Thief

The Intel Core i7-13700K and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti form a measured pairing in the stealth title Thief, released 2014-02-24. The CPU, a Raptor Lake part on the 13-generation Core series, offers 16 cores with a 3.40 GHz base clock and a 5.40 GHz boost, with a launch MSRP of $409. The GPU, part of the GeForce 50-series, contains 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus producing 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, and its launch MSRP is 749 USD. The data set here is flagged as "dataIsMeasured": true, meaning the 12 FPS rows come from actual test runs rather than extrapolations.

Resolution Scaling

Resolution scaling in Thief shows a clear trade-off between pixel count and the average frames per second (FPS). At the High preset, the 1920x1080 row produces 174 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 cuts the output to 121 FPS, and at 3840x2160 it falls to 71 FPS. The shift from 1080p to 4K represents a substantial drop of more than one half of the original value. This pattern repeats exactly for the Low preset: 212 FPS at 1920x1080, 189 at 1440p, and 124 at 4K. The Medium preset similarly goes from 192 at 1080p to 159 at 1440p, then down to 94 at 2160p. Ultra shows the same gradient: 169 down to 116 down to 68.

When viewed in tandem, the deltas between presets at the same resolution are not flat. At 4K, Low delivers 124 FPS, Medium climbs to 94, High to 71, and Ultra to 68. The difference between Medium and High is a 20-unit gap, while High to Ultra is only 5 units, indicating that the Ultra setting applies diminishing returns relative to High. At 1920x1080, the spread is tighter: Low 212, Medium 192, High 174, and Ultra 169. The 43-unit difference from Low to Ultra suggests the GPU is not saturated at 1080p, leaving headroom for CPU-limited performance. The overall scaling trend points to the GPU becoming the primary limiter at higher pixel counts, reducing FPS in near-linear steps as the number of active pixels rises.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 Ti carries a 16 GB GDDR7 frame buffer with a 256-bit bus, giving a bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s. Its base clock sits at 2295 MHz, with a boost reaching 2452 MHz, and the memory operates at a 1750 MHz clock equivalent to 28 Gbps effective. For a game released in February 2014, these specifications grossly exceed the asset complexity of the time; the frame buffer alone is more than enough to hold all texture data, and the memory bandwidth virtually eliminates any concern about bandwidth-limited asset streaming.

In the measured data, the GPU consistently delivers a usable frame rate even at maximal settings and 4K. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average is 68 FPS, improving to 71 on High and 94 on Medium. The 4K Medium run also logged both min and max figures—80 FPS minimum and 108 maximum. These numbers indicate the GPU is explicitly bound by shader computation and memory access prices at this resolution. Meanwhile, at 1920x1080 Low, the system reaches 212 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU can fully saturate the output when not limited by resolution or the CPU. The role of the 16 GB capacity is never externally probed—neither min FPS nor max FPS is published for the High and Ultra presets—so the only direct evidence comes from the Medium preset where min/max are provided.

The GPU’s closest rival in the dataset is the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, whose average benchmark score is 50001, sitting 0.1 percent lower. Next is the Intel Arc A550M at 49737 (0.4 percent higher), then the Radeon RX 6900 XT at 50951 (2 percent lower) and the RX 6800 XT at 48477 (3.1 percent higher). These deltas show the 5070 Ti is within a few percentage points of a somewhat older flagship in raw GPU compute, though the actual FPS data in Thief is more dependent on driver routine and game engine than on average synthetic scores.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS measured at 1920x1080?

A: The Low preset reaches an average of 212 FPS. The Medium preset follows with 192 FPS, then High with 174, and finally Ultra with 169.

Q: Which preset keeps the game above 90 FPS at 4K?

A: Medium is the only preset that stays above 90, at 94 FPS, with a minimum of 80 and maximum of 108. The High preset averages 71, and Ultra averages 68.

Q: How hard does the system workload fall when going from 1080p to 4K?

A: For High, the average drops from 174 to 71; for Medium, from 192 to 94; for Ultra, from 169 to 68; for Low, it drops from 212 to 124 (though this value is the only one reported at 4K).

Q: Which CPU is the closest competitor to the i7-13700K in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 5900 has an average score of 46971, which is 9 percent lower (deltaPct -0.2%). The Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 scores 47022, only 0.3 percent lower. The Ryzen 9 7845HX and the Xeon w3-2535 are each within 0.5 percent on the higher side.

Q: How does the combo rank in the database for Thie?

A: The measured combination places 235th out of 3720 tested combos, meaning it is in the top of the entire set.

Q: At 1440p, which preset finds a good balance?

A: The Medium preset gives 159 FPS with a min of 144 and max of 183. High offers only 121, while Ultra is 116. Since Medium provides over 100 frames above the 80 FPS floor, it is the highest score that stays under a 1% low of 100.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Low: 212 average (no min/max given)
• Medium: 192 average, min 163, max 221
• High: 174 average
• Ultra: 169 average

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Low: 187 average
• Medium: 159 average, min 136, max 183
• High: 121 average
• Ultra: 116 average

3840x2160 (4K)

• Low: 124 average
• Medium: 94 average, min 80, max 108
• High: 71 average
• Ultra: 68 average

The table is nearly identical in ordering at each resolution: Low > Medium > High > Ultra, with the gap between High and Ultra shrinking as resolution rises. At 1440p, High (121) is only 5 frames above Ultra (116). At 4K, High (71) is 3 frames above Ultra (68). This compress becomes particularly noticeable for the Ultra preset which sacrifices only 37% of the Medium frame rate at each resolution, while retaining the visual fidelity.

Notably, the Medium preset is the only one with min/max data at all three resolutions. The minimum values (163 at 1080p, 136 at 1440p, 80 at 4K) all stay above the average for the next lower preset at that same resolution—for instance, the 4K Medium min of 80 exceeds the 4K High at 124? Wait, it’s min 80 vs High 71. This indicates that the Medium settings provide a stable frame pacing where the worst-case dip remains playable, even at the highest pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K provides 16 cores and 24 streams, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz that boosts to 5.40 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB L1 per core, 2 MB L2 per core, and a shared 30 MB L3 cache. It also integrates a UHD Graphics 770 iGPU, but none of the measured FPS values actually call on it because a discrete RTX 5070 Ti is present. The CPU’s TDP is 125W, and the processor supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, but no memory model is shown in the data.

Its synthetic benchmark results are strong: a 0–splitter score of 10711 in the 3DMark 16-thread test, 8193 in 8-thread, 4469 in 4-thread, and 2262 in 2-thread. In Cinebench R23 it reaches a 30660 multicore score and a 2116 single-core. The PassMark tests give a multithread score of 45887, a single thread score of 4333, and a physics score of 2716. The total average benchmark score for this CPU is 46881, which places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs.

These high single-thread scores (>2000 in Cinebench) allow the CPU to feed the GPU both for light frames and at high refresh rates. At 1080p, the 174 FPS average on High is largely CPU-bound because the GPU does not require heavy work. At the lower end, the Low preset pulls the CPU to 124 FPS at 4K, indicating that the processor keeps up without bottlenecking even when the resolution heavilylessens the GPU habit. The delta to the nearest rival is small: the Ryzen 9 set scores just 0.2% to 0.5% away, implying the i7-13700K generation has no significant advantage in synthetic tests, yet the actual game numbers show no stutter or frame time spikes in the measured data.

Settings Recommendations

Optimizing for the experience is a trade-off between frame rate and visual fidelity. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset (169 FPS) is extremely playable and retains the highest level of detail; the High setting at 174 FPS only gains 5 more on average. With both above 120 FPS, the an average of 169–174 is far above any display’s standard refresh of 144 Hz, making Ultra the natural pick for high refresh monitors but the difference is minor. Alternatively, Medium at 192 FPS gives a noticeable headroom for competitive scenes, but the visual drop is equally.

At 1440p, the Medium preset yields a 159 average with a minimum of 136, which keeps most frames above a 1% low of 100. High at 121 is borderline 120Hz, while Ultra at 116 dips slightly below 120. Medium (159) is the recommended sweet spot because it offers 38 frames more than High, and the visual jump from Medium to High is not as large as the jump to resolution. For users who do not need anti-aliasing, Ultra at 116 is still playable on a 60 Hz panel, but for fluidity, Medium is the target.

At 4K, only the Medium setting (94) remains comfortably above the 80 FPS mark, with its min of 80 ensures the worst frame never falls below the old 60 Hz boundary. High at 71 and Ultra at 68 are close, but both are below 80% of the display’s 144Hz capability, so they may produce noticeable dips. The best experience for 4K is therefore Medium: it provides the highest average frame rate among the two highest presets (94 vs 71 vs 68) while still using the GPU’s full resources. Low at 124 is an option, but it undermines the visual intent of a two-year-old game.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global database of tested combinations for the single game, this pairing achieves a combo rank of 235 out of 3720 unique combos. The rank is based on the measured FPS across all