XT compare to the RTX 3090 in terms of raw GPU benchmark?

A: The RX 6700 XT has an average benchmark score of 27,425, which is only 0.5% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090's score of 27,565.

Q: What is the CPU's single-core benchmark score?

A: The Intel Core i5-14400F scores 3,055 in Cinebench R23 single-core, which is a strong result for this game.

Q: At which resolution does the CPU no longer become the limiting factor?

A: At 1080p "Low" settings, the FPS is 182, which is likely CPU-bound. Starting at 1440p High, the FPS drops to 74, indicating the GPU is the primary constraint. The data shows that the CPU is only a factor at 1080p and below.