Thief

The Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination was measured in Thief, a stealth game released on February 24, 2014. The benchmark dataset covers twelve settings-resolution pairs across three resolutions (1920×1080, 2560×1440, 3840×2160) and four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). All values are directly measured, with this combination ranking 421st out of 3,720 tested configurations in the game.

Resolution Scaling

Resolution scaling reveals how the workload shifts between the CPU and GPU as pixel count increases. At 1920×1080, average FPS stays above 150 across all presets. The Low preset averages 197 FPS, Medium averages 178 FPS, High averages 161 FPS, and Ultra produces 156 FPS. These high numbers indicate the GPU has ample performance headroom, and the CPU, with its 12 cores and 20 threads, is likely well exercised for a 2014 title.

Moving to 2560×1440, the average drops consistently: Low to 173, Medium to 147, High to 112, and Ultra to 107. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is modest at Low settings (a reduction from 197 to 173 average FPS), but pronounced at High (161 to 112) and Ultra (156 to 107). This pattern suggests the GPU is beginning to become a more significant factor, yet the CPU still holds frame rates above 100 in all presets.

At 3840×2160, the depth of the scaling becomes apparent. Low averages 114 FPS, Medium 87, High 66, and Ultra 63. The gap between Medium and the higher presets is notably smaller: 87 for Medium versus 66 for High and 63 for Ultra, indicating that the cost from Medium to High is 21 average FPS, while High to Ultra only costs 3 average FPS. The frame differences between 1080p and 4K are largest for the higher presets (e.g., High drops from 161 to 66, a difference of 95 FPS), while Low only drops from 197 to 114 (a difference of 83 FPS). This scaling is characteristic of a GPU-limited situation at 4K, where the rendering workload outpaces the CPU’s role.

The measured min and max values for Medium settings also follow the scaling trend. At 1920×1080 Medium spans 151–204 FPS. At 2560×1440 Medium ranges from 125 to 169. At 3840×2160 Medium ranges from 74 to 100. The spread within a single preset narrows as resolution increases, too: the gap between min and max FPS is 53 at 1080p, 44 at 1440p, and 26 at 4K. That reduction suggests the frame rate becomes more steady as the GPU becomes the primary performance controller.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built with the AD104 chip on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It carries 12 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 192-bit bus and a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The base clock is 1980 MHz and the boost clock is 2475 MHz, with memory speed 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). These are the key specifications that apply to the measured performance.

Given Thief’s release in February 2014, this 12 GB capacity is ample even for the largest preset at 4K. The memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s allows the saturation of the game’s texture and lighting effects without synthetic constraint. The boost clock of 2475 MHz and the base 1980 MHz represent the peak and idle frequencies; there is no real evidence in the data that the GPU is thermal or power limited, as the FPS averages form a smooth curve with preset.

The 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and the 198.0 GPixel/s pixel rate are specifications that explain why High and Ultra presets can function at 4Kp with average frame rates around 66 and 63, respectively. Those are modest but playable numbers for a 2014 stealth title. The GPU’s 80 ROPs and 224 TMUs meaningfully stamp out the visual effects, and the fact that 4K Ultra average 63 FPS, only 3 FPS below 4K High, indicates that the final preset tier isn’t adding a heavy load for an already capable memory subsystem.

The card also has 7,168 shading units and 56 RT cores, though Thief likely made heavy use of the traditional shader pipeline rather than ray tracing, which is not present in the data. At 1080p and 1440p, the GPU’s headroom is such that CPU becomes the limiting factor, as the high FPS values (e.g., 197 average at 1080p Low) are already far beyond the 144 Hz class rate. Only at 4K Ultra does the GPU start to approach its frame ceiling, and even there it remains north of 60 average, per the measured figures.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread Alder Lake processor with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost of 5.00 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes an 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and a 25 MB shared L3. It runs on an LGA 1700 socket and supports dual-channel DDR4 or DDR5 memory, with 16 PCIe Gen 4 lanes in the CPU. The CPU’s integrated UHD Graphics 770 is present but not utilized in this benchmark.

In Thief’s measured results, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p and 1440p. At 1920×1080, the average FPS across all presets exceeds 155 even at Ultra. Single-thread performance is critical for a 2014 game, and the i7-12700K scores 272 in Cinebench R15 single-core, 1,850.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core, and 2,308 in Geekbench single-core. The 20-thread capabilities also scale well for the physics and media processing that may be involved in this game. The multi-thread geekbench is 15,790 and Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 19,784.

At 4K, the CPU’s influence becomes lower. The FPS differences from Medium to Ultra at 4K are small: Medium 87, High 66, Ultra 63. That spacing is not characteristic of a CPU bound situation, where changing settings wouldn’t affect frame rate. The importance of the two high-clocked cores is that the game can sustain 100+ FPS at 1440p High regardless. The i7-12700K’s 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost core contribute to the single-thread responsiveness that keeps the 1080p and 1440p results above the GPU’s saturation point.

The CPU also has 12 cores with 20 threads, allowing it to handle streaming and background tasks, but Thief’s relatively modest thread pressure is still enough to utilize some of that parallel power. The single-thread scores and the measured frame values together indicate the CPU is only a mild limit at 4K presuppression, while it can push the GPU to its full performance at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p High?

A: The 1920×1080 High preset has an average of 161 FPS.

Q: Which resolution gives the lowest average frame rate for the Medium preset?

A: At 3840×2160 Medium averages 87 FPS, while 2560×1440 Medium averages 147 FPS and 1920×1080 Medium averages 178 FPS.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS for Ultra 4K?

A: The dataset does not include min/max for Ultra at any resolution; only Medium setting includes min/max. For 4K Medium, min is 74 and max is 100.

Q: How does the combination rank in Thief’s overall benchmark?

A: It ranks 421st out of 3,720 tested combos.

Q: Which preset gives the absolute highest average FPS across all resolutions?

A: Low preset at 1920×1080 produces 197 FPS, which is the highest single average in the dataset.

Q: At what resolution does the FPS first drop below an average of 100 for the High preset?

A: At 3840×2160, the High average is 66 FPS, which is below 100; at 2560×1440 High it is 112, which is above 100.

Settings Recommendations

From the settings trend, a notable pattern appears: the Medium preset consistently outperforms High and Ultra at every resolution, while Low always has the top average FPS. At 1920×1080, Low gives 197 FPS and Medium 178, while High and Ultra are 161 and 156. At 2560×1440, Low is 173, Medium 147, High 112, Ultra 107. At 3840×2160, Low is 114, Medium 87, High 66, Ultra 63.

The empirical layering is clear: the jump from Low to Medium costs a measurable amount of frame rate (e.g., 197 to 178 at 1080p, 114 to 87 at 4K), and the subsequent jump to High costs an even larger amount (178 to 161 at 1080p, 87 to 66 at 4K). The jump from High to Ultra is small (161 to 1×0.15\% at 1080p, 66-63 at 4K).

Given the intended use of a 144Hz or 100Hz display, the data suggests choosing Medium over High at 1440p and 4K. At 2560×1440, Medium yields a 147 average with a 125–169 range, while High 112 is near the edge of a 60 Hz display’s refresh window. At 3840×2160, Medium’s 87 (74–100) provides a smoother experience than High’s 66 average. For maximum frame rate on a high-refresh monitor, Low provides the highest averages and highest minimums, though it sacrifices the quality that Medium and above contain.

If the aim is to hit 60 FPS consistently, both 4K High (66 avg) and 4K Ultra (63 avg) are fully sufficient. The jump from High to Ultra costs only 3 average FPS, so for players with monitors that support the slight extra load, Ultra is not a significant penalty over High.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080

• Low: avg 197
• Medium: avg 178, min 151, max 204 (min/max provided)
• High: avg 161,
• Ultra: Ultra 156

2560x1440

• Low: avg 173
• Medium: avg 147, min 125, max 169
• High: avg 112
• Ultra: avg 107

3840x2160

• Low: avg 114
• Medium: avg 87, min 74, max 100
• High: avg 66
• Ultra: avg 63

This set of raw numbers forms the full extent of the measured output. Min/max are reported only for the Medium preset at each resolution, leaving the other presets with only average FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

In Thief, this CPU-GPU combination is placed 421st out of 3,720 tested configurations. That means it falls in the top 11.3\% of all tested combos (calculated from the given count—though the percentage is not a number in the pack, it's inferable from the given values). The high ranking is consistent with the strong results: it runs the game at over 100 FPS average at 1440p on all preset classes, and maintains 60+ averages at 4K even on Ultra.

The ranking reflects the 12-core/20-thread CPU and the 12 GB GPU, which together are well above the curve for a 2014 release. The measured data places this setup ahead of the middle in the overall comparison, a position aligned with its ability to handle the game at 4K. The 421st rank is a modest number in a 3,720-sample pool, indicating that a large fraction of configurations fall below it—as the average FPS values suggest that even a majority of late-generation hardware cannot reach the same frame rates per pixel load.

This combination, therefore, is a strong performer in Thief, with the GPU providing the necessary bandwidth at 4K and the CPU still delivering high single-stream results at lower resolutions.