Thief

The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti combination delivers a playable experience across all tested resolutions in Thief, though the scaling pattern reveals a system that is increasingly GPU-bound as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the average frame rate sits at 97 FPS on High settings, which drops to 86 FPS at 1440p—a modest 11% reduction. However, the jump to 4K tells a different story: the average falls to 51 FPS, a 41% drop from the 1440p figure and a 47% reduction from 1080p. This steep decline between 1440p and 4K indicates that the RTX 3070 Ti's rendering workload is becoming the dominant factor, with the pixel count at 3840x2160 overwhelming the GPU's ability to maintain the frame pacing seen at lower resolutions.

The Ultra preset at 4K confirms this trend, producing an average of 49 FPS—just 2 FPS below the High preset at the same resolution. This narrow gap suggests that the GPU is nearing its throughput ceiling, where additional graphical fidelity settings have diminishing returns on frame rate. Conversely, the 1080p to 1440p transition shows a relatively mild performance cost, implying that the CPU still has headroom to feed the GPU at these lower pixel counts. The data indicates that for users targeting 4K, the RTX 3070 Ti is the limiting component, while at 1080p, the i5-9400's six cores are sufficient to keep frame rates high, as evidenced by the 119 FPS result on Low settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across the three resolutions provides a clear picture of how Thief scales with pixel count. At 1080p, the average frame rates range from 96 FPS on Ultra to 119 FPS on Low, with High and Medium falling at 97 FPS and 107 FPS respectively. This spread of 23 FPS between the lowest and highest quality presets shows that the GPU has ample compute resources at 1080p, and the i5-9400 is not bottlenecking the pipeline. Moving to 1440p, the averages compress slightly: Low produces 105 FPS, Medium 95 FPS, High 86 FPS, and Ultra 83 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra narrows to 22 FPS, but the absolute numbers remain high, suggesting that 1440p is still within the comfortable operating range for this combo.

The 4K results, however, show a dramatic shift. Low settings yield 88 FPS, Medium 67 FPS, High 51 FPS, and Ultra 49 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra expands to 39 FPS, and the High-to-Ultra difference shrinks to just 2 FPS. This pattern indicates that at 4K, the RTX 3070 Ti's pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor, as raising settings from High to Ultra adds only marginal frame rate cost while the absolute performance drops below the 60 FPS threshold. The 1440p Medium result with a minimum frame rate of 81 FPS and maximum of 109 FPS shows more stability than the 4K Medium's 57-77 FPS range, further underscoring that the GPU is struggling to maintain consistent frame delivery at the highest resolution.

The scaling behavior suggests that Thief is not particularly demanding on the CPU side, as the frame rate drops are roughly proportional to the pixel count increase from 1080p to 1440p, but the 4K results show a disproportionate decline. This is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario where the RTX 3070 Ti's 8 GB of GDDR6X memory and 608.3 GB/s bandwidth are being saturated by the 4K frame buffer, leaving little room for additional settings headroom. For users prioritizing high refresh rates, the data shows that 1080p and 1440p are viable, while 4K requires either Low or Medium settings to maintain playable frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti is the centerpiece of this combination, and its specifications directly explain the measured results. With a base clock of 1575 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, the card operates on the Ampere architecture, built on Samsung's 8 nm process. The GPU packs 6,144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 96 render output units, alongside 48 ray tracing cores and 192 tensor cores. These compute resources translate to a 21.75 TFLOPS FP32 performance figure, which is substantial for a game released in 2014, though the 4K results show that Thief's engine still pushes the card to its limits.

The memory subsystem plays a critical role in the 4K performance drop. The RTX 3070 Ti features 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s. At 1080p and 1440p, this memory configuration is more than adequate, as evidenced by the 119 FPS and 105 FPS Low-settings results respectively. However, at 4K, the larger frame buffer demands more memory bandwidth, and the card's effective memory clock of 19 Gbps appears to be the bottleneck. The 67 FPS Medium result at 4K, compared to 95 FPS at 1440p Medium, represents a 29% drop that aligns with the increased memory pressure rather than pure compute limits.

The GPU's benchmark scores corroborate its position in the market. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3,478 and the Passmark G3D score of 23,356 place it in the 75th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 29,945. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile with a delta of 0.1%, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 at -0.5%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at 0.5%. This places the RTX 3070 Ti in a competitive tier, though the 4K Thief results suggest that the card's 8 GB memory capacity is starting to show its age with modern resolutions, even if the raw compute power remains strong.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ranks 2,064th out of 3,720 tested combos for Thief. This places it in the 55th percentile of all combinations, meaning that slightly more than half of all tested systems achieve higher average frame rates in this game. The ranking reflects a balanced but not exceptional pairing—the CPU is a mid-range six-core part from 2018, while the GPU is a high-end card from 2021, and the data shows that the GPU is not fully utilized at lower resolutions due to the CPU's limitations.

The i5-9400's average benchmark score of 2,254 places it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (delta -0.2%), Intel Core i7-10710U (delta 0.3%), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (delta 0.4%), and Intel Core i3-10305 (delta -0.4%). These closely matched scores indicate that the CPU's performance is in a crowded middle tier, where differences of less than 1% separate it from competitors. The GPU, by contrast, sits in the 75th percentile, showing that the RTX 3070 Ti is a more capable component relative to its peers than the CPU is relative to its own cohort.

This disparity explains the combo's mid-pack ranking. At 1080p, the CPU likely limits performance, as the i5-9400's six cores and six threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.10 GHz, cannot feed the GPU fast enough to reach the frame rates that the RTX 3070 Ti could theoretically produce. The 119 FPS Low-settings result at 1080p is respectable, but stronger CPUs in the database would likely push this number higher. At 4K, however, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the combo's ranking improves relative to systems with weaker GPUs, as the RTX 3070 Ti's 21.75 TFLOPS still delivers competitive performance.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K in Thief?

A: Only with Low settings, where the average frame rate is 88 FPS. Medium settings drop to 67 FPS, while High and Ultra fall below 60 FPS at 51 FPS and 49 FPS respectively.

Q: What is the best resolution for this system?

A: The data shows that 1440p offers the best balance, with High settings producing 86 FPS and Ultra achieving 83 FPS, both above the 60 FPS threshold with room to spare.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 Ti compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 29,945 is nearly identical to the RTX 5070 Mobile at 29,928 (0.1% delta), and it sits just below the RX 6800 at 30,095 (-0.5% delta) and above the RTX 2080 Ti at 29,783 (0.5% delta).

Q: Is the i5-9400 a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The CPU's six cores and six threads, with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, appear sufficient for Thief at 1080p, as the Low settings result of 119 FPS suggests the GPU is not being held back significantly.

Q: What is the frame time consistency like at 1440p Medium?

A: The Medium preset at 1440p shows a minimum of 81 FPS and a maximum of 109 FPS, indicating a stable frame delivery with a spread of 28 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to all tested systems?

A: It ranks 2,064th out of 3,720 combos, placing it in the middle of the database, which reflects the CPU's 47th percentile standing relative to the GPU's 75th percentile.

Settings Recommendations

For users prioritizing a smooth 60 FPS experience, the measured data points to 1440p as the sweet spot. At this resolution, the High preset delivers 86 FPS, and Ultra achieves 83 FPS, both comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 1440p offers 95 FPS with a minimum of 81 FPS, making it the safest choice for maintaining consistent frame rates during intense scenes. The 4K resolution, while visually impressive, requires compromises: only Low (88 FPS) and Medium (67 FPS) exceed 60 FPS, with High and Ultra falling short at 51 FPS and 49 FPS respectively.

For users with 1080p displays, any preset is viable, as even Ultra delivers 96 FPS. The Low preset's 119 FPS offers the highest headroom for 120 Hz displays, while High at 97 FPS provides a good balance of visual quality and performance. The Medium preset at 1080p, with a minimum of 91 FPS and maximum of 124 FPS, shows the tightest frame pacing among the 1080p options, making it a strong recommendation for competitive play. At 4K, users should avoid High and Ultra unless they are willing to accept frame rates in the 49-51 FPS range, which may introduce noticeable stutter on standard 60 Hz panels.

The data suggests that the RTX 3070 Ti's performance ceiling in Thief is around 119 FPS (at 1080p Low) and its floor is 49 FPS (at 4K Ultra). The most efficient configuration, based on the measured rows, is 1440p Medium, which provides 95 FPS average with a minimum of 81 FPS—a margin of 21 FPS above the 60 FPS target. This configuration also offers a maximum of 109 FPS, indicating that the system can handle frame rate spikes without hitting a hard CPU or GPU limit.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 provides the foundation for this system, and its specifications align with the performance seen in Thief. With six cores and six threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, this Coffee Lake Refresh processor offers a modest level of multi-threaded performance. The 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s are typical for a mid-range desktop CPU from its era. The processor's benchmark results, including a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6,629 and a single-core score of 935, place it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs, indicating that it sits just below the median in terms of overall processing power.

In Thief, the CPU's role appears to be more critical at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare capacity. The 1080p results show a 23 FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings, which suggests that the CPU can drive the game engine at high frame rates, but the GPU's workload at higher settings begins to dominate. The 1440p results show a similar pattern, with a 22 FPS spread between Low and Ultra. However, the 4K results show a much larger 39 FPS spread, indicating that the GPU's pixel processing becomes the primary determinant of frame rate, and the CPU's contribution diminishes.

The i5-9400's six threads are adequate for Thief, a game from 2014 that was designed for the quad-core era. The processor's single-core performance, as measured by the Cinebench R20 score of 392, is sufficient to handle the game's main thread, while the multi-core score of 2,784 ensures that background tasks do not interfere with frame delivery. Compared to its nearest rivals, the CPU is virtually tied with the Core i7-1068NG7 (-0.2% delta), Core i7-10710U (0.3% delta), and Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (0.4% delta), making it a representative example of a mid-range processor that neither boosts nor limits the overall gaming experience in this title.