Thief

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers a dominant performance profile in Thief, a 2014 stealth title. The measured frame rates across all resolutions and settings place this combination at rank 18 out of 1642 tested configurations, putting it in the top 1.1% of all hardware combos for this game. The data reveals a system with immense headroom, where the GPU is rarely the limiting factor until the highest resolution and quality settings are combined.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly depending on the quality preset. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 results in a drop from 214.4 FPS to 152.4 FPS, a reduction of 62 FPS or roughly 29%. This relatively modest decline indicates that at lower settings, the system is not purely GPU-bound; the CPU and memory subsystem are contributing to the overall throughput, keeping the GPU from being the sole bottleneck.

Moving to Medium settings, the scaling is steeper. The average frame rate falls from 192.9 FPS at 1080p to 169.5 FPS at 1440p, and then to 115 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 54.5 FPS, a 32% decrease, which suggests the GPU is beginning to take on a more significant role as the pixel count increases. At High settings, the pattern continues, with 173.8 FPS at 1080p, 148.1 FPS at 1440p, and 90 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 4K here is a 48% reduction, showing that the RTX 5090's workload is growing substantially with resolution.

The most revealing data point is at Ultra settings. Here, the frame rates are 169.3 FPS at 1080p, 143.3 FPS at 1440p, and 85.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K figure is the lowest in the entire measured set, and the gap between 1440p and 4K (57.6 FPS) is the largest single-resolution jump observed. This indicates that at Ultra 4K, the game is finally saturating the capabilities of the RTX 5090, making the GPU the definitive limiting component. The fact that the 1080p Ultra score (169.3 FPS) is only slightly lower than the 1080p High score (173.8 FPS) suggests that at 1080p, the CPU or game engine is hitting a performance ceiling, preventing the GPU from fully flexing its muscles.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a behemoth of a graphics card, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process. Its specifications are staggering: 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units. The card operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz and boosts up to 2407 MHz, with a memory clock of 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). This immense processing power is backed by 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. These numbers explain why the card can push frame rates above 150 FPS even at 4K with Low settings.

In the context of Thief, a game from 2014, the RTX 5090 is massively overprovisioned. The measured frame rates show that at 1080p and 1440p, the card is rarely stressed, with even Ultra settings at 1440p producing 143.3 FPS. The GPU's percentile ranking of 94 vs all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 84306 place it near the top of the heap, just 1.6% behind the NVIDIA CMP 40HX in the nearest rivals list. The card's closest competitor, the RTX 5090 D, scores a nearly identical 84241, a delta of only 0.1%. This indicates that the RTX 5090 is performing exactly as expected for its class.

The 32 GB of VRAM is a critical asset for 4K gaming, and in Thief, the Ultra preset at 3840x2160 likely consumes a substantial portion of that memory. However, the frame rate data suggests that raw compute power, not memory capacity, is the primary constraint at Ultra 4K, given the significant FPS drop from the High preset. The card's FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are more than sufficient to handle the game's DirectX 12 Ultimate workload, even at the highest settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achievable with this CPU and GPU combination?

A: The highest recorded average frame rate is 214.4 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the peak performance point in the measured data.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 compare to its closest rival, the RTX 5090 D?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 84306, while the RTX 5090 D scores 84241. This represents a negligible delta of 0.1%, meaning the two cards perform virtually identically in synthetic benchmarks.

Q: Is the system capable of maintaining 60 FPS at 4K with High settings?

A: Yes, the data shows an average of 90 FPS at 3840x2160 with High settings. This is well above the 60 FPS threshold, indicating a comfortable margin for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the average frame rate drops from 184.7 FPS on Low to 143.3 FPS on Ultra. This is a difference of 41.4 FPS, or a 22% reduction in performance when enabling the highest quality preset.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF?

A: The Intel Core i7-13700K has an average benchmark score of 47282, while the Intel Core i7-13700KF scores 47334. The delta is -0.1%, indicating that the 13700K is essentially on par with its KF counterpart, with a negligible performance deficit.

Q: Does the game engine appear to bottleneck the GPU at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes. At 1080p, the frame rates for High (173.8 FPS), Ultra (169.3 FPS), and Medium (192.9 FPS) are relatively close, indicating that the CPU or game logic is limiting performance rather than the GPU, which could likely output far more frames.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptional performance across all presets. The Low preset yields an average of 214.4 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium settings produce 192.9 FPS, while High settings drop slightly to 173.8 FPS. Interestingly, the Ultra preset at 169.3 FPS is only 4.5 FPS slower than High, suggesting diminishing returns in GPU load between these two high-quality presets at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain very high but show more differentiation between presets. Low settings average 184.7 FPS, which is a 13.8% drop from the 1080p Low score. Medium settings produce 169.5 FPS, a 12.1% reduction from 1080p. High settings average 148.1 FPS, a 14.8% drop, and Ultra settings hit 143.3 FPS, an 15.4% decrease from their 1080p counterparts. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 41.4 FPS, indicating a wider performance gap than at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the performance penalty becomes pronounced. The Low preset still manages 152.4 FPS, which is impressive for 4K, but this is a 29% reduction from the 1080p Low score. Medium settings drop to 115 FPS, a 40.4% decrease from 1080p Medium. High settings yield 90 FPS, a 48.2% reduction from the 1080p High score. The Ultra preset struggles the most, averaging 85.7 FPS, which is a 49.4% drop from the 1080p Ultra score. This 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration that falls below 90 FPS, highlighting the extreme demand of this combination.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting the highest refresh rates, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the clear choice, offering 214.4 FPS. However, the data suggests that this is overkill for most displays, and the visual quality trade-off is substantial. A more balanced option is the High preset at 2560x1440, which delivers 148.1 FPS. This resolution provides a significant pixel density upgrade over 1080p while maintaining a frame rate well above 144 Hz, making it ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors.

For 4K gaming, the High preset at 3840x2160 is the best compromise, averaging 90 FPS. This is a playable frame rate for most users and offers a substantial visual upgrade over lower resolutions. The Ultra preset at 4K, while delivering 85.7 FPS, provides only a marginal improvement over High (90 FPS) for a significant performance cost. The data indicates that the jump from High to Ultra at 4K is not worth the 4.3 FPS loss, making High the recommended setting for 4K play. At 1440p, the Ultra preset at 143.3 FPS is a viable option for those who prioritize image quality, as it remains above the 140 FPS mark. Ultimately, the best experience depends on the display's refresh rate, but the High preset across all resolutions offers the most consistent blend of visual fidelity and performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on a 10 nm process. It features a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 30 MB shared L3 cache. This processor is a top-tier performer, ranking in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 47282. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and single-core score of 5505 demonstrate its strength in both heavily threaded and lightly threaded workloads.

In Thief, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions. The frame rate data shows that at 1080p, the CPU is often the limiting factor, as evidenced by the relatively small differences between High and Ultra presets (173.8 vs 169.3 FPS). The 13700K's high single-thread performance, as shown by its Geekbench single-core score of 2850, is crucial for a game from 2014 that may not be optimized for many cores. The processor's ability to boost to 5.40 GHz allows it to handle the game's main thread efficiently, preventing it from becoming a bottleneck until the GPU load increases at higher resolutions.

The data indicates that the CPU is well-matched with the RTX 5090 for this title. At 4K, the GPU becomes the primary constraint, but the CPU still provides enough throughput to avoid creating a secondary bottleneck. The 13700K's nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, scores 47334, a delta of -0.1%, confirming that the 13700K's integrated graphics (UHD Graphics 770) and locked features do not hamper its gaming performance. The processor's high multi-threaded score of 45887 in Passmark also ensures that any background tasks or game engine threads are handled without stealing resources from the primary rendering pipeline. In summary, the CPU provides a rock-solid foundation, ensuring that the RTX 5090 can reach its full potential in most scenarios.