Thief

The Intel Core i7-12700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 pair delivers a strong showing in Thief, with the GPU’s 16 GB GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth proving ample for the game’s textures, while the CPU’s 12 cores and 20 threads keep frame pacing steady. In the full database of 3,720 tested combinations, this pairing ranks 273rd, placing it in the top tier of systems for this title. The measured FPS rows below show the GPU scaling clearly from 1080p to 4K, with the RTX 4080’s 9728 shading units and 76 RT cores enabling high refresh rates even at Ultra settings in a 2014 stealth title.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the primary driver of Thief’s frame output. Its AD103 chip uses the Ada Lovelace architecture built on a 5 nm process from TSMC, with 45,900 million transistors across a 379 mm² die. The GPU’s base clock sits at 2205 MHz and boosts to 2505 MHz, while the 16 GB of GDDR6X memory runs at an effective 22.4 Gbps over a 256-bit bus, yielding 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. For a stealth title like Thief, which relies on dense interior geometry and shadow-heavy lighting, this memory subsystem ensures texture streaming at 4K stays smooth without stutter.

In raw compute terms, the RTX 4080 delivers 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is more than enough for a 2014 title’s shader work. The GPU’s 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are not heavily exercised by Thief’s standard rasterization pipeline, but they contribute to the card’s high 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,567. The passmark G3D score of 34,457 and G2D score of 1,239 further indicate strong overall graphics throughput, and the GPU’s percentile vs all GPUs is 86, placing it in the top 14% of all graphics cards ever tested.

The 4K results confirm that the RTX 4080 is not the limiting factor at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the GPU averages 161 FPS on High settings, and at 1440p, it drops to 129 FPS. The 4K High result of 76 FPS shows the memory bandwidth and ROPs holding up well, though the gap between 1440p and 4K (a 41% reduction) is larger than the 1080p to 1440p drop (20%), indicating that the GPU is still well ahead of the game’s engine requirements. The RTX 4080’s nearest rivals include the RTX 4080 SUPER at 0.1% delta, the Radeon Pro W5700X at –1.1%, and the RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at –2.6%, which are all within a narrow performance band.

The GPU’s role is further clarified by its average benchmark score of 54,247, which is 1.1% higher than the Pro W5700X and 2.7% higher than the Radeon 8060S. This places it in a competitive position, but for Thief specifically, the measured FPS shows that the GPU is rarely the bottleneck—the CPU’s role becomes more relevant at higher frame rates, as seen in the 1080p results where the average FPS exceeds 190 on Low settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700K and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is ranked 273rd out of 3,720 tested combos in Thief. That top 7% placement (273/3720) indicates that this system is one of the strongest pairings for this title, with only 272 combinations delivering higher average FPS across the tested resolutions and settings. The comboRankInGame field confirms that this ranking is specific to Thief, not a general-purpose score, so it reflects the game’s performance nuances. For context, the CPU’s percentile vs all CPUs is 84, and the GPU’s percentile vs all GPUs is 86, meaning both components are in the top 16% of their respective categories.

The ranking is driven by the measured FPS rows: at 4K Ultra, the combo still achieves 72 FPS, and at 1080p Low, it reaches 197 FPS. These scores are substantially higher than the average FPS for all tested combos, which isn’t directly provided but is implied by the ranking. The data shows that the i7-12700K and RTX 4080 together deliver a smooth experience even at Ultra settings across all resolutions, with only the 4K Ultra setting dipping below 80 FPS.

The nearest rivals for the CPU show that the i7-12700K’s average benchmark score is 35,287, which is –0.1% against the Core i5-13600T, –0.2% against the i7-12700KF, –0.3% against the i7-13700T, and –0.4% against the Core 5 213PE. This tight clustering means the i7-12700K is not a performance outlier; the 4080 GPU is providing the majority of the FPS headroom. The GPU’s nearest rivals are all AMD or Super variants, but none of those are paired with the i7-12700K in this benchmark, so the combo ranking stands apart.

FAQ

*Q: Does the RTX 4080’s 16 GB VRAM matter for Thief?*

A: Yes. The 16 GB GDDR6X memory is more than sufficient for Thief’s textures, which is a 2014 title. The 716.8 GB/s bandwidth ensures smooth texture streaming at 4Kp, even on Ultra settings, where the combo still holds 72 FPS.

Q: Why is the 4Kp Ultra score lower than 1080p Low?

A: The measured data shows 4Kp Ultra averages 72 FPS, while 1080p Low reaches 197 FPS. This is a resolution scaling effect—the GPU must render 4 times the pixels, which lowers the frame rate, but the i7-12700K’s 12 cores and 20 threads keep the CPU from becoming the bottleneck at any resolution.

Q: How does the i7-12700K compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i7-12700K’s average score is 35,287, which is –0.1% vs the i5-13600T, –0.2% vs the i7-12700KF, –0.3% vs the i7-13700T, and –0.4% vs the Core 5 213PE. This means it is essentially tied with those chips, so the RTX 4080 is the component driving the combo rank.

Q: Is the combo rank of 273 out of 3,720 good?

A: Yes. Being in the top 273 of 3,720 combinations means it outperforms 93% of all tested GPU-CPU pairings in Thief. Only 272 combos have a higher average FPS across the tested settings and resolutions.

Q: What settings does the benchmark data cover?

A: The measured FPS includes four settings per resolution: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. For each, the data provides average FPS, and for Medium, it also includes minimum and maximum FPS, but not for the other presets.

Q: How does the RTX 4080’s performance compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 4080 has an average score of 54,247, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER, –1.1% vs the Radeon Pro W5700X, –2.6% vs the RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and –2.7% vs the Radeon 8060S. This shows it is the fastest of those four GPUs in synthetic tests.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how the i7-12700K and RTX 4080 scale across 1080p, 1440p, and 4Kp. At 1080p, the combo averages 197 FPS on Low, 178 FPS on Medium, 161 FPS on High, and 158 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 1440p, those numbers drop to 173 FPS (Low), 157 FPS (Medium), 129 FPS (High), and 123 FPS (Ultra). At 4Kp, the scores are 131 FPS (Low), 100 FPS (Medium), 76 FPS (High), and 72 FPS (Ultra).

These drops are not linear. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS across all settings falls by about 14% (from ~174 FPS to ~150 FPS). From 1440p to 4Kp, the average falls by 37% (from ~150 FPS to ~95 FPS). This indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4Kp, while the CPU is still capable of delivering high frame rates at lower resolutions. The RTX 4080’s 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is enough to drive 1080p at over 160 FPS, but the pixel count at 4Kp (8.3 million pixels) requires more effort, as shown by the 76 FPS High.

The data shows that the CPU is never a bottleneck in this title. At 1080p, the i7-12700K’s 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost are sufficient to keep the GPU fed, as evidenced by the 197 FPS Low average. At 4Kp Low, the FPS drops to 131, a 33% reduction, which is more than the 37% reduction in frame rate from 1440p to 4Kp, indicating that the GPU is the primary constraint. The minimum FPS for 1080p Medium is 151, and for 1440p Medium it is 133, while 4Kp Medium min is 85, which shows that frame pacing remains stable even at lower resolutions.

CPU Role — cores, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from Alder Lake, built on a 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with 25 MB of L3 cache. The CPU’s integrated UHD Graphics 770 is not used in this benchmark, as the RTX 4080 handles all rendering. The CPU’s single-thread performance is strong, as shown by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,850.5 and a multi-core score of 19,784. Its Geekbench 6.2 single-core score is 2,308 and multi-core is 15,790, which are typical for a 12th-gen part.

In Thief, the CPU’s role is to maintain consistent frame pacing. The benchmark results show that at 1080p, the average FPS is 161 on High, which is 29% higher than the 4Kp High average of 76 FPS, but the CPU is not the reason for that drop. The i7-12700K’s 12 cores and 20 threads handle the game’s AI and physics well, as evidenced by the high 3DMark 16-thread score of 9,276 and the max-thread score of 9,979. These scores indicate that even at high thread counts, the CPU can deliver enough compute to keep the RTX 4080 busy.

However, the CPU is not a major differentiator for Thief’s performance. The nearest rivals show that the i7-12700K’s average score is 35,287, which is almost identical to the i5-13600T, i7-12700KF, i7-13700T, and Core 5 213SR (with deltas of –0.1% to –0.4%). This means that swapping to a similar CPU would not change the FPS in this title by more than a few percent. The GPU is the dominant factor, and the CPU’s 84th percentile ranking vs all CPUs is high, but the game’s frame rate is still capped by the GPU at 4Kp.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy—each core has 1.25 MB of L2 and 80 KB of L1—is efficient for the game’s access patterns, and the DDR4/DDR5 support is irrelevant to the measured data. The 125 TDP is within the power budget for a desktop system, and the 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures the single-thread performance needed for the game’s scripted sequences. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1,043 and 2-thread score of 2,065 are above-average, which helps with the game’s main-thread load.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data provides four presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—across three resolutions. For the best experience in Thief, the data suggests that Medium settings offer the optimal balance between visual quality and frame rate, especially at 4Kp. At 4Kp, Medium delivers an average 100 FPS with a minimum of 85 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for a smooth experience. High at 4Kp drops to 76 FPS, and Ultra falls to 72 FPS, both still playable but less comfortable for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 1440p, High is the recommended preset, achieving 129 FPS average, while Medium gives 157 FPS. The data shows that High at 1440p is the sweet spot for a 144 Hz monitor, though Medium is also viable if minimum frame rates are a concern (133 FPS min vs unknown for High). At 1080p, Medium hits 178 FPS average with a minimum of 151 FPS, making it ideal for 165 Hz or 240 Hz displays. Low settings at 1080p push to 197 FPS, but the visual quality suffers for marginal gains.

For a 4Kp display, the data recommends Medium as the best choice: the average of 100 FPS is 24% higher than High (76 FPS) and 28% higher than Ultra (72 FPS), with a minimum of 85 FPS ensuring no dips below 60. If the user prefers higher visual fidelity, Ultra at 4Kp is still playable at 72 FPS, but it is not the best for competitive play. For 1080p, Medium is the best preset overall, with a maximum of 204 FPS and an average of 178 FPS, which is a 12% increase over High and 11% increase over Ultra.

The measured FPS data indicates that the GPU is the limiting component at 4Kp, so choosing Medium over High or Ultra provides the largest frame rate gain per visual cost. At 1080p, the CPU is not limiting, so the GPU can run any preset above 158 FPS, making Medium the recommended default for the best experience.