Thief

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with an AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a solid mid-pack showing in Thief, with measured framerates that scale predictably across resolutions and quality presets. The data reveals a system that can handle high refresh rates at 1080p, drop to comfortable 60+ FPS at 1440p, and still manage decent playable numbers at 4K with adjusted settings. This analysis breaks down every measured point, the roles each component plays, and how the pairing ranks among the thousands of tested combos.

FAQ

Q: What CPU and GPU are included in this tested combo?

A: The CPU is the Intel Core i7-14700K, part of the Core 14th Gen series (Raptor Lake refresh), and the GPU is the AMD Radeon RX 7700, built on Navi 32 with RDNA 3.0 architecture.

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the measured average FPS is 108. The same resolution with Low settings yields 195 FPS, and Medium gives 148 FPS with a minimum of 126 and maximum of 171.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations for Thief?

A: This combo is ranked 1550 out of 3720 total combinations, meaning it outperforms roughly 58% of all tested dual-component pairings in the game.

Q: How much video memory does the RX 7700 have?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s.

Q: What is the CPU's core and thread count?

A: The Intel Core i7-14600K features 20 cores and 28 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz.

Q: What is the 4K Medium FPS range?

A: At 3840x2160 with Medium presets, the average FPS is 60, with a minimum of 51 and a maximum of 69.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14500K is clearly the stronger component of the two in this pairing, judging by its benchmark scores and the fact that it sits in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. Its 20 physical cores (already high for a desktop part) and 28 threads allow it to handle many of the game's background tasks, but for a stealth title like Thief the per-core strength matters more. The benchmark results reflect that: Cinebench R23 single-core yields 2105 points, while multi-core jumps to 33440.5. In synthetic tests, the CPU's auto-high average benchmark score (69355) is nearly tied with AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X (69515) and Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), being just 0.7–0.9% behind. Its single-thread Passmark score (4472) and Geekbench single-core 2569 both underpin solid response times for framerate-generating code.

The CPU's integrated graphics (UHD Graphics 770) isn't used in this discrete GPU combo, but the cache structure—80 KB L1 per core, 2 MB L2 per core, and 33 MB shared L3—helps keep frequently accessed textures and instructions nearby, reducing memory latency that can show up as frame-time spikes. The base 3.40 GHz and boost 5.60 GHz are high enough to feed the GPU modern frames, but in a game as old as Thief (released in 2014) the engine likely isn't CPU-heavy. That's consistent with the observed FPS at lower resolutions: at 1080p Low, the average 195 FPS suggests the GPU is still handling the geometry fill rate, but the CPU is clearly not a bottleneck.

One interesting point is the CPU's launch MSRP of $409. When this benchmark was measured, it's a five-year-old part that has since moved into value territory, though the data here avoids any cost analysis—just the spec sheet.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 makes or breaks the higher-resolution measures. Its 16 GB GDDR6 buffer is generous for a card that runs a 256-bit bus, giving 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. That's more than enough to keep a full 4K texture stream flowing without deletions, especially in a game that's over a decade old where texture-size footprints are modest. The GPU's boost clock of 2459 MHz and game clock of 2041 MHz deliver 25.18 TFLOPS FP32 compute, which is reflected in 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 2865. In terms of how it stands against peers, its average benchmark score of 15852 is within 1% of the Radeon RX 9060 (16014) and 1.7% below the RTX 3060 Ti (16129). Only the Radeon Pro W5500 is slightly slower (15277, a 1.4% difference).

What isn't known is whether the heavy reliance on raw rasterization (RDNA 3 has no dedicated ray tracing cores that would help) matters for Thief—the game likely uses its original API. Its G3d score of 20974 and a low DirectX 9 score of 261 are consistent with a card that still shines in older titles but isn't a behemoth. It also draws only 200 W, so power is not a limiting factor for 72% of the measured FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers twelve points: four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra at all three resolutions, with only Medium containing min/max for each. Here's the complete table:

1080p (1920x1080)

• Low: 195 FPS (no min/max data)
• Medium: 148 FPS (min 126, max 171)
• High: 113 FPS
• Ultra: 108 FPS

1440p (2560x1440)

• Low: 134 FPS
• Medium: 102 FPS (min 86, max 117)
• High: 77 FPS
• Ultra: 74 FPS

2160p (3840x2160)

• Low: 79 FPS
• Medium: 60 FPS (min 51, max 69)
• High: 46 FPS
• Ultra: 43 FPS

From left to right across each resolution, the drop between presets is uniform—roughly 20-30% per step down. The only exception is at 4K where High (46) and Ultra (43) are almost identical, suggesting that at 4K the GPU becomes the bottleneck. In contrast, the upside . At 1080p, Low and Medium span 195 to 148 FPS — a large window that suggests the game engine uses the GPU heavily anyway.

How This Combo Ranks

Among the 3720 tested combinations for Thief, this specific CPU-GPU pairing places 155th. That's a strong result, placing it in the top 58.3% of all, meaning it beats 2140 other combos. The percentile rank (using the combo rank) implies that the combination of 9700+ and 7700 is a mid-to-upper tier in this game. However, it's not near the extreme top—likely the top 100 are occupied by more recent hardware like the RTX 4080 or a 13900K with a 4090.

The CPU's percentile vs all CPUs is 94, and the GPU's vs all GPUs is 58. The bottleneck is obviously the GPU. At 1080p, the CPU is likely pushing 195 frames, so the RX 7700 is the process causing the effective cap. As resolution scales up, the GPU load increases relative to the CPU's ability, which reveals the CPU is never a constraint. This is classic behavior for a card that's overshadowed by its CPU partner.

Settings Recommendations

For the best visual : framerate balance, look at the preset that stays above 60 FPS while maintaining the highest possible quality. At 1080p, every setting from Medium (148) to Ultra (108) meets that smoothness bar, so you can run at Ultra and still clear 100 FPS. At 1440p, the situationtightens: Ultra dips to 74, High is 77, but Medium maintains 102. The best option is High (77) if you want pixel density; Medium (102) is a better choice if you're using a 144Hz monitor. At 4K, only Low (79) and Medium (60) stay playable (above 60), but High (46) is borderline and Ultra (43) is a slide show. The measured min/max at Medium (51-69) shows that even while averaging 60 there are moments of frame drops, so for a strict Vsynced monitor Medium may stutter.

The real sweet spot is 1440p with Medium (102 FPS) — it's almost half the raw pixel count of 4K while still offering 50% more frame rate than 4K's Medium. For players with 120Hz panels, that's the best matching. For 60Hz users, 4K Medium (60) provides the full 2160p detail edge over 1440p.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a clear, predictable downturn as resolution increases. At Ultra settings, the average FPS drops from 108 (1080p) to 74 (1440p) to 43 (4K). At High, it goes from 113 to 77 to 46. The scale scaling between each step is roughly 30-50% pixel mesh, but the metric FPS drop is not uniform. Going 1080p→1440p reduces FPS by about 40%-50% across all presets, and 1080p→4K reduces by roughly 75%-80% (e.g., 46 vs 103, or 79 vs 195). Notice that the drop from 1440p to 4K isn't as steep as 1080p to 1440p, which implies that the GPU is hitting a wall at 1440p before the additional pixels double the resolution.

More telling is the relationship between 2.5M and 4k. At 1080p, the CPU can push close to 200 FPS in the lightest setting, clearly exceeding the GPU's ability. By 4K, the GPU is the bottleneck for all settings, as the difference between Ultra (43) and Low (79) is only 36 FPS, whereas at 1080p the gap between Ultra (108) and Low (195) is 87 FPS. That shows the CPU headroom expands as pixel load grows, freeing the GPU to become the sole radioactive. The vinyl numbers also have constraints: at 1080p Medium, the 126-171 range (45 FPS) is a broader relative spread than at 4K Medium (51-69, 18 FPS), which means CPU-bound frame variance could be visible at low resolution, while GPU minimality at high resolution smooths out frame pacing. That's a strong signal that for 4K gameplay, the RX 7700 is the cap.