Thief

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rate data for this configuration — an Intel Core i7-12700K paired with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 — reveals a clear hierarchy across the four preset quality levels. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 74 FPS, which stands as the highest measured value in the entire dataset for this combo. This is 18 FPS ahead of the Medium preset's 56 FPS average, and it places the experience firmly in smooth, responsive territory for a stealth title where consistent frame pacing matters more than peak visual fidelity.

The Medium preset at 1080p produces a 56 FPS average, with a recorded minimum of 48 FPS and a maximum of 65 FPS. This range indicates that the experience remains playable throughout, though the 8 FPS gap between the average and the minimum suggests occasional dips during busier scenes. The High preset drops to a 43 FPS average at 1080p, while the Ultra preset bottoms out at 41 FPS. Neither of these higher presets maintains a 60 FPS average, which is a meaningful threshold for a game that relies on precise timing and environmental awareness.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset still produces a respectable 51 FPS average, which is the only preset at this resolution to exceed 50 FPS. Medium follows at 39 FPS, with High at 29 FPS and Ultra at 28 FPS. The step from Low to Medium at 1440p represents a 12 FPS loss, which is proportionally similar to the 18 FPS loss observed at 1080p between those same two presets. This consistency suggests that the scaling penalty for raising quality settings is relatively uniform across resolutions, though the absolute frame rates become increasingly marginal as pixel count rises.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically. Low preset delivers 30 FPS on average, Medium drops to 23 FPS, and both High and Ultra sit at 17 FPS. The 4K Low result is technically playable in a slow-paced stealth context, but the 30 FPS average leaves no headroom for demanding scenes. The 4K Medium result includes a minimum of 19 FPS and a maximum of 26 FPS, which shows how tightly clustered the frame delivery becomes under this load.

Given these measurements, the optimal experience is achieved with the Low preset at 1920x1080, where the 74 FPS average provides the best combination of smoothness and responsiveness. For users willing to accept a lower frame rate in exchange for improved visuals, Medium at 1080p offers a 56 FPS average with a recorded minimum of 48 FPS, which remains above the 30 FPS playability floor. The data does not support choosing High or Ultra at any resolution, as neither preset reaches 45 FPS average at 1080p, and both fall below 30 FPS at 1440p. The Medium preset at 1440p, at 39 FPS average, represents a middle ground for users prioritizing resolution over frame rate, but the 1080p Low setting is the clear recommendation from the measured rows.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the primary constraint in this pairing, and the benchmark data makes this evident through the frame rate collapses at higher resolutions and quality settings. The GPU carries 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 128-bit bus, yielding 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock runs at 1665 MHz, with a base clock of 1485 MHz. These specifications place the GTX 1650 in the 40th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 7472.

The GPU's nearest rivals, based on average benchmark scores, include the AMD Radeon HD 8850M at 7447 (0.3% behind), the Intel UHD Graphics 750 at 7441 (0.4% behind), and the AMD Radeon R7 350 at 7425 (0.6% behind). The Intel Arc A310 sits slightly ahead at 7550, representing a 1% delta. This clustering indicates that the GTX 1650 sits at a specific performance tier, and the measured frame rates in Thief align with this modest positioning.

The 4 GB VRAM capacity is a notable factor for Thief, a 2014 release that predates the GPU by five years. The game's texture requirements at higher presets can stress this capacity, and the data shows that Ultra settings produce identical 17 FPS averages at both 1440p and 4K, suggesting the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling rather than scaling gradually with resolution. The GTX 1650's 896 shading units and 32 ROPs, combined with its 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, define its raw compute limits. The pixel rate of 53.28 GPixel/s and texture rate of 93.24 GTexel/s provide additional context for why the 4K Ultra result matches the 4K High result exactly at 17 FPS — the GPU is saturated in both cases.

The GPU's 75 W TDP and lack of power connectors indicate a low-power design, which is consistent with its performance tier but does not alter the measured outcomes. The passmark DirectX 11 score of 58 and DirectX 12 score of 35 show that the GPU's API support is functional but not optimized for modern workloads; Thief, as a DirectX 11-era title, aligns with the GPU's stronger API path. The GPU compute score of 3048 further underscores its limited throughput, which manifests in the game as the frame rate ceiling observed across all resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 follows a predictable pattern of decline, but the magnitude of the drop varies by preset. At Low settings, the 1080p average of 74 FPS falls to 51 FPS at 1440p, a 23 FPS reduction, and then to 30 FPS at 4K, another 21 FPS drop. This represents a 59% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor — a CPU-bound scenario would show flatter scaling across resolutions.

At Medium settings, the 1080p average of 56 FPS drops to 39 FPS at 1440p (a 17 FPS loss) and then to 23 FPS at 4K (a 16 FPS loss). The total reduction from 1080p to 4K at Medium is 33 FPS, or 59%, matching the proportional decline seen at Low. This consistency strongly suggests that the GTX 1650's rendering throughput scales nearly linearly with pixel count, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload.

High settings show a steeper absolute decline: 43 FPS at 1080p, 29 FPS at 1440p (down 14 FPS), and 17 FPS at 4K (down 12 FPS). The Ultra preset follows a similar trajectory: 41 FPS at 1080p, 28 FPS at 1440p (down 13 FPS), and 17 FPS at 4K (down 11 FPS). Both High and Ultra lose roughly 26 FPS from 1080p to 4K, and both converge to the same 17 FPS floor at 4K.

The convergence at 4K across High and Ultra — both at 17 FPS average — is a telling indicator. It shows that beyond a certain quality threshold, the GPU's compute resources are fully consumed, and additional quality settings make no measurable difference. The 4K Low result of 30 FPS is the only 4K value that approaches playability, and even that is marginal. The data makes clear that this combo is not suited for 4K gaming in Thief; the GPU simply does not have the fill rate or bandwidth to maintain acceptable frame rates above 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of presets was measured. Low settings produce an average of 74 FPS, with no minimum or maximum recorded. Medium settings yield 56 FPS average, with a minimum of 48 FPS and a maximum of 65 FPS. High settings drop to 43 FPS average, and Ultra settings produce 41 FPS average. The Medium preset's recorded min-max spread of 48-65 FPS shows a 17 FPS range, which is the widest spread in the entire dataset, indicating that Medium at 1080p has the most variable frame delivery.

At 2560x1440, Low settings average 51 FPS, Medium averages 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 FPS and a maximum of 45 FPS, High averages 29 FPS, and Ultra averages 28 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p shows a 12 FPS range (33-45), which is narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU's workload becomes more consistently heavy as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the results are as follows: Low averages 30 FPS, Medium averages 23 FPS with a minimum of 19 FPS and a maximum of 26 FPS, High averages 17 FPS, and Ultra averages 17 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K has a 7 FPS range (19-26), which is the tightest spread recorded, indicating that the GPU is operating at its throughput limit with little headroom for variation.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently provides the highest frame rate, and the gap between Low and Medium narrows as resolution increases: 18 FPS at 1080p, 12 FPS at 1440p, and 7 FPS at 4K. This narrowing gap is another sign of GPU saturation — at lower resolutions, the GPU has spare capacity that can absorb the additional work of the Medium preset, but at 4K, that spare capacity is gone.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 3595 out of 3720 tested combos in Thief. This places it in the bottom 3.4% of all configurations measured for this game. The rank reflects the severe GPU bottleneck — a high-end 12th-gen CPU paired with a low-end GPU produces a system that falls far behind more balanced configurations.

The combo's rank is consistent with the GPU's 40th percentile standing among all GPUs, but the CPU's 84th percentile standing among all CPUs shows a significant mismatch. The i7-12700K is capable of far higher frame rates in other games, as evidenced by its 3DMark max threads score of 9979 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 19784, but the GTX 1650's average benchmark score of 7472 simply cannot drive the frame rates that the CPU could theoretically support.

The rank of 3595 out of 3720 means that only 125 tested combos performed worse, which is a stark indicator of how poorly this pairing suits a game like Thief. The data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor at every resolution and preset combination, and the CPU's substantial compute headroom goes largely unused. For users with this exact configuration, the measured results represent the ceiling of what is achievable, regardless of CPU tuning or overclocking potential.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K brings 12 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its 25 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide ample bandwidth for most workloads. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 19784 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1850.5 in single-core, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 34404 and a single-thread score of 4013.

In Thief, however, the CPU's role is minimal. The measured frame rates are almost entirely dictated by the GPU, as evidenced by the proportional frame rate drops across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 74 FPS average is the only result that approaches the CPU's potential, but even this value is far below what the i7-12700K could deliver with a more capable GPU. The CPU's 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 and 2-thread score of 2065 show strong single-core performance, which is relevant for a 2014 game that likely relies on fewer threads, but the GPU cannot capitalize on this strength.

The CPU's percentile rank of 84 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35287, places it near rivals like the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305, -0.1%), Intel Core i7-12700KF (35365, -0.2%), and Intel Core i7-13700T (35403, -0.3%). These deltas are negligible, confirming that the i7-12700K is a well-performing CPU in its own right. The bottleneck in Thief is unambiguous: the GPU's 40th percentile standing and its sub-75 W power envelope make it incapable of feeding the CPU's demands.

The data shows that at 4K, the CPU is effectively idle from a gaming perspective, as the GPU's 17 FPS average at High and Ultra settings leaves the CPU waiting for the next frame. Even at 1080p Low, the 74 FPS average is a GPU-limited result — the CPU has more than enough headroom to push far higher, but the GTX 1650's 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth cap the output. This CPU-GPU imbalance is the defining characteristic of this combo's performance in Thief.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: The Low preset delivers the highest measured average at 1920x1080, with 74 FPS. Medium follows at 56 FPS, High at 43 FPS, and Ultra at 41 FPS. The Low preset is the only one to exceed 60 FPS average at this resolution.

Q: Can this combo run Thief at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 30 FPS, Medium averages 23 FPS, and both High and Ultra average 17 FPS. The 4K Low result is the only one that approaches playable frame rates, but it remains marginal with no headroom for demanding scenes.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 7472, placing it 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (7447), 0.4% ahead of the Intel UHD Graphics 750 (7441), and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon R7 350 (7425). The Intel Arc A310 is 1% ahead at 7550.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The GPU is the clear limiting factor. The frame rate drops proportionally with resolution (74 FPS at 1080p Low, 51 FPS at 1440p Low, 30 FPS at 4K Low), which is characteristic of GPU-bound workloads. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking versus the GPU's 40th percentile ranking confirms the imbalance.

Q: What rank does this combo achieve among all tested configurations?

A: This combo ranks 3595 out of 3720 tested combinations in Thief, placing it in the bottom 3.4% of all configurations. Only 125 other combos performed worse in this game.

Q: What is the frame rate variance at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the average is 56 FPS with a minimum of 48 FPS and maximum of 65 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average is 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 FPS and maximum of 45 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 23 FPS with a minimum of 19 FPS and maximum of 26 FPS. The variance narrows as resolution increases.