Thief

The pairing of Intel’s Core i5-14600K with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER in Thief produces a dataset that is as revealing for its bottlenecks as it is for its raw frame rates. The GPU sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU ranks in the 93rd percentile, a mismatch that previews the results: this is a system where the graphics card determines the experience, but the processor’s headroom allows for surprising consistency at lower settings. With 14 cores and 20 threads, the i5-14600K is far more capable than this 2014 stealth title demands, leaving the GTX 1660 SUPER as the clear limiting factor across all measured resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show a clear hierarchy where the choice of preset is a direct trade-off between visual fidelity and playability. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 118.1 FPS, which represents the highest performance available in the dataset. The Medium preset drops to 91.8 FPS, still a very smooth experience, while High and Ultra land at 66.9 and 68.8 FPS respectively. The proximity of the High and Ultra scores is notable: a difference of only 1.9 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are not heavily taxing the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB of GDDR6 memory at this resolution. For the best experience per the data, Medium at 1080p offers the strongest balance, as it maintains a frame rate 24.9% higher than High while only sacrificing some visual details.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. The Low preset still leads with 80.7 FPS, but the Medium preset falls to 64.2 FPS, and High drops further to 50.2 FPS. Ultra is the worst performer here at 45.8 FPS, which is only 4.4 FPS behind High. The gap between Medium and High at this resolution is 14 FPS, a larger drop than the 1080p difference, indicating that the GPU’s fill rate is becoming a constraint. For 1440p, the data suggests that Medium is the highest preset that keeps the average above 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice for fluid gameplay. High and Ultra are playable but dip below the 60 FPS threshold, which may be noticeable in a stealth game where quick reactions are less critical than in an action title.

At 3840x2160, the results are mostly academic. The Low preset averages 47.6 FPS, which is the only value above 40 FPS. Medium averages 37 FPS, Ultra averages 30 FPS, and High is the worst at 27.1 FPS. The data clearly shows that 4K is not a viable option for this combo at any preset, as even Low fails to reach 60 FPS. The recommendation here is to avoid 4K entirely, or to accept a sub-30 FPS experience on High, which is not advisable. The best experience per the measured rows remains 1080p Medium, where the frame rate is high enough to mask the GPU’s limitations while still offering a visual upgrade over Low.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 SUPER’s role in Thief is defined by its memory configuration and clock speeds. The GPU features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a critical detail, as Thief’s indoor environments and dynamic lighting can be memory-sensitive. The data shows that at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is only 49.3 FPS, but the more telling comparison is between High and Ultra at 4K: High averages 27.1 FPS, while Ultra averages 30 FPS. This counterintuitive result, where Ultra outperforms High by 2.9 FPS, suggests that the game’s Ultra preset may offload certain effects in a way that reduces memory pressure, or that the High preset is poorly optimized for this specific GPU architecture.

The GPU’s boost clock of 1785 MHz, up from a base of 1530 MHz, provides the raw compute headroom for the 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. Yet, the benchmark results indicate that raw compute is not the only factor. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1278 and the Passmark G3D score of 12699 place this GPU near the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14314, -0.2% delta) and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (14315, -0.2%). This proximity in synthetic tests, despite the GTX 1660 SUPER’s dedicated memory, suggests that Thief’s engine is not fully leveraging the GPU’s capabilities at higher resolutions. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed is fast, but the 6 GB capacity appears to be the limiting factor at 4K, where the Low preset’s 47.6 FPS versus Medium’s 37 FPS shows a steep drop as texture detail increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Core i5-14600K and GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 1456 out of 1642 tested combinations in Thief. This places it in the bottom 11.3% of all combos, which is a poor showing for a system with such a high-end CPU. The ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU, which is the weaker component. The CPU’s benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4270, are far beyond what the game requires, but they do not translate to higher frame rates when the GPU is saturated.

The data implies that this combo is held back by the GTX 1660 SUPER, which is in the 55th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14314, -0.2%) and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (14315, -0.2%), are integrated or low-power parts, yet they score similarly in synthetic benchmarks. This suggests that the GTX 1660 SUPER is not being fully utilized in Thief, possibly due to driver overhead or the game’s age. The rank of 1456 out of 1642 indicates that most other tested combos, even those with weaker CPUs, achieve better results, likely because they pair their GPUs with more balanced processors or use settings that better match the GPU’s capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range is playable. Low averages 118.1 FPS, Medium 91.8 FPS, High 66.9 FPS, and Ultra 68.8 FPS. The Ultra score being higher than High is a statistical anomaly in the data, but it is consistent with the 4K results, where Ultra also outperforms High. At 2560x1440, Low averages 80.7 FPS, Medium 64.2 FPS, High 50.2 FPS, and Ultra 45.8 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra is only 4.4 FPS, showing diminishing returns on the highest preset. At 3840x2160, Low averages 47.6 FPS, Medium 37 FPS, Ultra 30 FPS, and High 27.1 FPS. The 4K data shows a 10.6 FPS gap between Low and Medium, and a 7 FPS gap between Medium and Ultra, but High and Ultra are nearly identical, with a 2.9 FPS difference favoring Ultra.

The data reveals that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s performance is not linear across settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Medium is 26.3 FPS, but the difference between Medium and High is 24.9 FPS, and between High and Ultra is a negligible -1.9 FPS (Ultra is faster). This pattern repeats at 1440p, where the Low-to-Medium gap is 16.5 FPS, Medium-to-High is 14 FPS, and High-to-Ultra is 4.4 FPS. The consistency of this pattern suggests that the Ultra preset is not adding significant load over High, possibly because the game’s Ultra settings are limited by the GPU’s memory bandwidth rather than its shader cores.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K is steep and revealing. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 118.1 at 1080p to 80.7 at 1440p (a 31.7% reduction) and then to 47.6 at 4K (a 41% reduction from 1440p). At the Medium preset, the drop is from 91.8 to 64.2 (30.1%) and then to 37 (42.4%). The High preset drops from 66.9 to 50.2 (25%) and then to 27.1 (46%). The Ultra preset drops from 68.8 to 45.8 (33.4%) and then to 30 (34.5%). These percentages indicate that the GPU is the limiting component, as the frame rate scales inversely with the pixel count.

The data also shows that the CPU is not a factor in resolution scaling. The i5-14600K’s 14 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient for the game’s physics and AI, which are unchanged by resolution. The limiting component is clearly the GTX 1660 SUPER, whose 6 GB memory and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth cannot keep up with the increasing pixel load. The fact that the drop from 1080p to 1440p is larger than the drop from 1440p to 4K at Low (31.7% vs 41%) suggests that the memory bandwidth is the primary constraint, as higher resolutions require more memory traffic per frame.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1080p gameplay?

A: The Medium preset offers the best balance, averaging 91.8 FPS, which is 25 FPS higher than High (66.9 FPS) and only 26.3 FPS lower than Low (118.1 FPS).

Q: Can this combo handle 4K at any preset?

A: No. The highest average at 3840x2160 is 47.6 FPS on Low, which is below the 60 FPS target. Ultra averages 30 FPS, and High averages 27.1 FPS.

Q: Why does Ultra outperform High at some resolutions?

A: At 1080p, Ultra averages 68.8 FPS versus High’s 66.9 FPS, and at 4K, Ultra averages 30 FPS versus High’s 27.1 FPS. This suggests the Ultra preset does not add significant load over High for this GPU.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 SUPER compare to its nearest rivals?

A: Its average benchmark score is 14286, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14314) and 0.5% lower than the AMD Radeon Vega 11 (14352).

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested systems?

A: It ranks 1456 out of 1642 combos in Thief, placing it in the bottom 11.3% of tested configurations.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck?

A: The GPU is the bottleneck. The i5-14600K ranks in the 93rd percentile of CPUs, while the GTX 1660 SUPER ranks in the 55th percentile, and the frame rate drops with resolution, indicating GPU saturation.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K’s role in Thief is largely passive, as the game does not heavily utilize its 14 cores and 20 threads. The CPU’s base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz provide ample single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4642 and Passmark single-thread score of 4270. These scores place it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49062, +0.2% delta) and Intel Core i5-14600KF (49367, -0.4%). The data shows that the CPU is not a limiting factor, as the frame rates scale with resolution in a pattern consistent with GPU saturation.

The CPU’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache are more than sufficient for Thief’s world data, and its 125 W TDP is not a concern in a gaming context. The benchmark results indicate that the CPU’s performance is far beyond what this 2014 game requires, meaning that the GPU’s 6 GB memory and 5.027 TFLOPS of compute are the sole determinants of the measured frame rates. The combo’s poor rank of 1456 out of 1642 is not a reflection of the CPU’s capability but rather the GPU’s inability to keep pace with the system’s potential, leaving the i5-14600K largely idle in this title.