Thief

The Intel Core i5-14400F pairs a 10-core, 16-thread configuration with a 2.50 GHz base clock and a 4.70 GHz boost clock. This Raptor Lake-R architecture part, built on Intel’s 10 nm process, delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a single-core score of 3093. In the broader CPU landscape, its average benchmark score of 32508 places it at the 88th percentile of all processors, with its nearest rivals being the Intel Core i7-12800H at 32513 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 at 32446 (0.2% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 250 at 32584 (-0.2% delta). These near-identical scores indicate that the i5-14400F sits in a tightly contested performance band where a single-digit percentage separates it from mobile and desktop alternatives.

For Thief, a stealth title from 2014, the CPU’s influence on frame rates is substantial but not uniform across settings. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 170.9 FPS, which suggests the processor’s high boost clock and 16 threads are more than sufficient to feed the GPU. Moving to 1080p High drops the average to 96.6 FPS, and at Ultra it reaches 93.8 FPS. The relatively small gap between High and Ultra at 1080p—roughly 2.8 FPS—indicates that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at these settings, as the game’s engine can still process the draw calls and physics without saturating the processor’s capacity. The 10-core design, with its 20 MB of shared L3 cache, provides ample headroom for the game’s AI and scripting, which are typical CPU stressors in stealth genres. Benchmark results show that the i5-14400F’s PassMark multi-thread score of 25783 and single-thread score of 3723 are robust for a title of this era, meaning the processor rarely becomes the limiting factor unless frame rates are pushed to extreme lows.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, built on the Turing architecture with a TU104 chip, brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 2560 shading units, produce a PassMark G3D score of 18169. This GPU sits at the 65th percentile of all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 22206. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A400 at 22307 (-0.5% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z at 22006 (0.9% delta), and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 at 21670 (2.5% delta). The RTX 2070 SUPER’s performance in Thief is strongly tied to its memory subsystem and shader throughput, as the game’s DirectX 11 renderer relies heavily on texture bandwidth and pixel fill rate.

In this game, the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the GPU delivers 170.9 FPS, but this drops to 71.2 FPS at 4K Low—a 58% reduction. This scaling points to the RTX 2070 SUPER being the dominant bottleneck at higher resolutions, despite its 8 GB frame buffer being ample for a 2014 title. The card’s 64 ROPs and 113.3 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the pixel workload doubles relative to 1440p, and the measured data shows the GPU struggling to maintain 60 FPS even at Medium settings (53.2 FPS at 4K Medium). The 12 nm process node and 13,600 million transistors provide the compute capacity needed for the game’s lighting and shadow effects, yet the card’s age relative to the game’s release means it was designed for a generation where 4K was not the standard target. The RTX 2070 SUPER’s 9.062 TFLOPS FP32 performance is more than adequate for the game’s geometry, but the memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s becomes a limiting factor when textures are scaled to 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution climbs from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 96.6 FPS at 1080p to 69.3 FPS at 1440p, then to 37.5 FPS at 4K. This represents a 61% drop from 1080p to 4K, which is consistent with a GPU-limited scenario where the RTX 2070 SUPER’s fill rate and bandwidth are saturated. At Low settings, the same resolution scaling produces 170.9, 118.4, and 71.2 FPS respectively—a 58% drop from 1080p to 4K. The similarity in percentage drops across Low and High settings indicates that the CPU is not introducing a variable bottleneck; instead, the GPU’s raw throughput is the constraining factor.

The data also shows that moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings costs 27.3 FPS, while moving from 1440p to 4K costs an additional 31.8 FPS. This non-linear scaling is typical of a GPU that is approaching its memory bandwidth ceiling, as the 448.0 GB/s becomes the limiting resource at 4K. At Medium settings, the 1080p-to-1440p drop is 43.3 FPS (from 133.1 to 89.8), and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 36.6 FPS (from 89.8 to 53.2). The larger relative drop at 1440p Medium compared to High suggests that the game’s renderer is more sensitive to resolution changes when texture detail is lower, because the GPU has more headroom to expose its shading limits. At Ultra settings, the 1080p average of 93.8 FPS declines to 62.4 FPS at 1440p and 39.8 FPS at 4K, a 58% total reduction. The consistent 58-61% scaling across all settings confirms that the RTX 2070 SUPER is the primary limiting component at 4K, while the i5-14400F maintains enough CPU headroom to avoid introducing additional frame rate penalties.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal balance between visual fidelity and frame rate is found at 1440p Medium, which delivers 89.8 FPS. This setting provides a smooth experience well above the 60 FPS threshold, while retaining enough detail to benefit from the game’s stealth-oriented atmosphere. At 1080p, the Medium preset at 133.1 FPS is the highest frame rate that still maintains a playable visual standard, though the jump to Low at 170.9 FPS offers a 28% increase in speed at the cost of reduced texture quality. For users prioritizing a locked 60 FPS at 4K, the Low preset at 71.2 FPS is the only viable option, as Medium dips to 53.2 FPS and High falls to 37.5 FPS.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution due to its marginal gains over High. At 1080p, Ultra (93.8 FPS) is only 2.8 FPS slower than High (96.6 FPS), but at 1440p, the difference widens to 6.9 FPS (62.4 vs. 69.3), and at 4K, Ultra (39.8 FPS) is 2.3 FPS faster than High (37.5 FPS) — an anomaly likely attributable to measurement variance rather than a real performance reversal. The data indicates that High settings offer the best experience at 1080p and 1440p, with 96.6 and 69.3 FPS respectively, as these are the highest presets that maintain a fluid frame rate without sacrificing the game’s visual depth. For a strictly competitive or high-refresh-rate scenario, 1080p Low at 170.9 FPS is the fastest measured configuration, but the 58% drop to 4K Low underscores that the GPU is the bottleneck for any resolution above 1440p.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER achieves a combo rank of 966 out of 1642 tested combinations. This places it in the lower-middle tier of the database, which is consistent with the GPU’s 65th percentile standing and the CPU’s 88th percentile. The rank reflects a fundamental imbalance: the i5-14400F is a modern processor capable of feeding much faster graphics cards, while the RTX 2070 SUPER is an end-of-life product from 2019 that holds the combo back at higher resolutions. The CPU’s nearest rivals (i7-12800H, Ryzen 5 PRO 7645) all score within 0.2% of each other, meaning the processor choice has minimal impact on this rank; the GPU is the decisive factor.

The data shows that this combo’s performance is competitive at 1080p, where the RTX 2070 SUPER can still deliver 96.6 FPS at High settings, but the rank of 966 out of 1642 is dragged down by the 4K results, where the GPU’s 37.5 FPS at High settings falls short of playable standards. Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing sits below the median, but it is not at the bottom—the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for a 2014 title, and the CPU’s 10 cores prevent any stutter from physics or AI. The combo’s rank is best understood as a reflection of the GPU’s age relative to the CPU’s modernity; in a game like Thief, which is not CPU-intensive by modern standards, the RTX 2070 SUPER is the ceiling. For users with a 1080p or 1440p display, the rank underestimates the practical experience, as the measured frames at those resolutions are smooth and responsive. At 4K, however, the rank is a fair summary of the hardware’s limitations, as the combo cannot maintain 60 FPS at any settings above Low.