Thief

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT delivers a flexible Thief experience: it easily clears 60 FPS at 1080p and 1440p across most settings, but only reaches a smooth threshold at 4K when graphics are set to Medium. Measured frame rates range from 195 FPS at 1080p Low to 48 FPS at 4K Ultra, indicating a system that scales predictably with resolution and settings. This analysis examines the resolution scaling, the respective roles of the CPU and GPU, the combo's overall ranking, and which presets offer the best balance between performance and offered visual options.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS from this combo shows a consistent, linear relationship between pixel count and performance—a hallmark of GPU‑bound operation. At High settings, the sequence is 124 FPS (1920×1080), 85 FPS (2560×1440), and 50 FPS (3840×2160). That is a 31.5% drop when moving from 1080p to 1440p (124 → 85) and a further 41% drop from 1440p to 4K (85 → 50). Across the other three presets, the same pattern emerges:

• Low: 1080p 195 → 1440p 147 → 4K 86
• Medium: 1080p 162 → 1440p 111 → 4K 66 (with min/max of 138/187 at 1080p, 95/128 at 1440p, 56/75 at 4K)
• Ultra: 1080p 118 → 1440p 81 → 4K 48

The percentage decrease from 1080p to 4K is remarkably uniform across presets: 59% for High, 59% for Medium, 56% for Low, and 59% for Ultra. This nearly constant fall-off with rising resolution is the signature of a system where the GPU is the primary execution limiter. If the CPU were the bottleneck at lower resolutions, the 1080p-to-1440p gap would be shallower, but the data shows an immediate, steep drop that mirrors the increase in pixel count. The only exception is the Low preset at 1440p, which retains 75% of its 1080p FPS (147 vs. 195), fractionally better than the ≈68% ratio seen in other presets; even then, the 4K number still pulls back to 86 FPS, reinforcing the notion that at 1440p certain game tasks remain CPU‑driven, but at 4K the GPU becomes the firmly dominant component.

The 4K row also reveals which settings are playable: 4K Low yields 86 FPS, Medium yields 66 FPS, High yields 50 FPS, and Ultra yields 48 FPS. At 2160p, only the Low and Medium presets can sustain a 60+ FPS cadence. That is a practical takeaway from the scaling behaviour: the Pièce de Résistance of the RX 7700 XT is not to push this 2014 title to 4K Ultra, but to provide a comfortable Medium preset.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF has 12 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost of 5.00 GHz. It sits on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process, and carries 25 MB of shared L3 cache. Its synthetic benchmark results are impressive: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28,838 and a single-core score of 4,071, a GeekBench multi-core of 14,367, and a PassMark single-thread of 7,984. Its average benchmark score across all tests is 5, or 119 across the database. This places the CPU at the 85th percentile among all processors.

The relationship to Thief is direct: this is a 10-year-old title (released on 2014-02-24) that was designed for single‑cored 2–4 thread execution. The i7-12700KF, with its high per‑core efficiency, is only required to feed the GPU with game draw calls and physics calculations. In the measured FPS data, this becomes visible at 1080p Low where the frame rate climbs to 195 FPS; that is exactly the scenario where the CPU’s instruction speed matters most. The drop to 147 FPS at 1440p and 86 FPS at 4K Low is entirely explained by the GPU’s rendering cost, not by any CPU deficiency. The reason the 1080p‑to-1440p per‑preset drop is slightly shallower at Low (about 25% vs 30-31% for High/Medium/Ultra) further signals that processor threads, even when the CPU is feeding the render pipeline, do not limit that setting. The fact that 1080p High, Medium, and Ultra all remain at 118–162 FPS—often above a 144 Hz display—confirms the CPU does not impose a ceiling. The i7-12700KF’s 12/20 core makeup is overkill for this game, but its single‑core performance (Cinebench R23 single‑core 4,071, GeekBench single‑core 2,255, 3DMark single‑thread 1,043) is what allows frame rates to scale until the GPU becomes the binding constraint. For a stealth title, where frame pacing matters for smooth traversal, the coupling of high clocks and a large cache amount produces no noticeable micro‑stutter in the data.

The CPU’s launch MSRP was $384, a detail that signals its position in the desktop market, though the effective game‑core performance is what the measurements reflect.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7700 XT uses TSMC’s 5 nm node and the Navi 32 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture. It has 22 shading units spread across 36 compute units, 96 ROPs, 216 TMUs, and 54 ray‑tracing cores. On speeds, a base clock of 1435 MHz, a game clock of 2171 MHz, and a boost clock of 2544 MHz drive the GPU. It is equipped with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192‑bit bus, yielding 512.9 GB/s memory bandwidth and 35.17 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The GPU’s compute features are backed by DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) support, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6.

Benchmark scores show the GPU is in the 67th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 22,549. Its PassMark G3D score is 22,547, 3DMark SteelFalcon (DX12) is 12,912, Vulkan is 46,443, and OpenGL 13,831. Compared with its immediate rivals—NVIDIA RTX 2080 (avg 22,895, delta -1.5) – such alter with the RX 7700 XT: it is within 1.4% of every name on the list.

In Thief, this GPU provides the computational muscle demanded at high resolutions. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is perfectly in step to what the render targets dictate. The switch from Medium to Ultra at 1080p costs 27% of the average FPS (162 → 118), but at 4K the same quality jump drops FPS from 66 to 53 (a 20% loss) over a smaller base. The GPU’s 431 GB/s memory bandwidth is more than sufficient for the game’s cells; the 4K-High and Ultra results are the ones that highlight the GPU’s raw fillrate limits. The fact that 4K only reaches 48 FPS at Ultra while 1080p already shows 118 FPS demonstrates the GPU’s performance is still the single biggest influence to smoothness in the calculator. The GPU's memory capacity (12 GB) is not stressed, but the rasterization workload is heavy enough to keep the RX 7700 XT at its top end. Its compute capability (35.17 TFLOPS) is not directly tested by a game from 2014, but the raster speed and 12GB frame buffer speak to consistent reflections.

The launch MSRP of the RX 7700 XT is 449 USD, positioning it above mid‑range models, and the benchmark averages confirm it slots between desktop and mobile GPUs of preceding generations.

How This Combo Ranks

The overall performance of the observed system—the i7-12700KF and the RX 7700 XT—places it at rank 1259 out of 3,720 tested system configurations when playing Thief. That rank translates to outperforming 66.2% of all the ranked combos (since 1,259 rank[1], meaning 1,258 are better). The rank is lower than what the CPU’s own 85th percentile and the GPU’s 67th percentile might imply because the combination is weighted by the game’s actual frame scaling, which is GPU‑centric at 4K. In relative terms, the CPU stands 42% above its standard competitor (Intel i7-13700T) in a single‑core test, but the GPU is only moderately better than its neighbours. The CPU’s excellence (0.1% delta to the i7-13700T) and the GPU’s equality (0.5% delta to the RTX 5060 Mobile) means the system does not exceed the collective percentile total—the limiting factor the GPU is the same as if using a mid‑rary model. This places the combo in the upper‑mid tier of all tested supplements, where performance is dominated by the GPU’s choices.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 2560×1440 with the High preset?

A: The measured average FPS is 85 Hz, with no minimum given in the dataset.

Q: Can the combination maintain 60 FPS at 3840×2160?

A: At 4K, only the Low (86) and Medium (66) averaged FPS exceed 60; High, Ultra produce 50 and 48 FPS, respectively. So Medium is the only playable preset that stays above the 60 FPS line.

Q: What is the jump in performance when lowering from Medium to Low at 1920×1080?

A: On the Medium preset, the average is 162 FPS, whereas Low yields 195 FPS—a +30 percent higher frame rate. The Lower drop in visual demand is 33 FPS.

Q: How does the combo’s ranking compare to other groupings in the database?

A: The combo ranks 1259th out of 3,720 systems, meaning it performs better than 66.2% of those tested, but falls outside the top quartile to the CPU and GPU percentile ratings alone.

Q: At 1440p, what does the Medium preset deliver in terms of minimum and maximum FPS?

A: On Medium, the data shows 111 average, 95 min, and 128 max FPS. That spread keeps the frame under a 5‑frame boundary.

Q: Which settings yield the highest average FPS at 1080p?

A: The Low preset leads with 195 FPS, followed by Medium (162), High (124), and Ultra (118) FPS. The maximum average FPS measured anywhere is 16–95 at 1920×1080 Low.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide clear direction for achieving the smoothest play. For 1080p operations, every preset is consummate; even Ultra averages 118 FPS, well above typical refresh rates. The Medium preset shows the best balance of graphical enhancement and frame room, presenting 162 FPS at 1080p and 66 FPS at 4K, yet with a per‑preset minimum of 138 FPS at 1080p and 56 FPS at 4K. If you are targeting a 60 Hz display at 4K, the Medium preset is the only choice among the measured that keeps the average above 60 FPS (66). Going any higher—to High or Ultra—degrades to 50 and 48 FPS, which for a stealth-style game can feel a hit on fluidity. At 2560×1440, Medium already pulls a 111 FPS average with a 95 FPS minimum, so selecting High (85) or Ultra (81) for a visual boost is still a viable option if you do not mind occasionally dipping below your display’s refresh