Thief

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1567th out of 1642 tested combinations in Thief, placing it in the bottom 5% of all systems benchmarked for this title. This is a decisive placement that suggests the pairing is severely constrained in this particular game, despite both components having solid individual benchmark profiles. The data shows a combo that struggles to deliver smooth frame rates at higher settings, with the measured results indicating that the GPU is the primary bottleneck in most scenarios. The ranking is particularly striking given that the CPU sits in the 89th percentile when compared to all processors, while the GPU sits in the 74th percentile against all graphics cards — yet together they produce results that are far below what those individual positions might suggest.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo rank overall in Thief?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1567th out of 1642 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 5% of all systems measured for this game.

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 73.8 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At the same resolution with Ultra settings, the average drops to 40.1 FPS.

Q: Does resolution have a significant impact on performance?

A: Yes, the data shows a dramatic scaling effect. At 1920x1080 with High settings the average FPS is 40.6, while at 3840x2160 with the same settings it falls to 18.3 — a reduction of more than half.

Q: Which component is likely limiting performance in this game?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting factor. The RX 570 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory and 2048 shading units, while the CPU has 12 cores and 20 threads — a configuration that is heavily underutilized at lower resolutions and settings.

Q: Is there a settings preset that provides a playable experience at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Medium settings yield 60.1 FPS and Low settings yield 73.8 FPS. Both are above the 60 FPS threshold, while High and Ultra both fall below 41 FPS.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the best result is 29.4 FPS on Low settings. Ultra settings produce only 20 FPS, and High settings produce 18.3 FPS, indicating that 4K is not a viable option for this pairing.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance decline as resolution increases, which is a classic indicator of GPU-bound rendering. From 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average FPS drops from 40.6 to 32.3 — a 20% reduction. Moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at the same settings, the average falls from 32.3 to 18.3 — a 43% reduction from the 1440p figure. This accelerating decline points directly at the RX 570's memory subsystem and pixel throughput capabilities.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings presets. At Low settings, the jump from 1080p to 1440p sees FPS decline from 73.8 to 51.5, and then further down to 29.4 at 4K. The Ultra preset shows a similar trajectory: 40.1 at 1080p, 25.6 at 1440p, and 20 at 4K. The fact that even Low settings cannot maintain playable frame rates at 4K (29.4 FPS) strongly suggests the GPU's 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 32 ROPs are overwhelmed by the pixel count.

Interestingly, the CPU's role becomes less relevant at higher resolutions. With 12 cores and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, the i7-12700KF is more than capable of feeding frames to the GPU, yet the average FPS at 4K High is only 18.3. This indicates that the rendering pipeline is entirely GPU-limited at this resolution, and the CPU's high single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 1043) cannot compensate for the GPU's hardware constraints.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the best experience for this combo is at 1920x1080 with Medium settings, which delivers 60.1 FPS. This is the only settings/resolution combination that clears the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining a reasonable visual quality level. The Low preset at the same resolution achieves 73.8 FPS, which provides more headroom but sacrifices visual fidelity. Given that the game is a stealth title with atmospheric lighting and shadow effects, the Medium preset appears to offer the best balance between playability and visual presentation.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more complex. Low settings produce 51.5 FPS, which is playable but not ideal, while Medium drops to 38.3 FPS and High to 32.3 FPS. None of these reach the 60 FPS target, suggesting that 1440p is only viable if the user is willing to accept lower frame rates. The 4K results are uniformly poor, with even Low settings struggling to reach 30 FPS, so this resolution should be avoided entirely.

The Ultra preset is problematic across all resolutions. Even at 1080p, it only achieves 40.1 FPS, and at 1440p it falls to 25.6 FPS. The data implies that the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM and 5.095 TFLOPS FP32 performance are insufficient for the extra effects and texture quality that Ultra demands. For users seeking a stable experience, the Medium preset at 1080p is the recommended choice based on the measured averages.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a clear progression of results based on settings. Low settings produce the highest average at 73.8 FPS, followed by Medium at 60.1 FPS, then High at 40.6 FPS, and finally Ultra at 40.1 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is substantial — a 20 FPS difference — which suggests that the High preset introduces rendering features that disproportionately tax the GPU. The near-identical scores for High and Ultra (40.6 vs 40.1) indicate that the Ultra preset adds little performance cost beyond High, but neither is close to playable at high refresh rates.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low at 51.5 FPS, Medium at 38.3 FPS, High at 32.3 FPS, and Ultra at 25.6 FPS. The scaling here is more linear between presets, with each step down in quality yielding roughly a 6-7 FPS improvement. The 1440p Low result is the only one above 50 FPS, and it still falls short of a smooth 60 FPS experience.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 29.4 FPS, Medium at 26 FPS, Ultra at 20 FPS, and High at 18.3 FPS. Notably, the High preset is actually slower than Ultra at this resolution, which is an unusual data point. This could indicate that the High preset uses a different rendering path that is less optimized for the GPU architecture, or that memory pressure causes unpredictable performance swings at 4K. The spread between Low and High is only 11 FPS, showing that the GPU is so saturated that settings changes have diminishing returns.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its benchmark scores are strong across the board: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 28979, Geekbench multicore hits 13596, and Passmark multithread scores 34092. The CPU's percentile versus all CPUs is 89, and its average benchmark score of 35355 places it nearly identical to rivals like the Intel Core i5-14400 (35336, delta 0.1%) and Intel Core i9-12900HX (35289, delta 0.2%).

In Thief, the CPU's role appears to be largely secondary given the measured FPS data. The game was released in 2014, and the i7-12700KF has more than enough processing power to handle the game's logic and physics. The 3dmark 2-thread score of 2065 and single-thread score of 1043 indicate strong per-core performance, which is typically more important for games than raw multicore throughput. However, the fact that FPS drops so significantly at higher resolutions and settings suggests the CPU is waiting on the GPU to complete frame rendering, rather than being the limiting factor itself.

The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 73.8 FPS, which is a reasonable result for a 2014 title. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar FPS across different settings at the same resolution, since lowering settings reduces GPU load but not CPU load. Instead, we see a 33 FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p, confirming that the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU's 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 20 threads provide ample headroom for background tasks and game threading, but this does not translate into higher frame rates when the GPU cannot keep up.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is a Polaris 20 chip built on GCN 4.0 architecture with a 14 nm process. It features 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, with a base clock of 1168 MHz and boost clock of 1244 MHz. The 4 GB of GDDR5 memory operates at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's FP32 performance is 5.095 TFLOPS, and it has a TDP of 150 W with a 450 W suggested PSU.

The GPU's individual benchmark scores are modest: 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 reaches 880, Geekbench OpenCL scores 32084, and Geekbench Vulkan scores 42752. Its percentile versus all GPUs is 74, and the average benchmark score of 30158 places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (30109, delta 0.2%) and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (30097, delta 0.2%). These rival deltas are within 0.8%, indicating that the RX 570's raw compute capability is competitive with much newer cards in synthetic tests.

However, in Thief, the GPU's limitations are exposed by the resolution scaling data. The 4 GB VRAM is likely insufficient for High and Ultra textures at 1440p and 4K, which would explain the drastic FPS drops at those resolutions. The 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is also a constraint at higher pixel counts, as the GPU must constantly fetch texture data from VRAM. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (20 FPS) and 4K High (18.3 FPS) suggests that the GPU is memory-bound, with the 32 ROPs unable to fill the screen efficiently at those resolutions. The fact that Low settings at 4K only reach 29.4 FPS reinforces that this GPU is not designed for high-resolution gaming, despite its 74th percentile ranking in general benchmarks.