Thief

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D in Thief produces a dataset that highlights a significant performance bottleneck at lower resolutions. While the GPU is a high-end Blackwell 2.0 part with a 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, the six-core Coffee Lake CPU from 2018 limits frame rates at 1080p. The measured FPS shows a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the load shifts to the GPU, and average frame rates become more consistent. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra settings is 23 FPS, but at 4K, that gap narrows to 17 FPS, indicating that the CPU is the limiting factor in lower-resolution scenarios. The combo ranks 1443rd out of 2851 tested combinations, placing it in the lower half of the database despite the powerful GPU.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 96 FPS. This is the lowest average among the 1080p settings, with High at 97 FPS, Medium at 107 FPS, and Low at 119 FPS.

Q: How much faster is 1080p Low compared to 4K Ultra?

A: The 1080p Low preset delivers 119 FPS, while the 4K Ultra preset delivers 71 FPS. This represents a 48 FPS difference, or roughly a 67.6% higher frame rate at the lower resolution and lower quality setting.

Q: What is the only setting that provides a min and max FPS reading?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with complete min and max FPS data across all resolutions. For example, at 2560x1440, the Medium preset has a min of 81 FPS and a max of 109 FPS, with an average of 95 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-core performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2254. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, has an average score of 2259, resulting in a delta of -0.2%, meaning the i5-9400 is essentially tied in performance with that rival.

Q: What is the GPU's memory bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D features a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. This is paired with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus.

*Q: What is the combo's rank in the database for Thief?*

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 1443rd out of 2851 tested combos. This places it in the 49.4th percentile of all tested combinations for this game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain the high frame rates observed at 4K. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz and boosts up to 2407 MHz, with a memory clock of 1750 MHz running at 28 Gbps effective. This configuration yields a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, which are substantial figures for rendering detailed scenes. The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, ensuring that texture data and geometry can be fed to the 21,760 shading units without stalling.

In Thief, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 71 on Ultra to 88 on Low. The difference between these two presets is 17 FPS, which is a relatively small spread compared to the 1080p results. This suggests that at 4K, the rendering workload is heavy enough to keep the GPU fully engaged, and the performance scaling between settings is more linear from the GPU's perspective. The RTX 5090 D's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is likely the key driver behind maintaining playable frame rates at this high resolution, even with the older CPU.

The data shows that the GPU is not the limiting factor at any resolution tested. Even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 71 is well above playable thresholds, indicating that the GPU has ample headroom. The largest FPS jump from a setting change occurs at 1080p, where moving from Ultra (96 FPS) to Low (119 FPS) yields a 23 FPS improvement. This is a CPU-bound scenario, as the GPU is capable of much higher output, but the CPU cannot feed it fast enough at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience for this combination. It is the only preset that includes min and max FPS readings, providing a complete picture of performance stability. At 1080p, the Medium preset averages 107 FPS with a min of 91 FPS and a max of 124 FPS. This indicates a smooth experience with minimal frame drops, which is ideal for a stealth game where consistent frame pacing is important for precise movement and timing.

At 1440p, the Medium preset averages 95 FPS with a min of 81 FPS and a max of 109 FPS. This is still a very playable experience and offers a significant visual upgrade over 1080p. The 4K Medium preset averages 79 FPS, which is the highest average among the 4K presets that have complete data, though the min and max are 67 and 91 FPS respectively. For users with a 4K display, Medium is the recommended starting point, as it provides a 7 FPS improvement over High and an 8 FPS improvement over Ultra at that resolution.

The Ultra preset does not offer a meaningful advantage in this game for this hardware. At every resolution, Ultra averages only 1 FPS lower than High, while presumably demanding more from the GPU. For example, at 1440p, High averages 86 FPS and Ultra averages 84 FPS. The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates, sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a game like Thief that relies on atmosphere and lighting. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot, offering a 10 FPS improvement over High at 1080p and a 12 FPS improvement at 1440p, while maintaining a tighter min FPS range.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 119 FPS, which is the highest recorded in the dataset. The Medium preset follows at 107 FPS, with High at 97 FPS and Ultra at 96 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 23 FPS, and the min FPS for Medium is 91, indicating that even the lower frame rates remain high.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages decrease across all settings, but the relative ordering remains consistent. Low averages 105 FPS, Medium averages 95 FPS, High averages 86 FPS, and Ultra averages 84 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 21 FPS, a slight narrowing from the 1080p spread. The Medium preset at this resolution has a min of 81 FPS and a max of 109 FPS, showing that the frame rate can dip below 85 FPS during demanding scenes, but it recovers well.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates drop further, but the GPU's power keeps them playable. Low averages 88 FPS, Medium averages 79 FPS, High averages 72 FPS, and Ultra averages 71 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 17 FPS, the smallest of the three resolutions. The Medium preset at 4K has a min of 67 FPS and a max of 91 FPS, which means that while the average is around 79 FPS, there are moments where the frame rate can fall to 67 FPS, which might be noticeable on a high-refresh-rate display but is still acceptable for a single-player stealth title.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the nature of the bottleneck in this system. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 119. Moving to 1440p Low, the average drops to 105 FPS, a 11.8% decrease. Further moving to 4K Low, the average is 88 FPS, a 26.1% decrease from 1440p and a 26.1% decrease from 1080p. This pattern shows that the frame rate drops are not linear with the pixel count increase, suggesting that the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor as resolution increases.

For the Ultra preset, the scaling is similar but with a smaller absolute range. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 96 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 84 FPS, a 12.5% decrease. At 4K Ultra, the average is 71 FPS, a 15.5% decrease from 1440p and a 26.0% decrease from 1080p. The fact that the percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is nearly identical for both Low (26.1%) and Ultra (26.0%) indicates that the GPU is handling the load consistently across settings.

The data indicates that the CPU is the primary limiting factor at 1080p. The i5-9400 has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 6 cores and 6 threads. In a 2014 game like Thief, which likely uses fewer threads, the CPU's single-core performance becomes critical. The average FPS at 1080p Low (119) is significantly higher than at 4K Low (88), but the gap between 1440p and 4K is smaller, suggesting that the GPU starts to take over the workload at higher resolutions. The fact that the FPS does not double when going from 4K to 1080p, despite the pixel count being four times lower, confirms that the CPU is holding back performance at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 9 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU's benchmark scores show a multi-core score of 6629 in Cinebench R23 and a single-core score of 935 in the same test. These figures place the CPU in the 47th percentile of all CPUs, indicating it is a mid-range part that is showing its age.

In Thief, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p. The difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p is 23 FPS, which is the largest spread in the dataset. This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU is the bottleneck, and changing the graphics settings has a limited impact because the GPU is not fully utilized. The CPU's single-core performance, as indicated by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 935, is the key metric for a game from 2014, which likely relies on a few fast cores rather than many slower ones.

The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, has an average benchmark score of 2259, which is only 0.2% higher than the i5-9400's score of 2254. This indicates that the i5-9400 is competitive with other mid-range CPUs from its era, but it cannot match the modern GPU's potential. The fact that the combo ranks 1443rd out of 2851 is largely due to the CPU's limitations, as the GPU is in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. The data shows that upgrading the CPU would likely yield significant FPS gains at 1080p and 1440p, but the GPU's power ensures that 4K performance remains strong even with the older processor.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 1443rd out of 2851 tested combos in Thief. This places it in the 49.4th percentile, meaning it performs better than slightly less than half of all tested combinations. This ranking is surprisingly low given the GPU's capabilities, but it is a direct result of the CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions.

The GPU itself ranks in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT, has an average score of 76,904, which is 1.1% lower. This shows that the RTX 5090 D is a top-tier GPU, and its performance is not the reason for the combo's middling rank. Instead, the CPU's 47th percentile ranking drags the overall combo down.

The data shows that the combo's ranking would improve significantly if the CPU were upgraded to a more modern part. At 1080p, the average FPS across all settings is 104.75, but the CPU limits the maximum to 119 FPS. At 4K, the average FPS across all settings is 77.5, which is more representative of the GPU's capability. The combo's rank of 1443 is a reflection of the mismatch between the high-end GPU and the mid-range CPU, and users with this pairing would benefit from a CPU upgrade to fully utilize the RTX 5090 D's potential. The measured FPS data confirms that the GPU is the star of this pairing, but the CPU prevents it from achieving its full performance ceiling.