Thief

The Thief benchmark pairing of the Intel Core i5-14600K with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers consistent, high performance across a wide range of settings. In this 2014 stealth title, the CPU and GPU combination ranks 1550th out of 3720 tested combos, sitting firmly in the upper half. Measurements are drawn from actual runs across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, with each resolution tested on Low, Medium, High, and Ultra presets. The data exhibits a clear pattern: the GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and high boost clock are sufficient to push the game well beyond 60 frames per second at standard resolutions, but at 4K the frame rate becomes heavily dependent on the chosen setting, with only Medium maintaining an exactly 60 average.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the balanced sweet spot is the Medium preset regardless of resolution. At 1920×1080, Medium yields an average 148 FPS, with a minimum of 126 and maximum of 171; this is 23% higher than High’s 113 FPS and 40% above Ultra’s 108 FPS, while still retaining a marked visual lift over Low’s 195 FPS. At 1440p, Medium records 102 FPS (min 86, max 117), versus 77 FPS for High and 74 for Ultra—again a clear, single-step jump in playable performance. The decisive case appears at 4K: Medium is the only preset that touches 60 FPS exactly, with an average of 60 FPS and a range of 51–69 while High drops to 46 FPS and Ultra to 43 FPS. Low at 4K allows 79 FPS, but requires the game’s visuals down, which many players would avoid. Therefore, Medium is the appropriate choice for a balance of visuals and fluidity, especially on displays above 1080. For players at 1080p who demand maximum quality, High (113 FPS) is acceptable, and Ultra (108) is also playable, but the drop to Medium at any resolution delivers a larger stability margin.

FAQ

Q: What frame range can I expect at 4K with Medium settings?

A: At 3840×2160, the RX 7700 averages 60 FPS with Medium settings, and the recorded minimum is 51 FPS with a maximum of 69 FPS, according to the measured data.

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-14600K compare to its closest rival?

A: The i5-14600K scores 24,491 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,064 in single-core, which gives it a 90th percentile rank. Its nearest benchmark rival, the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, is only 0.2% slower, the AMD EPYC 4345P is 0.3% faster, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX is 0.7% faster, and the Core Ultra 5 245 is 0.8% slower based on aggregated scores.

Q: How much VRAM does the RX 7700 offer, and why does it matter?

A: The RX 7700 is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a 256-bit memory interface, giving it a 624.1 GB/s bandwidth. This large pool is more than the requirements of Thief, a game released in 2014, which relies on far less; the capacity ensures that no memory paging will occur at any tested setting.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: At 1920×1080 Low, the NTU records an average of 195 FPS, which is well above any display’s refresh rate. This indicates that the GPU is also large enough to exceed the CPU’s single-thread capability at the low preset, while the CPU maintains its performance that is its highest rank. At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate is still over 100, but the scaling from low to ultra shows a progressively GPU-bound situation.

Q: Does the RX 7700 stand apart from other GPUs in its price tier?

A: The 7700 achieves a 58th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15. Devices. Its nearest neighbor, the AMD Radeon RX 9060, is 1% faster—while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is 1.7% faster. Which is purely a comparative measure without MSRP.

Q: What is the measured FPS at 2560×1440 on High?

A: At 1440p High, the average is 77 FPS, with no minimum or maximum reported.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 sits reliably within the data for Thief. With 16 GB GDDR6 on a 256‑bit interface that provides 624.1 GB/s of memory bandwidth, the card has ample capacity for this 2014 title. Its compiled on the 5‑nm process from TSMC, using the Navi 32 chip with 28,100 million transistors. Boost clock of 2459 MHz (game clock 2041 MHz, base 1900 MHz) lets the GPU reach output that scales well with lower settings: at 1080p Low the card pushes 195 FPS, which is near the practical limit for most CPUs. The FP32 compute is 25.18 TFLOPS and 40 ray-tracing cores, but Thief does not make use of ray tracing, so the difference from stronger GPUs is minimal. The practical result is that the 7700 delivers a playable 60 FPS at 1440p Ultra and at 4K Medium, but is surpassed by the CPU as resolution requirements escalate. At 4K Ultra it average 43 FPS, meaning the card is the bottleneck, but not that the VRAM is exhausted. The 60 million transistor design also includes 64 shading units, 160 texture units, and 96 ROPs, which translate into a strong fill rate of 236.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s—features that support the heavy map density Thief’s cityscape environments. The card’s TDP is 200W with a suggested PSU of 550W, and it pairs over PCIe Gen 4×16, which provides ample bandwidth given the 624 GB/s memory.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Measured at four resolutions and four presets will be presented as the exact averages from the log.

| Resolution | Setting | avg FPS | min–max (if available) |

| ------------ | ------- | ------- | ---------------------- |

| 1920×1080 | Low | 195 | — |

| 1920×1080 | Medium | 148 | 126–171 |

| 1920×1080 | High | 113 | — |

| 1920×1080 | Ultra | 108 | — |

| 2560×1440 | Low | 142 | — |

| 2560×1440 | Medium | 102 | 86–117 |

| 2560×1440 | High | 77 | — |

| 2560×1440 | Ultra | 74 | — |

| 3840×2160 | Low | 79 | — |

| 3840×2160 | Medium | 60 | 51–69 |

| 3840×2160 | High | 46 | — |

| 3840×2160 | Ultra | 43 | — |

The most significant variability occurs at 1080p, where Ultra still manages 108 FPS and even the 4K Ultra level is above 40. The only competition is Low, which is 195 FPS but sacrifices world quality. At 1440p the Resolution jumps about 31% from 1080 for Medium, and the margin to 4K is 41%. At 4K, the Medium track record is limited by a 51 FPS minimum, which is still fluid enough for console-like enjoyment, but does not hold a strict 60. The geometric symmetry of the FPS losses—similar proportions at each resolution jump—suggests the scene is limited by a global pixel throughput, not by a sudden cache or texture-physics limit.

Resolution Scaling

Scaling from 1920×1080 to 2560×1440 to 3840×2160 puts decreasing pressure on the GPU. For the Medium preset, 148 FPS at 1080p falls to 102 FPS at 1440p—a reduction of 31%—and to 60 FPS at 4K, which is a further 59% drop from 1440p or 41% relative to 1080p. The same pattern holds on High: 113 → 77 (a 32% cut) → 46 (40% drop from 1440p), and on Ultra: 108 → 74 → 43, with similar percentages. This linear scaling indicates that the primary limitation in this game at these resolutions is the graphics processing unit. If the CPU were the fulcrum, the FPS would remain roughly flat as resolution increased; instead, the frame rate roughly halves when moving from 1080 to 4K, which matches the quadrupling of pixel count. Low settings also show a proportionate drop: 232 FPS at 1080p, 148 at 1440p (a 33% cut), and 79 at 4K (46% lower than 1440p). This drop is more, but still follows the resolution scaling slope. All twelve rows—each with a defined boundary—further support the conclusion that Thief is a numerator‑bound workload for the Radeon RX 7700.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread Raptor Lake Refresh processor with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It includes 24 MB of shared L3 cache, with each core having 80 KB of L1 and 2 MB of L2. The processor reaches a 90th percentile overall, with a PassMark over 38,680 in the multithread test and a single-thread score of 4,270. Its high degree of single-core performance is essential for keeping up with the Thief’s engine at low preset, where the GPU can push 195 FPS—meaning the CPU must issue adequate graphics commands. The Geekbench 5 score of 2,491 for single-core and 16,673 multi-core further confirm the chip’s capability. In this combo, the CPU nominal is not the bottleneck; the FPS scaling through the resolution ladder is smooth and uniformly proportional to the GPU workload, with no sudden plateaus attributable to CPU unemployment. At 1080p Medium, the 148 FPS frame rate is far beyond the display refresh, while at 4K Ultra the 43 FPS is limited by GPU shading rate. The i5-14600K thus does not need to be overclocked for Thief—its default settings allow the GPU to exceed rely.

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The measured data outlines a balanced platform where the Radeon RX 7700 and the Core i5-14600K synergize to provide optimal Thief experiences. At 1080p, the game runs at triple-digit platform at any preset, while at 1440p Medium grants smooth 100+ FPS. The only severe strain appears at 4K Ultra, which is usual for this generation of titles (2014). Users aiming for a constant 60 tour should choose Medium at 4K; lower resolutions only expand the headroom.