Thief

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The measured data for Thief with the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT reveals a clear hierarchy across the four available presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 209 FPS, while Medium reaches 179 FPS, High drops to 137 FPS, and Ultra settles at 130 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 30 FPS, while the drop from Medium to High is 42 FPS, indicating a substantial cost for the visual improvements in that step. High to Ultra, however, only costs 7 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds relatively little burden over High at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds. Low produces 162 FPS, Medium 123 FPS, High 94 FPS, and Ultra 89 FPS. The Medium to High transition again represents the largest single-step loss at 29 FPS, while High to Ultra costs just 5 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low delivers 95 FPS, Medium 72 FPS, High 55 FPS, and Ultra 52 FPS. Here, the Medium to High drop is 17 FPS, and High to Ultra is only 3 FPS.

The data indicates that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. It maintains playable averages even at 4K, with 72 FPS, and provides a substantial improvement over Low in visual fidelity without the steep penalty seen when moving to High. The Ultra preset, while only marginally slower than High, does not appear to justify the extra load given the minimal FPS difference. For users prioritizing smoothness, Medium is the recommended setting; for those wanting maximum quality, High is nearly identical to Ultra in performance cost but may offer a different visual profile. The recorded numbers show that Medium consistently sits roughly midway between Low and High, making it the most predictable choice across the resolution range.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 achieves an average of 209 FPS, which is the maximum recorded value in the measured data for this configuration.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Ultra averages 52 FPS while High averages 55 FPS. The difference is only 3 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes nearly the same load as High at this resolution.

Q: Does the Medium preset have any recorded minimum or maximum FPS values?

A: Yes, the Medium preset is the only one with min/max data. At 1920x1080, the minimum is 153 FPS and maximum is 206 FPS. At 2560x1440, the minimum is 105 FPS and maximum is 142 FPS. At 3840x2160, the minimum is 62 FPS and maximum is 83 FPS.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested configurations in Thief?

A: The combo ranks 875 out of 3720 tested combinations in the game, placing it in the upper quarter of the database's recorded results.

Q: Is there a resolution where the Low preset falls below 60 FPS average?

A: No. The Low preset averages 95 FPS at 3840x2160, which is the lowest recorded value for that setting across all tested resolutions.

Q: How does the CPU's single-core performance relate to the frame rates observed?

A: The CPU records a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4594 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2445, both of which are strong values. The high frame rates at 1080p, where the GPU is less stressed, suggest that the processor's single-thread capability is sufficient to drive the game well above 130 FPS even at Ultra.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the High preset, average FPS drops from 137 at 1080p to 94 at 1440p, a 31% reduction, and then to 55 at 4K, a 60% reduction from the 1080p baseline. The Low preset shows a similar trajectory: 209 FPS at 1080p, 162 at 1440p (a 22% drop), and 95 at 4K (a 55% drop). Medium goes from 179 to 123 to 72, with reductions of 31% and 60% respectively. Ultra starts at 130, drops to 89, and then to 52, representing a 32% and 60% decline.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all presets is striking. Every preset loses roughly 30% of its average FPS when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and then loses another 40% of the 1440p value when moving to 4K. This uniform behavior indicates that the limiting component scales with pixel count rather than with specific settings. The Radeon RX 6800 XT, with its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 512.0 GB/s bandwidth, is being pushed harder at each step up in resolution. The fact that Low at 4K (95 FPS) still exceeds High at 1440p (94 FPS) suggests that the GPU's compute capacity, not its memory subsystem, is the primary constraint at higher resolutions.

The data implies that the game is heavily GPU-bound at 4K, where the 52 to 95 FPS range across presets reflects the graphics card's raw throughput. At 1080p, the 130 to 209 FPS range indicates that the CPU, with its 14 cores and boost clock of 5.30 GHz, is capable of feeding the GPU efficiently without becoming a bottleneck. The scaling pattern points to a system where the GPU's shading units and texture units, 4608 and 288 respectively, determine the upper limits as resolution climbs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full set of presets produces the following averages: Low at 209 FPS, Medium at 179 FPS with a minimum of 153 and maximum of 206, High at 137 FPS, and Ultra at 130 FPS. The Medium preset's range of 153 to 206 FPS shows a 53 FPS spread, which is the widest recorded in the entire dataset. This variability suggests that scenes with heavy particle effects or complex geometry can cause noticeable fluctuations even at this relatively modest resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 162 FPS for Low, 123 FPS for Medium with a minimum of 105 and maximum of 142, 94 FPS for High, and 89 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset's spread narrows to 37 FPS, indicating that the increased pixel load smooths out some of the frame time variance. The gap between High and Ultra remains small at 5 FPS, which is consistent with the 1080p observation where the two highest presets are nearly identical in cost.

At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 95 FPS for Low, 72 FPS for Medium with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 83, 55 FPS for High, and 52 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset's range here is 21 FPS, the tightest of any resolution, which indicates that at 4K the frame rate is more stable despite the lower absolute values. The 4K results show that even the Low preset, at 95 FPS, is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while Ultra at 52 FPS falls just below it.

The data reveals that the combination performs best at 1080p, where all presets exceed 130 FPS, and remains capable at 1440p, where even Ultra maintains 89 FPS. At 4K, only the Low and Medium presets stay above 60 FPS, with High and Ultra trailing at 55 and 52 respectively. The measured values indicate that users targeting 4K should select Medium or Low for smooth gameplay, while those at 1080p can run any preset with ample headroom.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT achieves a rank of 875 out of 3720 tested combinations in Thief. This places it in the 76th percentile of all recorded configurations, meaning that approximately 24% of tested combos deliver higher frame rates in this game. The rank reflects the combined capability of the processor and graphics card specifically within this title's engine.

The CPU alone holds a 90th percentile ranking among all processors in the database, with an average benchmark score of 49394. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 with a score of 49228 (a 0.3% difference), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G at 49196 (0.4% difference), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 at 48995 (0.8% difference). The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 scores 49796, which is 0.8% higher. These close margins indicate that the i5-14600KF sits squarely in a competitive cluster of high-end desktop processors.

The GPU holds an 85th percentile ranking among all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 48477. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile at 47743 (1.5% lower), the Intel Arc A550M at 49737 (2.5% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti at 49957 (3% higher), and the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 at 50001 (3% higher). The RX 6800 XT's position relative to these cards shows that it remains a strong performer, though newer and more powerful options have emerged since its release.

The game-specific rank of 875 suggests that Thief is not particularly favorable to this hardware combination. The CPU's high percentile ranking does not fully translate into game performance, which implies that the game's engine may not utilize all 14 cores effectively. The GPU's 85th percentile also does not guarantee top-tier frame rates in this title, given that the measured 4K Ultra average of 52 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold. The rank indicates that while this combo is solid, it is not among the elite configurations for this specific game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF brings 14 cores and 20 threads to the system, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its architecture, Raptor Lake-R, is built on a 10 nm process with a die size of 257 mm². The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel interface, and it offers PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes.

In Thief, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but critical at 1080p. The measured FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra reaches 130, which indicates that the processor can handle the game's simulation and AI workloads without becoming a limiting factor. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32544 and single-core score of 4594 demonstrate strong overall capability, while the Geekbench multi-core score of 17085 and single-core score of 2445 confirm balanced performance.

The game was released in 2014, which predates this CPU by nearly a decade. Thief's engine likely relies on fewer threads, meaning that the 20-thread count provides ample headroom. The single-thread performance, as measured by Passmark at 4273 for both singlethread and single_thread tests, is what matters most for this title. The boost clock of 5.30 GHz gives the processor an advantage in lightly threaded scenarios, which explains why the 1080p results remain high even at Ultra settings.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the i5-14600KF's average benchmark score of 49394 is within 1% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245, and the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388. This tight grouping suggests that the CPU's performance in Thief would be similar to any of these alternatives. The data does not show any game-specific CPU bottleneck, as the FPS scales consistently with resolution and settings rather than showing a flat ceiling that would indicate processor limitation.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is built on the Navi 21 chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture and a 7 nm process from TSMC. It contains 26,800 million transistors on a 520 mm² die, with a transistor density of 51.5M per mm². The GPU operates with a base clock of 1825 MHz, a game clock of 2015 MHz, and a boost clock of 2250 MHz. Its memory subsystem consists of 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, providing 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth at an effective 16 Gbps.

The card's compute resources include 4608 shading units, 288 texture mapping units, 128 render output units, and 72 ray accelerators. Its pixel rate is 288.0 GPixel/s, texture rate is 648.0 GTexel/s, and FP32 throughput is 20.74 TFLOPS. The GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, and it draws up to 300 W with a 700 W suggested power supply.

In Thief, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K shows a consistent drop of approximately 30% and then 40% at each step, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The 4K Ultra average of 52 FPS and High average of 55 FPS indicate that the card's raw pixel throughput, not its memory bandwidth, is the limiting factor. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for this 2014 title, which would not require anywhere near that capacity.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 48477 places it at the 85th percentile, with rivals like the NVIDIA RTX A1000 Mobile (47743) and Intel Arc A550M (49737) nearby. The RX 6800 XT sits between these two in performance, with a 1.5% advantage over the former and a 2.5% deficit to the latter. The data shows that the GPU delivers strong frame rates in Thief, particularly at 1080p where all presets exceed 130 FPS, but the 4K results reveal its limits when pushed to high resolutions and quality settings. The 52 FPS at 4K Ultra is the only recorded value below 60 FPS, suggesting that users with 4K displays should favor the Medium or Low presets for a consistently smooth experience.