Thief

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

The Intel Core i7-13700K brings 16 cores and 24 threads to this benchmark run, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This Raptor Lake-S part, built on Intel's 10 nm process, sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs tested in the database, with an average benchmark score of 47282. The CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 per core provide substantial headroom for feeding the GPU in Thief, a 2014 stealth title that was designed before modern multi-core scaling became standard.

What the data shows is that the i7-13700K is rarely the limiting factor in this game. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 181.7 FPS, which is more than enough to saturate any mainstream display. The CPU's single-thread performance, measured at 1136 in 3dmark_single_thread and 4333 in passmark_single_thread, ensures that Thief's game logic and AI routines — which typically rely on one or two threads in games from this era — are handled with ease. Even the 2-thread 3dmark score of 2262 indicates strong low-thread-count performance, which is directly relevant to a game like Thief that predates the wide adoption of 8-core processors.

The processor's multicore capabilities, while not heavily taxed by Thief, still contribute to frame pacing stability. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 39000 and Geekbench multicore score of 17731 demonstrate that background tasks or streaming overhead will not cause frame drops. The Passmark multithread score of 45887 further corroborates this. In essence, the CPU provides a massive performance cushion, and the measured FPS deltas between settings presets at the same resolution are almost entirely attributable to GPU workload changes, not CPU limitations.

Comparing to its nearest rivals in the database, the i7-13700K sits within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 5945 and within 0.4% of the Intel Core i9-12900F. The deltaPct values show the i7-13700K is effectively tied with these parts in aggregate CPU benchmarks, meaning any FPS differences in Thief would come from GPU or platform characteristics rather than raw CPU compute. The 0.1% gap to the i7-13700KF (which is the same silicon without integrated graphics) is within measurement noise.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Across all three resolutions, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience when considering the measured average FPS values. At 1080p, Medium delivers 140.1 FPS, which is 29.1% higher than High (107.6 FPS) and 37.8% higher than Ultra (101.7 FPS), while only sacrificing 41.6 FPS compared to Low (181.7 FPS). The jump from Low to Medium costs 41.6 FPS but the visual improvement from Low to Medium is typically substantial in Thief, which uses advanced lighting and shadow effects that are heavily reduced at Low settings.

At 1440p, the same pattern holds. Medium produces 97.5 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. High delivers 70.5 FPS and Ultra drops to 68 FPS, both playable but with less headroom for demanding scenes. Low at 1440p hits 124.5 FPS, but the visual compromise at Low settings in a stealth game where visibility and shadow detection are gameplay mechanics makes this preset less desirable despite the frame rate advantage.

At 4K, Medium is the only preset that remains above 50 FPS, delivering 56.6 FPS. High drops to 43.3 FPS and Ultra falls to 41.1 FPS, both of which may introduce noticeable stutter in fast-paced movement sections. Low at 4K produces 73.1 FPS, but the loss of shadow detail and ambient occlusion at Low settings undermines Thief's core stealth gameplay, where reading shadows correctly is essential. The data therefore points to Medium as the recommended preset for this combo across all resolutions, with the caveat that 4K Ultra (41.1 FPS) is only viable if the user prioritizes visual fidelity over smoothness.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals classic GPU-bound behavior for this combo in Thief. At Medium settings, the transition from 1080p (140.1 FPS) to 1440p (97.5 FPS) represents a 30.4% performance drop, while moving from 1440p to 4K (56.6 FPS) costs another 41.9%. This steep decline as resolution increases indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, not the i7-13700K.

The same pattern appears at High settings: 1080p (107.6 FPS) to 1440p (70.5 FPS) is a 34.5% reduction, and 1440p to 4K (43.3 FPS) is a 38.6% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drops are 33.1% from 1080p to 1440p (101.7 to 68 FPS) and 36.3% from 1440p to 4K (68 to 41.1 FPS). These consistent percentage drops across presets are the signature of a GPU-limited scenario, where the CPU has ample headroom and the graphics card's pixel throughput determines the frame rate.

At Low settings, the scaling is less severe between 1080p (181.7 FPS) and 1440p (124.5 FPS) — a 31.5% drop — but the 1440p to 4K transition (73.1 FPS) costs 41.3%. Even at Low, the RTX 4060's 128-bit memory bus and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth become limiting factors at 4K, as the resolution demands more memory traffic than the card can sustain. The i7-13700K, with its 16 cores and high boost clock, is never the constraint here; the data consistently points to the GPU as the component that determines playability at each resolution.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 874th out of 1642 tested combos in Thief. This places the combo in the 46.8th percentile of all tested configurations, meaning roughly 53% of tested combos perform better and 47% perform worse. Given that the CPU sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs and the GPU sits in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, the combo's mid-pack ranking in Thief reflects the game's age and its relative insensitivity to the latest hardware.

The rank suggests that Thief, being a 2014 title, does not fully utilize the i7-13700K's modern architecture. The game likely benefits more from raw single-thread speed and GPU rasterization throughput. The RTX 4060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 performance are more than sufficient for this game's DirectX 11-era rendering, but the combo's rank indicates that many older or differently-balanced configurations achieve similar or better results. The gap between the CPU's high percentile and the combo's mid-pack rank highlights that Thief is not CPU-bound; the GPU's mid-tier positioning is the limiting factor in this pairing.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the AD107 chip with Ada Lovelace architecture, featuring 3072 shading units, 96 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. Its base clock of 1830 MHz and boost clock of 2460 MHz, combined with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, produce 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card's 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present but largely irrelevant for Thief, which does not use ray tracing or DLSS. The GPU's 66th percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 23181 place it in the mid-range of the database.

In Thief, the RTX 4060's performance is driven primarily by its rasterization throughput and memory bandwidth. The measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (101.7 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (68 FPS) show that the card can handle this game's maximum settings at lower resolutions. However, the 4K Ultra result of 41.1 FPS reveals that the 128-bit memory interface and 8 GB VRAM capacity become constraints at higher pixel counts. The card's nearest rivals — AMD Radeon RX 6600M (deltaPct -0.6) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (deltaPct -0.7) — are within 1% of its aggregate score, yet the RTX 4060's modern architecture provides better efficiency per watt.

The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 19545 and DirectX 11 score of 175 are directly relevant to Thief, which uses DirectX 11. The card's 118.1 GPixel/s pixel rate and 236.2 GTexel/s texture rate determine how quickly it can fill the screen with geometry and textures. At 1080p, these rates are sufficient for over 180 FPS at Low settings, but at 4K, the pixel rate becomes the bottleneck, explaining the dramatic FPS drop at every preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

1920x1080 (1080p): The combo delivers its highest frame rates at this resolution. Low settings produce 181.7 FPS, Medium drops to 140.1 FPS, High reaches 107.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 101.7 FPS. The 80 FPS gap between Low and Ultra (181.7 vs 101.7) shows that Thief's higher presets impose significant GPU workloads, but even Ultra remains well above 100 FPS, making 1080p the resolution where this combo provides maximum smoothness across all settings.

2560x1440 (1440p): Performance scales down predictably. Low hits 124.5 FPS, Medium delivers 97.5 FPS, High produces 70.5 FPS, and Ultra drops to 68 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra narrows to just 2.5 FPS, suggesting that Ultra's additional effects (likely higher shadow resolution and ambient occlusion) are only marginally more demanding than High at this resolution. All presets except Ultra remain above 70 FPS, making 1440p a viable resolution for High settings without sacrificing smoothness.

3840x2160 (4K): This is where the GPU's limitations become apparent. Low produces 73.1 FPS, Medium drops to 56.6 FPS, High falls to 43.3 FPS, and Ultra reaches 41.1 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is only 2.2 FPS, indicating that both presets are equally taxing at 4K. Only Low and Medium achieve playable frame rates above 50 FPS. The 32 FPS difference between Low and Ultra (73.1 vs 41.1) at 4K contrasts sharply with the 80 FPS difference at 1080p, demonstrating that the GPU's pixel throughput limit compresses the FPS range as resolution increases. For 4K gameplay, Medium is the highest preset that maintains consistent performance above 55 FPS.