Thief

Thief, the 2014 stealth title, in this benchmark pairing of an Intel Core i5-14400F with an AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT, behaves exactly as the raw numbers suggest: it’s a game that scales heavily with resolution, and the CPU can push high rates at lower resolutions while the GPU becomes the bottleneck at 4K. The measured data shows a wide spread—from 36 FPS at Ultra 4K to 163 FPS at Low 1080p—but the important detail is where that headroom disappears. Below we break down what each row of measured FPS actually means, how the CPU and GPU shape these results, and which preset makes sense for this pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS list includes four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions. The obvious question is: which preset gives the best experience per the data? The answer differs by target resolution.

At 1920x1080 (108p), the combo never dips below the low-90s. The Ultra preset averages 90 FPS, High averages 94, Medium hits 124, and Low reaches 163. There is barely a penalty between High (94) and Ultra (90)—just 4 FPS—while Medium offers a 30 FPS jump over High. That pattern suggests the CPU can handle Ultra, so the GPU is the limiting factor at 1080p in the Ultra/High range. For a 1080p display, there is almost no reason to pick High over Ultra; you lose 4 FPS and gain nothing visual if Ultra is the same. Medium is a strong option if you want a big headroom, but it is not needed, because even Ultra stays comfortably above 60. The clear recommendation: set the preset to Ultra at 1080p—the average 9x FPS is sufficient and the difference between Ultra and High is negligible.

At 2560x1440 (144p), the pattern changes. Ultra averages 61 FPS, High 65, Medium 85, and Low 112. The gap between Ultra and High is just 4 FPS, but High and Medium differ by about 20 FPS. Since 1440p displays typically demand a higher visual quality, either High or Ultra is viable if you target 60 FPS; Medium pushes you to a comfortably high framerate. The data shows that Ultra is 5 FPS slower than High, so a reasonable choice is High—it saves a few FPS without a visible visual downgrade compared to Ultra. If you prefer more FPS to reduce input lag, Medium is an equally good pick at 85 FPS, which is still well above the 60 mark.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the situation flips. Ultra drops to 36 FPS, High to 38, Medium to 50, and Low to 66. Neither Ultra nor High realistically sustains a 60 FPS target; even the High setting yields 38 FPS, which is a unplayable for most. Medium at 47 is slightly better but still below 60. The only preset that brings you above 60 is Low, with 66 average FPS. If you have a 4K panel and you want 60 FPS, the data says you must drop to Low. If you accept a frame rate in the 50s, Medium is playable, but it’s a marginal experience. Considering the alternative of playing at 1080p/1440p and upscaling isn't offered in this dataset, the measured recommendation is Low at 4K for smoothness.

To sum: On 1080p, Ultra is the best balance. On 1440p, Medium or High (depending on preference for quality). On 4K, only Low ensures 60+.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p Ultra in Thief?

A: The list shows 90 FPS average at 1920x1080 with the Ultra preset. This is measured with the given CPU/GPU combo.

Q: Can the RX 7600 XT run Thief at 60 FPS in 4K?

A: Only on the Low preset, with an average of 66 FPS. The High and Ultra presets average 38 and 36 FPS respectively, so the 4K experience is limited.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and does it matter for Thief?

A: The Radeon RX 7600 XT comes with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, a 128-bit bus, and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth. For a 2014 title like Thief, 16 GB is more than enough—the game likely doesn't pressure it, but the headroom is there.

Q: What is the CPU’s core and thread configuration?

A: The i5-14400F has 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost up to 4.70 GHz. It runs on the LGA1700 socket using Raptor Lake architecture.

Q: What is the combo’s overall rank among tested machines in Thief?

A: Out of 3,720 tested combinations, this pairing ranks at number 2,309. That places it in the bottom half of the dataset—about 37% of combinations perform better.

Q: Are the min and max FPS values available for all settings?

A: Only for the Medium preset across all three resolutions. At 4K Medium, the min/max are 42/57; at 1440p Medium 72/98; at 1080p Medium 105/142. The other presets only list average FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS drops consistently as resolution climbs. Between 1080p and 4K, on the same preset, the drop is severe. For example, Ultra goes from 90 FPS at 1080p to 36 FPS at 4K—a loss of 54 FPS, or exactly 60% of the 1080p number. Low goes from 163 down to 66 (59.5% lower) and Medium from 124 to 47 (62% lower). Even High, the most modest loss, goes from 94 to 38, a 60% reduction.

This scaling is a classic sign of a GPU-limited workload. In Thief, at 2160p the number of pixels quadruples compared to 1080p, and the rendering load shifts heavily to the GPU. The Radeon RX 7600 XT is not a 4K-class card—it is a 1080p/1440p performer, as seen by the 4K average always below 66 FPS even on Low. The CPU’s role at high resolution shrinks because the frame rate becomes too low for the CPU to affect much. At 1080p Low, the system hits 163 FPS, which is a high ceiling. This tells us the i5-14400F is enough to feed the GPU, and the RX 7600 XT is the factor that caps out when resolution rises. The steepness of the curve—a 60% drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets—underline that this is a GPU-driven decay, not a CPU limitation. Another notable fact: the gap between Low and Medium at 1080p is 39 FPS (163 vs 124), while at 4K the gap is 16 FPS (66 vs 50). That compression at higher resolutions again points to the GPU running out of headroom.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Here is the measured frame rate data from the pack, resolution by resolution. The exact numbers are listed.

3840x2160 (4K)

• High: 38 avg (no min/max)
• Low: 66 avg
• Medium: 50 avg, min 42, max 57
• Ultra: 36 avg

2560x1440 (1440p)

• High: 65 avg
• Low: 112 avg
• Medium: 85 avg, min 72, max 98
• Ultra: 62 avg

1920x1080 (1080p)

• High: 94 avg
• Low: 163 avg
• Medium: 124 avg, min 105, max 142
• Ultra: 90 avg

Some notes on what those numbers imply: At 1080p, every setting is above 60, and even Ultra is 90, so the game is playable at peak quality. At 1440p, High and Ultra both stay above 60, but Medium also offers a healthy 85. At 4K, the drop is unavoidable; only the Low preset remains above 60. The min/max data on Medium settings show that even the hiccups are acceptable—at 1080p the min is 105, which keeps the system far above the 60 FPS floor.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 3,720 CPU+GPU combinations that have been tested in Thief, this pairing lands at rank 2,309. That is not a star result—it places the combo in the lower half. In fact, it is better than only about 1,411 other combos (since 3,720 – 2,309 = 1,411). This rank says that, while the hardware is from 2024 and is not low-end, the game’s ability to express the hardware is limited. Many other systems—likely those with flagship GPUs—produce higher frame numbers. For example, the percentage gap in the GPU benchmarks shows that the RX 7600 XT sits near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070: the benchmark data lists the RTX 3070 as having an average score of 17,208 vs this card's 17,083, a -0.7% delta. That proximity to a card that historically targets 1440p/60 aligns with the measured framerates.

The CPU positions itself proudly: the i5-14400F ranks in the 83rd percentile across all CPUs, meaning it outranks 83% of CPUs in aggregate benchmarks. That is a strong CPU. But a strong CPU cannot rescue a GPU that is outclassed for 4K Ultra. This rank of 2,309 indicates that the overall system is mid-pack in this game, not at the top.

CPU Playwright

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz, and boost reaches 4.70 GHz, with TDP locked to 65 W. The cache comes in three levels: 80 KB per core (L1), 1.25 MB per core (L2), and 20 MB shared L3. The CPU is a desktop unit on the Intel Socket 1700, supports DDR4/DDR5, and has a 65 W power envelope.

In terms of raw compute, the Cinebench R23 multicore score is 21,645 and single-core 3,055, while Geekbench gives 11,268 and 2,058 respectively. PassMark’s multi-thread score is 25,470 and single thread is 3,701. These are respectable numbers that put it face to face with chips like the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (average score 32,354, which is 0.2% higher than this CPU’s 32,279) and the Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U (32,233, 0.1% difference). The CPU’s -0.2% to become a rival shows it’s right in line with high-end laptop chips.

In Thief, the CPU’s role is to prepare and feed frames to the GPU, especially at low resolutions. The 1080p Low average of 163 FPS suggests the i5-14400F has enough single-thread throughput to push this old engine far. The game from 2014 is likely not heavily multi-core aware, but 10 cores/16 threads provide plenty of headroom, and the 4.7 GHz boost can handle single-threaded requests. The absence of an integrated GPU doesn’t matter. The CPU’s benchmark percentile is 83, meaning most CPUs are slower. So in this pairing, the CPU is not the limiting component except maybe at the very lowest settings where the frame rate is already extremely high.

GPU PlayRole

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is based on the RDNA 3 architecture, fabricated on TSMC’s TN5 6 nm process, with 13,300 million transistors on a 204 mm² die. Its core clocks are 1980 MHz base, 2470 MHz game, and 2755 MHz boost. The memory subsystem is 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, achieving a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s (listed as 2250 MHz, 18 Gbps effective). The GPU has 2,048 shading units, 128 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 32 rasterizer cores. It draws up to 190 W, and needs a 450 W PSU. It supports PCIe 4.0 x8 and DirectX 12 Ultimate.

The PassMark Graphics 3D score is 17,132, which puts it in the 60th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the GTX 690 (avg score 17,037, delta +0.3%) and the RTX 3070 (17,208, delta -0.7%). The RX 7600 XT may be close to those cards in raw compute but its performance in Thief leaves it in the 4K zone clearly behind. The game was not engineered for modern GPUs, so the bottleneck is not capability but sheer pixel count.

At 4K, the GPU’s average FPS ranges from 36 at Ultra to 66 at Low. These numbers show that the RX 7600 XT cannot sustain 60 FPS in this title at 4K unless settings are minimized. The 16 GB VRAM is oversized for this old game, and the 128-bit bus is narrow, but only a few tests for a 2014 engine. Could it be that the engine uses only a fraction of the memory, so the 16 GB doesn’t help? Yes, the framerate is low, so the loss is pixel fill rate and pixel shading, not memory capacity.

The GPU’s FP32 throughput is 22.57 TFLOPS, which is high, but that does not translate into 4K performance if the engine is bottlenecked by bandwidth or pixel output. The 64 ROPs might be the culprit: at 4K, the number of rows and columns shaders need to fill, and 64 ROPs saturate. Compare that to the build: the RX 7600 XT can do fine at 1440p (112 FPS Low, 65 High), which matches the GPU’s typical class. This reinforces that the GPU is the component that defines the ceiling: for 1080p and 1440p, the CPU is not limiting; for 4K, the GPU is.

Given the data, a fair conclusion is that this pairing is best used at 1080p for high frame rates, or 1440p with a medium/high preset. The i5-14400F in 4K doesn't help because the GPU can’t move the pixels; the 7600 XT is an upper-mid-range 1080p-1440p card, not a 4K monster.