Thief

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers exceptional performance in Thief, a 2014 stealth title that remains surprisingly demanding at high resolutions. This combination ranks 2nd out of 3,720 tested combos, placing it in the top 0.05% of all systems. The data reveals a configuration that is heavily GPU-bound at 4K, but transitions to a more balanced workload at 1080p, where the processor's capabilities become increasingly relevant. The measured frame rates are consistently high, with the only potential concern being the lack of minimum FPS data for several settings, which limits certainty about frame time consistency in those specific scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates where the performance bottleneck lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 316 FPS, which drops to 280 FPS at 1440p and further to 187 FPS at 4K. This represents a 40.8% reduction in performance when moving from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The scaling pattern changes with higher quality presets. At High settings, the system produces 235 FPS at 1080p, 165 FPS at 1440p, and 99 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings is 57.9%, indicating that the increased graphical load at higher presets amplifies the resolution penalty.

The Medium settings row provides the most complete data, including minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the average is 277 FPS with a minimum of 235 FPS. Moving to 1440p Medium drops the average to 218 FPS (a 21.3% reduction) with a minimum of 185 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 132 FPS, representing a 52.3% reduction from 1080p. The minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 112 FPS, which still provides a smooth experience. The frame rate scaling between 1080p and 1440p is relatively modest across all settings, suggesting that the GPU has substantial headroom at lower resolutions. However, the jump from 1440p to 4K is more severe, with the average FPS dropping by roughly 40-45% across presets. This behavior indicates that 4K resolution pushes the RTX 4080 closer to its limits, though it remains playable even at Ultra settings.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 192 FPS, which drops to 134 FPS at 1440p and 81 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is 57.8% lower than 1080p Ultra, demonstrating that this title's Ultra settings impose a significant load on the GPU. Interestingly, the gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 124 FPS (316 vs 192), but at 4K the gap narrows to 106 FPS (187 vs 81). This suggests that at 4K, the GPU's raw throughput becomes the limiting factor, making the difference between presets less pronounced in absolute terms but still substantial in relative performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz. These specifications are directly relevant to the measured results, as Thief's texture-heavy environments and lighting effects benefit from both the substantial memory capacity and the high memory bandwidth. The 16 GB VRAM ensures that even at 4K Ultra settings, the GPU does not encounter memory capacity limitations, allowing the frame rates to be determined solely by compute performance rather than memory constraints.

The GPU's Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, delivers 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. This raw compute power translates directly to the high frame rates observed. The RTX 4080's 9,728 shading units and 112 ROPs are well-suited for a game like Thief, which relies on traditional rasterization rather than ray tracing. The pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s provide ample throughput for the game's detailed textures and shadow effects.

The benchmark data indicates that the RTX 4080 is the primary performance driver at 4K. The transition from 1080p to 4K at High settings reduces average FPS by 57.9%, which is consistent with the GPU being the dominant bottleneck. At 4K Ultra, the 81 FPS average is still highly playable, and the 16 GB VRAM ensures that even the most demanding texture packs do not cause stuttering or texture pop-in. The GPU's benchmark scores support its strong performance: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,567 and a Passmark G3D score of 34,457 place it in the 86th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores nearly identically with a delta of 0.1%, indicating that this GPU is essentially at the top of its performance tier.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 4K resolution, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. The average of 132 FPS at 4K Medium is well above the 60 FPS threshold, and the minimum FPS of 112 ensures consistent frame delivery. The High preset at 4K produces 99 FPS average, which is still smooth, but the lack of minimum FPS data for this setting introduces uncertainty about potential frame dips. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 81 FPS average, which is playable but may not maintain a consistent 60 FPS minimum in demanding scenes.

At 1440p, the High preset is the recommended choice, delivering 165 FPS average. This provides excellent visual fidelity while maintaining a frame rate that fully utilizes high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset at 1440p offers 218 FPS average with a minimum of 185 FPS, which is ideal for competitive play or for users with 240 Hz displays. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 134 FPS, which is still very smooth but does not provide a significant visual improvement over High for most users.

For 1080p gaming, the High preset at 235 FPS is the sweet spot. The Medium preset at 277 FPS provides additional headroom for users with 300 Hz monitors, but the visual difference between Medium and High is often noticeable in Thief's shadow quality and texture detail. The Low preset at 316 FPS is only recommended for extreme competitive scenarios where every frame matters, as the visual compromises are substantial. The Ultra preset at 1080p produces 192 FPS, which is still excellent, but the performance gain from High to Ultra is not proportional to the visual improvement in most scenes.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 achieves a rank of 2 out of 3,720 tested combos in Thief. This places the system in the 99.95th percentile of all configurations tested, meaning it outperforms 99.95% of competing systems. The only combo ranked higher than this pairing is not specified in the data, but the margin must be narrow given the RTX 4080's position in the GPU hierarchy.

The CPU's performance relative to its rivals provides context for this ranking. The i5-14400F has an average benchmark score of 32,279, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U, scores 32,233, a delta of just 0.1%, indicating that these processors are effectively equivalent in general compute tasks. The Intel Core i9-11900 scores 32,226 (0.2% delta), while the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS scores 32,354 (-0.2% delta). The Intel Core i7-12800H scores 32,121, a 0.5% delta. These small differences suggest that the i5-14400F is well-positioned among its peers, and in Thief, where the GPU is often the limiting factor, the CPU's performance is more than sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4080.

The GPU's ranking further supports this system's top-tier status. The RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54,247, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54,209 (0.1% delta), while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828 (-1.1% delta). The AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55,698 (-2.6% delta), and the AMD Radeon 8060S scores 55,757 (-2.7% delta). This data shows that the RTX 4080 is at the top of its class, with only the RTX 4080 SUPER matching its performance within measurement error.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The processor's Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, provides a balanced mix of performance and efficiency cores. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for Thief's CPU-bound scenarios, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the limiting factor.

At 1080p, the CPU's role becomes more pronounced. The difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 124 FPS, which is larger than the 106 FPS difference at 4K. This suggests that at 1080p, the CPU has more influence on frame rates as the GPU is not fully saturated. The i5-14400F's single-core performance, as measured by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,055 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,058, is critical for Thief's game logic and AI processing. The processor's multi-core performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,645 and a Passmark multithread score of 25,470, ensures that background tasks do not interfere with gameplay.

The CPU's boost clock of 4.70 GHz provides the high single-threaded performance that Thief's engine requires. The 10-core configuration with 16 threads is more than adequate for this 2014 title, which was designed for quad-core processors. The benchmark results confirm that the i5-14400F does not bottleneck the RTX 4080 even at 1080p Low, where the system achieves 316 FPS. The processor's performance at 1080p Ultra (192 FPS) demonstrates that it can feed the GPU with sufficient data to maintain high frame rates even in CPU-intensive scenes.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080 resolution, the system delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset averages 316 FPS, representing the absolute maximum performance ceiling for this combination. The Medium preset averages 277 FPS with a minimum of 235 FPS and a maximum of 318 FPS, providing excellent consistency. The High preset averages 235 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth. The Ultra preset averages 192 FPS, representing a 39.2% reduction from Low. The lack of minimum FPS data for Low, High, and Ultra presets at 1080p means that frame time consistency cannot be fully verified for these settings, though the average values suggest no major issues.

At 2560x1440 resolution, the performance scales down proportionally. The Low preset averages 280 FPS, an 11.4% reduction from 1080p. The Medium preset averages 218 FPS with a minimum of 185 FPS and a maximum of 251 FPS, providing a smooth experience for high-refresh-rate gaming. The High preset averages 165 FPS, which is ideal for 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors. The Ultra preset averages 134 FPS, still well above the 60 FPS threshold. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across presets, with an average reduction of approximately 20-25%.

At 3840x2160 resolution, the GPU's limits become apparent. The Low preset averages 187 FPS, which is still very high for 4K gaming. The Medium preset averages 132 FPS with a minimum of 112 FPS and a maximum of 151 FPS, providing a playable experience with good consistency. The High preset averages 99 FPS, which is suitable for 60 Hz displays with headroom to spare. The Ultra preset averages 81 FPS, the lowest result in the dataset, but still above the 60 FPS threshold for most monitors. The 4K results demonstrate that this combination can handle Thief at maximum settings with playable frame rates, though users with 120 Hz+ 4K displays may prefer the Medium preset for higher refresh rates.