Thief

The Intel Core i7-14700KF and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT combination delivers a very capable Thief experience across all tested settings, with the data showing that the pairing can comfortably handle the game’s stealth gameplay at high framerates. At 1080p, this combo produces excellent performance that will easily satisfy players with high refresh rate monitors, while the 4K results show a playable experience at medium and high settings, though ultra requires some compromise. The benchmark data indicates a balanced system where neither component is catastrophically bottlenecking the other, but the scaling pattern reveals that this game can be demanding on the GPU at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frames per second data for Thief shows a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets. The Ultra preset, while visually complete, produces the lowest average framerates at every resolution. At 4K, the Ultra preset manages 48 FPS on average, which is technically playable but sits on the lower edge of what most players would call smooth. The High preset at 4K performs only slightly better with a 50 FPS average, showing that the gap between High and Ultra at this resolution is small. Given the minor difference between Ultra and High at 4K, choosing Ultra for the visual improvement seems reasonable if the player values image quality and can tolerate a 48 FPS average. However, the Medium preset at 4K achieves 66 FPS average, a substantial improvement of 16 FPS over High and 18 FPS over Ultra. This makes Medium at 4K the strongest option for maintaining fluid motion without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.

At 1440p, the data shows a more comfortable situation. The Medium preset yields 111 FPS average with a minimum of 95 FPS and a maximum of 128 FPS, making it an excellent choice for high refresh rate displays. The High preset at 1440p averages 85 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold but not quite as smooth as Medium. The Ultra preset at 1440p reaches an average of 81 FPS, which is a modest drop from High and not as significant a difference as seen at 4K. Given the small difference between High and Ultra at 1440p, players could reasonably pick either, but Medium offers the best headroom for demanding scenes. The Low preset at 1440p produces 147 FPS average, which is the highest of any 1440p row and a good option for competitive gameplay or if the player wants maximum responsiveness. For the best experience at 1440p, the Medium preset is the recommended balance between visual quality and smoothness, as its 95 FPS minimum ensures that drops are less likely to be noticeable.

At 1080p, the system has plenty of performance to spare. The Medium preset achieves 162 FPS average with a minimum of 138 FPS and a maximum of 187 FPS, making it an outstanding choice for high refresh rate monitors. The High preset at 1080p averages 124 FPS, which is still smooth but noticeably lower than Medium. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 118 FPS, which is close to High and only slightly lower. The Low preset at 1080p produces the highest average of all tested configurations at 214 FPS, which is ideal for extreme refresh rate displays. For 1080p, the Medium preset is the recommended choice for most players: it provides a 162 FPS average with a high minimum of 138 FPS, ensuring smooth performance in nearly all scenarios. Players with 240Hz or higher refresh rate monitors may prefer the Low preset to maximize FPS, but the visual tradeoff is significant.

The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo across all resolutions. At 4K, Medium provides a 66 FPS average that is significantly better than the 48-50 FPS from Ultra/High. At 1440p, Medium delivers 111 FPS with a healthy minimum, and at 1080x, it offers 162 FPS. The Medium preset consistently offers the best frame-time consistency, as it is the only preset with recorded minimum and maximum values in the data, and those values show a stable frame output. For players who prioritize smoothness over maximum visual fidelity, Medium is the clear recommendation. For players with 4K displays who want the best quality that is still playable, Ultra at 48 FPS is acceptable, but Medium is the more practical choice.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is the primary graphical workhorse for this test. Its memory configuration includes 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 432.0 GB/s. This memory capacity is ample for a 2014 title like Thief, which has modest VRAM requirements by modern standards. The GPU's clock speeds are notable: a base clock of 1435 MHz, a boost clock of 2544 MHz, and a game clock of 2171 MHz. These clocks are high enough to provide strong rasterization performance, and the RDNA 3.0 architecture with 3456 shading units, 216 TMUs, and 96 ROPs ensures that the card can handle the game’s geometry and pixel shading without issue.

The GPU’s impact on Thief’s performance is most evident at 4K. The measured average FPS drops from 214 at 1080p Low to 86 at 4K Low, showing a significant scaling with resolution. At Ultra settings, the 1080p Ultra 118 FPS drops to 48 FPS at 4K Ultra, a reduction of 70 FPS. This drop is primarily the result of the GPU being tasked with more pixel processing at higher resolutions, and the RX 7700 XT’s performance at 4K is acceptable but not stellar. The 12 GB VRAM is sufficient for Thief, and there is no indication in the data that memory capacity is a limiting factor. The GPU's compute capabilities, reflected in a Passmark G3D score of 22547, place it in a solid mid-range tier for gaming.

The RX 7700 XT’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile with a deltaPct of 0.5%, the RTX 4060 Mobile at -0.8%, the RTX 2080 at -1.5%, and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 at 1.7%. These rivals show that the RX 7700 XT performs roughly on par with the RTX 2080 and the RTX 4060 Mobile, and slightly ahead of the RX 5700. In Thief, this GPU performance translates to playable framerates at 4K Medium and High, and excellent framerates at 1440p and 1080p. The GPU’s 67th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates it is a solidly mid-to-upper tier card, which aligns with the measured in-game performance.

The GPU’s role is also visible in the way the framerate drops as settings increase. At 1080p, the difference between Medium and Ultra is 162 FPS versus 118 FPS, which is a 44 FPS drop. At 4K, the same settings show a drop from 66 to 48 FPS, a 18 FPS drop. This shows that the GPU has more headroom at lower resolutions, but at 4K the card is more likely to be the limiting factor. The RX 7700 XT's 96 ROPs and 549.5 GTexel/s texture rate are sufficient for Thief’s visual demands, and the game engine does not push ray tracing or other modern features that would stress the card further.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling across resolutions is a key indicator of which component is the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 214 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, the FPS drops to 147, a 31% reduction. Moving to 4K Low, the FPS drops to 86, which is a 60% reduction from the 1080p Low. This steep drop at 4K indicates that the GPU becomes more limited as resolution increased. The same trend is visible in the Medium settings: 1080p Medium gives 162 FPS, 1440p Medium gives 111 FPS, and 4K Medium gives 66 FPS. The 4K Medium is only about 41% of the 1080p Medium performance, showing a strong GPU dependency.

The High settings follow a similar pattern: 1080p High yields 124 FPS, 1440p High yields 85 FPS, and 4K High yields 50 FPS. The 4K High is 60% lower than the 1080p High, confirming the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. The Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling: 1080p Ultra gives 118 FPS, 1440p Ultra gives 81 FPS, and 4K Ultra gives 48 FPS. Here, the 4K Ultra is 59% lower than 1080p Ultra, which is a consistent pattern across all settings. The fact that the percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is roughly 60% across all settings suggests that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck at higher resolutions, and the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p without significant limitation.

The FPS scaling from 1440p to 4K is also informative. At Medium, the drop is from 111 to 66, a 41% decline. At High, the drop is from 85 to 50, a 41% decline. At Ultra, the drop is from 81 to 48, a 41% decline. This uniform scaling across settings strongly indicates a GPU-bound scenario at 4K. The GPU’s memory bandwidth and core count are the limiting factors at 4K, and the RX 7700 XT is not capable of maintaining 60 FPS at 4K Ultra in Thief, but it can do so at 4K Medium. The 1080p to 1440p transition shows a less severe drop: for Medium, 162 to 111 is a 31% drop, while for Low, 214 to 147 is also a 31% drop. This consistent percentage drop across different settings at each resolution step is a hallmark of a GPU-limited scenario, as the CPU is not the bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700KF and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT combo is ranked 1157th out of 3,720 tested combinations for Thief. This places it in the 68.9th percentile of all combos, meaning it outperforms more than two-thirds of all tested systems. This ranking is strong for a 2014 game, which is likely due to the modern CPU and mid-high tier GPU. The CPU’s individual percentile is 94th among all CPUs, and the GPU is 67th among all GPUs. The combo ranking is slightly lower than the CPU percentile alone, indicating that the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing for this game. However, the overall ranking is solid and indicates a well-balanced system for Thief.

The combo’s position in the 1157th place out of 3720 shows that it is a competitive setup. In terms of CPU rivals, the nearest to the Core i7-14700KF are the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with a 0.2% higher score, the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX with a 0.4% higher score, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X with a 0.9% higher score, and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K with a 1% lower score. These are all close, but the i7-14700KF is within 1% of all of them, meaning its CPU performance is essentially tied with these rivals. For the GPU, the nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile with a 0.5% higher score, the RTX 4060 Mobile with a 0.8% lower score, the RTX 2080 with a 1.5% lower score, and the AMD Radeon RX 5700 with a 1.7% higher score. The RX 7700 XT is also very close to these GPUs, with less than 2% differences from all of them. This indicates that the combo’s performance is in line with what those rival pairings would produce, and the rank reflects the average of these close components.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF plays a crucial role in maintaining high framerates in Thief, particularly at lower resolutions. The CPU has 20 cores and 28 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. This high boost clock provides strong single-threaded performance, which is essential for a game that likely uses a few threads for its main game logic. The CPU’s single-thread performance, as shown in Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6235 and Cinebench R20 single-core of 2618, indicates it has excellent per-core performance. The CPU’s multi-core score of 44167 in Cinebench R23 shows that it is also a strong multi-threaded processor, but for a 2014 title, single-thread performance is more important. The boost clock of 5.60 GHz is high, and it helps push framerates at 1080p where the GPU is less of a bottleneck.

The CPU’s role is especially evident in the 1080p results. At 1080p Low, the system hits 214 FPS, and at 1080p Medium, it hits 162 FPS. These high framerates would be difficult to achieve if the CPU were not able to feed the GPU quickly enough. The CPU’s high single-thread performance ensures that it can keep up with the GPU’s rendering tasks at 1080p. The jump from 1080p Low to 1440p Low shows a drop from 214 to 147 FPS, which is a 31% drop. This drop is more likely due to the GPU, but the CPU still has to handle the same game logic and physics. The CPU’s 20 cores and 28 threads provide ample headroom for Thief, which is not a highly threaded game. The fact that the 1080p Ultra still produces 118 FPS indicates that the CPU does not limit performance at 1080p even with the extra graphical settings.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy is also relevant: 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 33 MB of shared L3. The large L3 helps with game data, but Thief’s engine is old enough that it likely doesn’t take full advantage of a large L3. The CPU’s TDP of 125 W is a reasonable power draw for a desktop processor, and its 10 nm process node means it is efficient. The processor’s release date in October 2023 means it is a modern CPU, and its 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs reflects its high performance. In this benchmark, the CPU’s role is to provide a stable platform for the GPU. The results show a consistent scaling with resolution, which would not be the case if the CPU were the primary bottleneck. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the framerates would be similar across resolutions, but the data shows a clear drop with resolution, so the CPU is not the limiting factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS for the Intel Core i7-14700KF and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT in Thief are as follows:

At 3840x2160 (4K):

• Ultra settings: average FPS of 48, no min/max recorded.
• High settings: average FPS of 50, no min/max recorded.
• Medium settings: average FPS of 66, with a minimum of 56 and a maximum of 75.
• Low settings: average FPS of 86, no min/max recorded.

At 2560x1440:

• Ultra settings: average FPS of 81, no min/max.
• High settings: average FPS of 85, no min/max.
• Medium settings: average FPS of 111, with a minimum of 95 and a maximum of 128.
• Low settings: average FPS of 147, no min/max.

At 1920x1080:

• Ultra settings: average FPS of 118, no min/max.
• High settings: average FPS of 124, no min/max.
• Medium settings: average FPS of 162, with a minimum of 138 and a maximum of 187.
• Low settings: average FPS of 214, no min/max.

The Medium settings are the only ones with min and max values, and they show a consistent frame output. At 1080p, the Medium average is 162 FPS with a minimum of 138, meaning the frame times are stable. At 1440p, the Medium average is 111 FPS with a minimum of 95, still quite smooth. At 4K, the Medium average is 66 FPS with a minimum of 56, which is playable but the minimum indicates there can be some frame drops in heavy scenes. The Ultra settings do not have recorded min/max, but the average FPS is lower: 118, 81, and 48 across the three resolutions. The High settings are close to Ultra at 4K (50 vs 48) but higher at 1440p (85 vs 81) and 1080p (124 vs 118).

The Low settings show the highest FPS at all resolutions, with 214 FPS at 1080p, 147 FPS at 1440p, and 86 FPS at 4K. These numbers demonstrate the performance headroom of this combo. The system can hit 214 FPS at 1080p Low, which is excellent for high refresh displays. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low is consistent, a 60% drop. The Ultra settings show a similar drop, from 118 to 48, a 59% drop. This confirms the GPU is the limiting factor in this game and that the CPU can handle the 1080p workload without challenge. In summary, the combo is capable of high framerates at 1080p, good framerates at 1440p, and playable framerates at 4K, with Medium settings being the best choice for a balance of visual quality and smoothness.