Thief

The benchmark results for Thief on the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 combination reveal a system that is heavily optimized for high-refresh-rate 1080p gaming but begins to show its limits as resolution increases. The data shows a clear and consistent scaling pattern across the three tested resolutions, with the performance gap between settings narrowing at higher pixel counts. This pairing demonstrates a strong balance for 1440p, while 4K requires careful settings management to maintain smooth gameplay.

Resolution Scaling

The performance trajectory from 1080p to 4K follows a predictable curve, but the magnitude of the drop is telling. At 1080p with High settings, the combo delivers 143 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops that to 97.9 FPS, a reduction of approximately 31.5%. The jump to 4K is even more severe, with High settings yielding 56.9 FPS—a further 41.9% decline from the 1440p figure. In total, the transition from 1080p to 4K at High settings costs the system 86.1 FPS, or roughly 60% of its original performance. This steep curve indicates that the GPU is becoming the dominant limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. At Low settings, the system produces 206.9 FPS at 1080p, which falls to 169.9 FPS at 1440p (a 17.9% drop) and then to 99.4 FPS at 4K (a 41.5% drop from 1440p). The Medium preset sees a similar trend: 183.9 FPS at 1080p, 124.7 FPS at 1440p, and 75.9 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, the most demanding, starts at 135.5 FPS at 1080p, drops to 89.6 FPS at 1440p, and bottoms out at 53.2 FPS at 4K.

What is particularly notable is how the relative performance gap between settings shrinks as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 71.4 FPS. At 1440p, that gap narrows to 80.3 FPS, but at 4K it compresses to just 46.2 FPS. This compression suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that the choice of settings has less impact on raw frame rate than it does at lower resolutions. The limiting component at 4K is clearly the RTX 3080, as the CPU’s headroom cannot compensate for the pixel throughput demands. Conversely, at 1080p, the data shows the system is far from GPU-bound, with even the Ultra preset exceeding 135 FPS, indicating that the CPU has ample capacity to feed the GPU.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K, the data strongly suggests that High settings provide the best experience. The 56.9 FPS average at High is just above the 53.2 FPS of Ultra, while Medium drops to 75.9 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is only 3.7 FPS, making Ultra a poor trade for the additional visual load. Medium offers a significant boost of 19 FPS over High, but High remains the sweet spot for visual fidelity without sacrificing playability. Low, at 99.4 FPS, is a fallback for those prioritizing frame rate, but it is not necessary given the High preset’s performance.

At 1440p, the recommendation shifts toward Ultra. The system delivers 89.6 FPS at Ultra, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, and the gap to High (97.9 FPS) is only 8.3 FPS. The visual upgrade from High to Ultra is worth that modest performance cost. Medium at 124.7 FPS and Low at 169.9 FPS are both viable for competitive play, but Ultra offers the most immersive experience without dropping below 60 FPS.

At 1080p, the system has headroom to spare. Ultra runs at 135.5 FPS, which is already excellent for a stealth title. High (143 FPS) and Medium (183.9 FPS) are both available for those seeking even higher refresh rates, but the gains over Ultra are marginal in real-world terms. The data indicates that 1080p Ultra is the optimal choice, as it delivers a flawless experience without any meaningful compromise. For users with high-refresh-rate monitors, Medium at 183.9 FPS or Low at 206.9 FPS are the only presets that exceed 180 FPS, but the visual degradation may not justify the frame rate increase.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the central component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the scaling behavior. The card features 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus, providing 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The boost clock of 1710 MHz drives 8704 shading units, with 272 TMUs and 96 ROPs. These figures translate to a pixel rate of 164.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s, which are substantial but not unlimited.

The 4K results directly reflect the GPU’s memory and compute limits. At 4K Ultra, the card produces 53.2 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. The 10 GB frame buffer is likely a constraint at this resolution, particularly with Ultra textures. The drop from Medium (75.9 FPS) to Ultra (53.2 FPS) is 22.7 FPS, a 29.9% reduction, indicating that the Ultra preset places significant stress on the memory subsystem. The GPU’s 80th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35787, confirms that it is a high-end part, but not the absolute top tier. Its nearest rivals in aggregate performance include the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (35860, 0.2% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (36101, 0.9% higher), showing that the RTX 3080 sits in a competitive band.

At 1080p, the GPU’s role is less critical. The card easily exceeds 135 FPS at all settings, and the data shows that frame rates are likely limited by other factors, such as CPU draw call processing. The 206.9 FPS at Low settings demonstrates the GPU’s raw capability, but the game engine’s overhead becomes apparent at these high frame rates. The RTX 3080’s 29.77 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than sufficient for Thief; the bottleneck at 4K is memory bandwidth and capacity rather than raw shader throughput.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Core i5-14600K and RTX 3080 holds the rank of 327 out of 1642 combos in Thief. This places it in the top 19.9% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing for a mid-cycle CPU paired with a previous-generation flagship GPU. The rank reflects the overall performance across all tested resolutions, and the data suggests that the combo is well-balanced, with neither component dragging the other down significantly.

The CPU’s aggregate benchmark score of 49166 places it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49062, 0.2% lower) and the Intel Core i5-14600KF (49367, 0.4% higher). These are close margins, indicating that the CPU is performing as expected. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 35787 is in the 80th percentile, with rivals like the AMD Radeon 880M (35646, 0.4% lower) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (35435, 1% lower). The combination of a top-decile CPU and an upper-quartile GPU results in a system that ranks highly but is not among the absolute elite.

The rank of 327 suggests that most higher-ranked combos use newer GPUs or higher-tier CPUs, but the fact that this pairing still lands in the top 20% of all tested systems reflects the RTX 3080’s longevity and the i5-14600K’s strong single-threaded performance. The data indicates that the combo is particularly effective at 1440p, where it delivers 89.6 FPS at Ultra, and remains competitive at 4K with settings adjustments.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It features 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache per core, with 80 KB of L1 cache per core. The processor’s single-thread performance is exceptional, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4642 and Geekbench single-core score of 2803. These scores are crucial for Thief, which is a stealth game that relies heavily on CPU-bound game logic and AI pathfinding.

The CPU’s role in the benchmark results is most apparent at 1080p, where the GPU is not the primary bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 206.9 FPS, which is likely near the engine’s frame rate ceiling. The CPU’s PassMark single-thread score of 4270 and its 93rd percentile ranking suggest that it can handle the game’s directx 11 draw calls efficiently. The 14 cores and 20 threads provide ample parallel processing for background tasks, but the game’s frame rate is more dependent on the single-threaded performance, which is where the i5-14600K excels.

At higher resolutions, the CPU’s influence diminishes as the GPU takes over as the limiting factor. However, the CPU’s ability to maintain high minimum frame rates is evident in the consistent scaling pattern. The processor’s 125 W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory allow for flexible system configurations. The CPU’s aggregate benchmark performance is 0.2% higher than the Ryzen 9 5950X and 0.4% lower than the i5-14600KF, showing that it is right at the expected level for its class. In Thief, the CPU provides more than enough headroom at 1440p and 1080p, and even at 4K, it does not appear to cause any frame rate drops below what the GPU can deliver.