Thief

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Thief across three resolutions reveals a clear and consistent scaling pattern for the Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combination delivers 174 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops the average to 119 FPS, a reduction of 55 FPS or roughly 31.6%. At 3840x2160, the average falls further to 70 FPS, which is 104 FPS below the 1080p result, a 59.8% decrease from the baseline.

This scaling behavior indicates a strong dependency on resolution, which points directly to the GPU as the primary limiting factor at higher pixel counts. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is 55 FPS, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 49 FPS. The consistency of these drops suggests that the rendering workload scales almost linearly with pixel count, a signature of GPU-bound operation. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS at 1080p would not be as high as 174 FPS, and the drop to 1440p would be less pronounced.

At Low settings, the pattern intensifies. The 1080p Low preset reaches 219 FPS, 1440p Low reaches 193 FPS, and 4K Low reaches 121 FPS. The 4K Low result is 98 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result, a 44.7% reduction. This is a smaller percentage drop than the High preset's 59.8% reduction, which indicates that at lower settings, the CPU begins to exert more influence on the upper FPS ceiling. The 1080p Low figure of 219 FPS is likely approaching the engine's frame rate limit or the CPU's ability to feed the GPU at that speed.

The Medium preset shows intermediate scaling: 198 FPS at 1080p, 156 FPS at 1440p, and 92 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the steepest absolute drop, from 165 FPS at 1080p to 113 FPS at 1440p and 67 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 67 FPS is just below the 70 FPS High result at the same resolution, confirming that additional graphical features at Ultra carry a measurable cost even when the resolution is already high.

The data confirms that this combination is balanced for 1440p gaming, where High and Ultra presets maintain averages above 110 FPS. At 4K, the system is playable but the margins shrink, with High and Ultra both sitting in the 67 to 70 FPS range. The 1080p results are high enough to suggest that the CPU is not holding back the GPU at lower resolutions, but the scaling curve shows that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is the component determining the frame rate as resolution increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER uses the AD103 chip built on a 5 nm process from TSMC. It carries 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256 bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 672.3 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed. The GPU has a base clock of 2340 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz. These specifications directly influence the measured results in Thief.

The 16 GB memory capacity is ample for Thief, a game released in 2014, and the recorded data shows no indication of memory capacity limiting performance at any resolution. Even at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 67, which is above the 60 FPS threshold, and the memory bandwidth of 672.3 GB/s is more than sufficient for the game's asset streaming demands. The texture data in Thief, while detailed for its era, does not approach the capacity limits of this GPU.

The boost clock of 2610 MHz is a key factor in the 1080p results. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combination reaches 219 FPS. This high frame rate requires the GPU to process frames quickly, and the boost clock ensures that the shader units are running at their maximum rated speed. The GPU's pixel rate of 250.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 689.0 GTexel/s are high enough to avoid fill-rate bottlenecks in a game from this period.

The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER includes 8448 shading units, 264 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. For Thief, which does not use ray tracing or DLSS (the game predates both technologies), the RT cores and tensor cores are not actively engaged. The performance is driven purely by the traditional rasterization pipeline. The FP32 throughput of 44.10 TFLOPS provides the raw compute headroom for the game's lighting and shadow calculations.

The GPU's percentile ranking against all GPUs in the database is 76, with an average benchmark score of 31087. Its nearest rivals in the database include the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 with a score of 31206 and a delta of -0.4%, and the NVIDIA TITAN RTX with a score of 31676 and a delta of -1.9%. These deltas indicate that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER sits in a tight performance cluster, slightly below those professional and previous-generation flagship cards in synthetic benchmarks, yet the Thief results show it is more than capable of high refresh rate gameplay at 1440p.

The GPU's role in Thief is best described as the dominant performance limiter at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings (174 to 70 FPS) illustrates that the GPU's rendering throughput is what determines the final frame rate. The CPU, with its high single-thread performance, is not the constraint in this scenario.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1440p with Ultra settings?

A: The recorded average FPS at 2560x1440 with Ultra settings is 113 FPS.

Q: How much faster is the 1080p Low preset compared to the 4K Low preset?

A: The 1080p Low preset achieves 219 FPS, while the 4K Low preset achieves 121 FPS. The difference is 98 FPS, with the 1080p result being 80.9% higher.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance at 1080p?

A: The data shows 1080p Low at 219 FPS and 1080p High at 174 FPS. The relatively small gap between Low and High at 1080p compared to the larger gaps at higher resolutions indicates that the CPU is beginning to influence the upper frame rate ceiling at this resolution.

Q: What are the recorded minimum and maximum FPS values?

A: The database includes min and max values only for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1920x1080 Medium, the min is 168 FPS and max is 228 FPS. At 2560x1440 Medium, the min is 133 FPS and max is 180 FPS. At 3840x2160 Medium, the min is 78 FPS and max is 106 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER compare to the NVIDIA TITAN RTX in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER has an average benchmark score of 31087, while the NVIDIA TITAN RTX has an average score of 31676. The delta is -1.9%, meaning the TITAN RTX is slightly ahead in the database's aggregate benchmark.

Q: Is the 4K High preset playable?

A: The average FPS at 3840x2160 with High settings is 70 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset at 4K averages 67 FPS, also playable.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER ranks 235th out of 3720 tested combinations in Thief. This places it in the top 6.3% of all recorded system configurations for this game. The percentile ranking of the CPU alone is 94, meaning it outperforms 94% of all CPUs in the database, while the GPU ranks at the 76th percentile.

The rank of 235 is strong, but it is not at the very top of the list. The nearest CPU rivals in the database provide context. The AMD EPYC 9115 has an average score of 69288 against the i7-14700K's 69355, a delta of 0.1%, meaning the Intel part is marginally ahead. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69515, a delta of -0.2%, meaning it is 0.2% behind the i7-14700K. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX and AMD Ryzen 7 9700F score 69875 and 69996 respectively, with deltas of -0.7% and -0.9%, placing them slightly behind the i7-14700K.

In the context of Thief, the high rank of 235 out of 3720 indicates that this system delivers near-top-tier performance. The game is not heavily multithreaded, and the i7-14700K's strong single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2160) is a key contributor. The GPU's 76th percentile ranking is lower than the CPU's 94th percentile, confirming that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is the more likely bottleneck in this pairing for this specific title.

The delta between the CPU and its nearest rivals is extremely small, all within 1%. This means that swapping the i7-14700K for any of those four rivals would produce nearly identical frame rates in Thief, assuming the same GPU. The performance is therefore not CPU-limited in a way that distinguishes between these top processors. Instead, the GPU's rendering capability is what sets the final FPS values.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the database records four settings presets. Low averages 219 FPS. Medium averages 198 FPS with a minimum of 168 FPS and a maximum of 228 FPS. High averages 174 FPS. Ultra averages 165 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 54 FPS, meaning Ultra is 24.6% slower than Low. The Medium preset's maximum of 228 FPS is the highest single frame rate recorded for this combination across all resolutions and settings.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 193 FPS. Medium averages 156 FPS with a minimum of 133 FPS and a maximum of 180 FPS. High averages 119 FPS. Ultra averages 113 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 80 FPS, meaning Ultra is 41.4% slower than Low. The gap between High and Ultra at 1440p is only 6 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional features have a small impact at this resolution after the High preset has already been applied.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 121 FPS. Medium averages 92 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS and a maximum of 106 FPS. High averages 70 FPS. Ultra averages 67 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 54 FPS, meaning Ultra is 44.6% slower than Low. The gap between High and Ultra at 4K is only 3 FPS, the smallest difference between any two consecutive settings at any resolution.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min and max data. At 1080p, the min of 168 FPS and max of 228 FPS show a 60 FPS variance, which is a wide range. At 1440p, the min of 133 FPS and max of 180 FPS show a 47 FPS variance. At 4K, the min of 78 FPS and max of 106 FPS show a 28 FPS variance. The narrowing variance at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently loaded, reducing the frame time spikes that occur at lower resolutions where CPU submission times can vary.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear basis for optimal settings selection. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 165 FPS, which is already well above any high refresh rate display's capabilities. The High preset at 174 FPS offers a marginal 5.4% improvement over Ultra, but the visual differences between High and Ultra in Thief are typically minor. The Low preset at 219 FPS is only useful for competitive play where maximum frame rate is prioritized over visual fidelity, but the Medium preset at 198 FPS with a minimum of 168 FPS offers a balanced combination of quality and speed.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 113 FPS, which is sufficient for a 120 Hz display. The High preset at 119 FPS is only 6 FPS faster, so the Ultra preset is the better choice for 1440p users who want the highest visual quality without sacrificing smoothness. The Medium preset at 156 FPS is the recommended choice for users with 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitors, as it provides headroom above the refresh rate while maintaining a minimum of 133 FPS, which stays above 120 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the High preset averages 70 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold for a standard 60 Hz display. The Ultra preset averages 67 FPS, only 3 FPS lower, so the Ultra preset is viable for 4K users who prioritize image quality and have a 60 Hz monitor. The Medium preset at 92 FPS is the best option for 4K users with a 120 Hz display, as it provides a comfortable margin above 90 FPS while the minimum of 78 FPS avoids major stutters.

The database indicates that the Medium preset offers the most consistent frame pacing across all resolutions, as it is the only preset with recorded minimum and maximum values. The maximum values at Medium (228 FPS at 1080p, 180 FPS at 1440p, 106 FPS at 4K) are significantly higher than the averages, showing that the system has transient headroom. For a locked 60 FPS experience at 4K, the Ultra preset is sufficient. For a locked 144 FPS experience at 1440p, the High preset is sufficient. For a locked 240 FPS experience at 1080p, no preset reaches that threshold, as the Low preset maxes out at 219 FPS average.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The L3 cache is 33 MB shared, and the L2 cache is 2 MB per core. In Thief, a game from 2014, the CPU's role is primarily to maintain a high single-thread performance floor, as the game engine was designed for the dual-core and quad-core processors of that era.

The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2160 and the multi-core score of 33440.5 demonstrate the processor's capability. The single-core performance is what matters most for Thief's main game logic and draw call submission. The boost clock of 5.60 GHz is the key specification here, as it allows the CPU to process the game's simulation and physics quickly enough to feed the GPU at high frame rates.

The recorded data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 219 FPS. This high frame rate implies that the CPU is able to prepare frames at a rate of at least 219 per second without bottlenecking. The 20 cores and 28 threads are largely underutilized in Thief, as the game does not scale well to many threads. However, the high boost clock ensures that the few threads the game does use are processed at maximum speed.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 94 against all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 69355, places it near the top. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, is only 0.2% behind in average score. This parity means that in a game like Thief, which is not heavily multithreaded, the choice between these CPUs would not change the measured FPS by more than a few frames.

The CPU's L3 cache of 33 MB is large enough to hold the game's active working set, reducing memory latency. The memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 with a dual-channel bus provides sufficient bandwidth, though the game does not stress memory bandwidth heavily. The CPU's role in this combination is to ensure that the GPU is never starved of data, and the data indicates this is achieved, as the FPS drops consistently with resolution, a sign of GPU-bound operation.

The Passmark single-thread score of 4472 and the Geekbench single-core score of 2569 corroborate the strong single-thread performance. Thief's engine benefits from this directly. The CPU does not appear to be the limiting factor at any resolution, as the scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent with GPU-bound behavior. The only hint of CPU influence is at 1080p Low, where 219 FPS may approach the engine's internal frame rate cap or the CPU's maximum draw call throughput.