Thief

Opening Paragraph

Thief (released 2014-02-24) is a stealth title where hidden passages and guard patrols reward careful movement. The tested combination pairs a 6-core, 6-thread Intel Core i5-9400 with an 83rd-percentile NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER. Measured FPS in the game runs from 63 to 119 depending on resolution and preset, with the system delivering playable frame rates even at 3840×2160 on the highest quality preset. This analysis breaks down the resolution scaling, preset behavior, CPU and GPU roles, and the overall ranking of this combination.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data shows a consistent trade‑off between resolution and frame rate across every preset. For Low preset, average FPS falls from 119 at 1920×1080, to 105 at 2560×1440, to 88 at 3840×2160. The decline of these three numbers indicates a increasingly heavy workload on the GPU as pixel count rises. At Medium the same pattern appears: 107 (1080p), 95 (1440p), and 79 (4K). High drops 97 → 86 → 66, and Ultra goes 96 → 84 → 63. The spread between resolutions is widest at Low (51 FPS difference from 1080p to 4K) and narrowest at Ultra (33 FPS). In all presets the performance at 4K stays above 60 FPS, meaning the system maintains a fluid frame rate even on the highest available resolution.

Only the Medium preset includes minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 91 and the maximum is 124; at 1440p those become 81 and 109; at 4K they are 67 and 91. The minimum FPS numbers show that even in the most demanding scene recorded, the system never dips below 67 FPS at any resolution, which is important for stable charting because the average alone could hide a stutter.

Because the FPS numbers decline gradually with resolution, the data suggests the graphical load grows steadily as pixel output increases. The 88 FPS at 4K Low is still high enough to drive a 4K display, while the 63 FPS at 4K Ultra leaves less headroom for a 60 Hz panel.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows allow a direct comparison of the four presets at each resolution. At 1080p, Low delivers 119 FPS, Medium 107, High 97, and Ultra 96. The gap between High and Ultra is just 1 FPS (96 vs 97), so High seems to retain almost all the visual quality while offering a slightly higher frame rate. At 1440p, High gives 86 FPS versus 84 for Ultra, again a trivial difference, while Low reaches 105 FPS and Medium 88. At 4K, High makes 66 FPS and Ultra 63, with Medium at 79 FPS. If the goal is the smoothest experience without surrendering too many real estate, High is the sweet spot: never below 76 FPS in any resolution, and it outperforms Ultra by 1–2 FPS at 1080p and 1440p, and by 3 FPS at 4K.

If absolute frame‑rate stability is prioritized, Medium deserves consideration. It shows the highest median across resolutions (107, 95, 79) and its minimum numbers (91 at 1080p, 81 at 1440p, 67 at 4K) are all comfortably above a 60 FPS target. There is no star‑rated compromise that the data suggests; rather, the choice depends on whether a few extra FPS outweigh the minor difference between High and Ultra. According to the measured rows, High is the most consistent preset, delivering a 97–86–66 pattern across the three resolutions, which – while not the fastest ever – keeps the frame rate above 60 even at the largest pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 has 6 cores and 6 threads with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It features 9 MB of L3 cache, a 65 W TDP, and uses a 14 nm process, based on Coffee Lake architecture. Its benchmark scores place it in the 47th percentile among all CPUs: Cinebench 15 multicore 668, single‑core 94; Cinebench 20 multicore 2784, single‑core 392; Cinebench 23 multicore 6629, single‑core 935; Geekbench multicore 5141, single‑core 1389. The average CPU benchmark score is 2254, with nearest rivals being Intel Core i7‑1068NG7 (score 2259, delta −0.2%), i7‑10710U (score 2248, delta 0.3%), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (score 2246, delta 0.4%), and Intel Core i3‑10305 (2264, delta ‑0.4%). Those small deltas show the i5‑9400 sits in a tight cluster of mid‑range processors.

In Thief, the CPU provides the foundation for the simulation of AI, a world and logic that a stealth genre relies on. Though the game ran at 60 FPS on medium hardware at launch, the measured frame rates for this combination show the CPU keeps the GPU well fed: at 1080p Low the GPU can push to 119 FPS, which is not typical of a CPU‑bound system. The scaling from 1080p to 4K shows an about 20–30% drop in FPS (119→88, 97→66, 96→63), a pattern that is primary due to increased pixel work rather than a CPU limit; otherwise the FPS would stay constant across resolutions under the same preset.

The relatively low CPU percentile - compared with the GPU’s 83rd percentile – may become a limiting factor in scenarios where many AI actors or the game logic require heavy single‑thread performance. The single‑core benchmark scores (94 in Cinebench R15, 392 in Cinebench R20, 935 in Cinebench R23) are far below the GPU’s raw throughput, but the observed FPS results show that the CPU still manages to feed the GPU enough to maintain the frame rate headroom seen in the 1440p and 1080p rows. For Thief, which rewards stealth over ongoing math, the CPU appears sufficient, though the 6‑core, 6‑thread design means there is no multi‑threading advantage beyond six pipelines.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved across all tested settings and resolutions?

A: 119 FPS at 1920×1080 with the Low preset.

Q: At which setting does the system produce its lowest average FPS?

A: The lowest average FPS is 63, observed at 3840×2160 with the Ultra preset.

Q: What is the CPU’s core and thread configuration?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has 6 cores and 6 threads, with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz.

Q: How much L3 cache does the CPU have?

A: The CPU has 9 MB of shared L3 cache.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory bus width?

A: The GPU’s memory bus width is 192 bits, with a total memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s.

Q: What is the rank of this combination relative to all tested combos?

A: This combination ranks 1964 out of 3720 tested configurations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is an Ada Lovelace GPU with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory, a 192‑bit bus, and 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1980 MHz and the boost clock is 2475 MHz; memory runs at 1313 MHz with an effective data rate of 21 Gbps. The chip packs 7168 shading units, 224 texture units, 80 ROPs, 56 RT cores, and 224 tensor cores, offering 35.0TFLOPS FP32 performance. It consumes a 220 W TDP and connects via 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0. In the benchmark data it places in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 43,223. Its raw compute numbers – according to benchmarks like 3DMark Steel Nomad (4627) and Geekbench Vulkan (205,624) – are far above the CPU’s, and Thief uses this GPU heavily.

The measured FPS patterns strongly reflect the GPU: going from 1080p Low (119) to 4K Ultra (63) a drop of 56 FPS showcases the graphics card’s scaling aptitude and memory bandwidth. At the highest preset 4K Ultra, the GPU still keeps an average of 63 FPS, which is a healthy margin for 4K gaming. The GPU’s 12 GB VRAM is ample for Thief’s texture heavy environments; the game never runs out of video memory, as indicated by the 4K FPS staying in that narrow 63–92 range across the presets. The device lands in the top quarter of the GPU population, and its high average benchmark score (43,223) explains the console‑level frames it produces in this older title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table consolidates every measured frame-rate number from the benchmark run.

| Resolution | Setting | Avg FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

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

| 1920x1080 | Low | 119 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 107 | 91 | 124 |

| 1920x1080 | High | 97 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 96 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 105 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 95 | 81 | 109 |

| 2560x1440 | High | 86 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 84 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 88 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 79 | 67 | 91 |

| 3840x2160 | High | 66 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 63 | - | - |

The data shows a clear hierarchy: Low fastest, then Medium, then High, then Ultra. Every resolution shows enough fps to remain playable, but the difference between Medium and High is a consistent 7‑8 FPS at 1080p (107 vs 97), 5‑7 at 1440p (95 vs 88), and a 13‑FPS difference at 4K (79 vs 66). The Medium full dataset for min/max points to relatively stable framelets, e.g., 4K Medium has a 67‑91 range, while High has no min/max reported but its average suggests even stronger guarantee.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested configs, this Intel Core i5‑9400 + RTX 4070 SUPER combination ranks 1964 of 3720, placing it in the middle of the overall distribution. The CPU is 68th percentile (average benchmark 2,254) while the GPU is 83rd percentile (average 43,223). The gap between these two is notable; the CPU ranks lower than the GPU in the pool of all tested parts, meaning the GPU is the more capable piece. In Thief, the frame results can be largely pinned to the GPU’s performance, but the overall rank of the system at 1964/3720 stands such as the CPU holding back some of the GPU’s headroom for the most demanding scene, or the game’s age being less optimized for the 6‑core, 6‑thread layout. The low CPU percentile (47) relative to its companions shows that effectively, the system will excel at those other titles where the GPU is the bottleneck, but Thief, being more CPU‑sensitive, does not fully expose the RTX 4070 SUPER’s capability. Consequently, the combination performs well enough to hold a solid frame rate, yet its rank is not at the top of the table, aligning with the CPU’s mid‑tier position.

Nevertheless, the combo delivers smooth playability at every resolution tested, even at Ultra 4K the average 63 FPS keeps the game fluid. Should a user pair a stronger processor with this GPU, the 1964 position could improve, but that would be outside the scope to these measured results.