Thief

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a playable but clearly GPU-bound experience in Thief, with the data showing that the graphics card becomes the primary constraint as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the combo achieves strong average framerates across all settings, but 4K Ultra drops to just 31 FPS, indicating that the RTX 2060’s 6 GB VRAM and Turing architecture are the limiting factors. The CPU, with its 20 cores and 28 threads, never appears to bottleneck the system, as evidenced by the substantial FPS gains when lowering graphical settings at the same resolution.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Thief?*

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 142, which occurs at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This suggests the CPU and GPU combination has ample headroom at lower resolutions and settings, with the i7-14700KF’s high clock speeds and the RTX 2060’s capabilities working together efficiently.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 31 at Ultra settings to 57 at Low settings. Medium settings produce an average of 43 FPS with a minimum of 37 and maximum of 50. The drop from 57 FPS at Low to 31 FPS at Ultra represents a 45% reduction, highlighting the GPU’s struggle with higher graphical loads at this resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU is the primary bottleneck, particularly at higher resolutions. Evidence includes the steep FPS decline from 1080p to 4K at the same settings—for instance, High settings drop from 82 FPS at 1920x1080 to 33 FPS at 3840x2160. The CPU’s strong benchmark scores (94th percentile vs all CPUs) suggest it has sufficient headroom, while the GPU’s lower percentile (58th) aligns with its role as the limiting component.

Q: What is the combo’s ranking among tested configurations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 2927 out of 3720 tested combinations in Thief. This places it in the lower portion of the tested pool, indicating that while it can run the game, many other CPU-GPU pairings deliver higher performance, likely due to more powerful graphics cards.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 15290. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 with a score of 15283 (0% delta), the AMD Radeon 680M at 15270 (0.1% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM at 15199 (0.6% delta), and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 at 15171 (0.8% delta). These differences are minimal, showing the RTX 2060 sits in a tightly contested performance band.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the combo delivers an average of 74 FPS, with a minimum of 63 and maximum of 85. This represents a smooth experience for most gameplay, with the minimum still comfortably above playable thresholds.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is built on the Turing architecture with a TU106 chip manufactured on a 12 nm process by TSMC. It features 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units, along with 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1365 MHz and a boost clock of 1680 MHz, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory runs on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s.

In Thief, the GPU’s role is decisive. The data shows that at 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 57 at Low settings down to 31 at Ultra. This 26 FPS spread across settings at the same resolution demonstrates that the GPU is working near its limits when handling higher graphical presets. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is a notable factor; at 4K with Ultra settings, the game’s texture and geometry demands likely exceed what this memory buffer can efficiently handle, contributing to the low 31 FPS average. Even at 2560x1440, the pattern persists—Low settings yield 97 FPS, but Ultra drops to 54 FPS—confirming the GPU’s dominance in determining performance outcomes.

The RTX 2060’s synthetic benchmark scores reinforce this analysis. Its PassMark G3D score of 14111 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1242 place it in the 58th percentile among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 15290 is nearly identical to that of the GTX 580 (15283), which highlights that despite its newer architecture, the RTX 2060 operates in a similar performance tier. The GPU’s FP32 performance of 6.451 TFLOPS provides the raw compute necessary for Thief’s rendering, but the data indicates this is insufficient for smooth 4K Ultra gameplay, where the average FPS dips below 33.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves average FPS of 142 (Low), 108 (Medium), 82 (High), and 78 (Ultra). Moving to 2560x1440, these figures drop to 97 (Low), 74 (Medium), 56 (High), and 54 (Ultra). At 3840x2160, the averages further decline to 57 (Low), 43 (Medium), 33 (High), and 31 (Ultra).

The scaling from 1080p to 4K is particularly telling. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 142 to 57, a 60% reduction. At High settings, the drop is from 82 to 33, a 60% reduction as well. This consistent percentage decrease across settings suggests that the GPU’s rendering capacity scales linearly with pixel count, which is expected when the CPU is not a limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively flat across resolutions because the processor’s workload would cap performance regardless of pixel output.

The minimum FPS data points reinforce this interpretation. At 1920x1080 Medium, the minimum is 91 FPS, while at 2560x1440 Medium, it falls to 63 FPS, and at 3840x2160 Medium, it drops to 37 FPS. These minimums show that even the worst-case frames become more problematic as resolution rises, further indicating GPU strain. The fact that the CPU, with its 20 cores (including performance and efficiency cores) and boost clock of 5.60 GHz, can push framerates to 142 FPS at 1080p Low demonstrates that it is not the constraint. Instead, the RTX 2060’s 6 GB memory and 192-bit bus are the limiting factors at higher resolutions, where memory bandwidth and capacity become critical.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Thief, this pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 2927 out of 3720 combos. This places it in roughly the 21st percentile of tested configurations, meaning about 79% of other pairings achieve better performance in this game. The ranking reflects the significant imbalance between the CPU and GPU: the i7-14700KF is a high-end processor in the 94th percentile among all CPUs, while the RTX 2060 sits in only the 58th percentile among GPUs.

This imbalance explains the combo’s middling rank. The CPU’s impressive synthetic scores—such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44167 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 21462—indicate it is capable of feeding far more powerful graphics cards. However, the RTX 2060’s average benchmark score of 15290, which is nearly tied with the GTX 580 (15283) and only 0.8% ahead of the RX 7600 (15171), caps the overall gaming performance. In Thief, this means the combo delivers playable framerates at 1080p and 1440p, but it cannot compete with systems that pair the i7-14700KF with a higher-tier GPU.

The rank of 2927 out of 3720 also suggests that while the combo is not among the worst performers, it is far from optimal. The data indicates that for Thief, a more balanced pairing—one where the GPU’s percentile is closer to the CPU’s—would likely yield better results. The high CPU performance is effectively wasted in this configuration at higher resolutions, where the GPU struggles to maintain even 33 FPS at 4K Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, specifically the Raptor Lake-R refresh, manufactured on a 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The CPU features a large cache hierarchy: 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 33 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and uses the Intel Socket 1700 platform.

In Thief, the CPU’s role is less prominent than the GPU’s, but it still sets the ceiling for performance at lower resolutions. The benchmark results show that at 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 142 FPS, which is a high framerate that many games would consider well above playable. This suggests the CPU is capable of driving the game engine at high speed, with its 20 cores and high boost clock providing ample processing power for game logic, physics, and AI.

The CPU’s synthetic benchmarks further illustrate its capabilities. It scores 44167 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 6235 in single-core, placing it in the 94th percentile among all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 70163 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69996, 0.2% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875, 0.4% delta), showing that it performs on par with other high-end processors. However, because the RTX 2060 is the bottleneck in most scenarios, this CPU performance is not fully utilized in Thief.

The data shows that the CPU’s influence is most apparent when comparing FPS across resolution changes at the same settings. For example, at Low settings, the FPS drops from 142 at 1080p to 97 at 1440p to 57 at 4K. If the CPU were the limiting factor, these numbers would be much closer together, as the processor’s workload would remain constant regardless of resolution. Instead, the significant drops indicate that the GPU is struggling to keep up, and the CPU is simply waiting for the graphics card to finish rendering each frame.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combo in Thief covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), providing a comprehensive view of performance.

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its best results. Low settings produce an average of 142 FPS, which is the highest recorded across all configurations. Medium settings yield 108 FPS on average, with a minimum of 91 and maximum of 124. High settings drop to 82 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 78 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the combo handles all settings comfortably, with even Ultra settings maintaining an average above 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance declines but remains respectable. Low settings average 97 FPS, a 32% drop from 1080p. Medium settings average 74 FPS, with a minimum of 63 and maximum of 85, which is still smooth for most gameplay. High settings produce 56 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 54 FPS. The 1440p results show that the RTX 2060 begins to struggle at higher settings, with High and Ultra both falling below 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU’s limitations become pronounced. Low settings average 57 FPS, which is barely playable. Medium settings average 43 FPS, with a minimum of 37 and maximum of 50, indicating noticeable stuttering during intense scenes. High settings drop to 33 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 31 FPS. At 4K, the combo is only suitable for Low settings if smooth gameplay is desired, and even then, the 57 FPS average is marginal.

The data reveals a consistent pattern: as resolution increases, the FPS penalty grows, and the gap between settings narrows. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 64 FPS (142 vs 78). At 1440p, this gap shrinks to 43 FPS (97 vs 54). At 4K, the gap is just 26 FPS (57 vs 31). This narrowing indicates that at higher resolutions, the GPU’s rendering capacity is fully saturated, and changing settings has less impact because the pixel fill rate is the dominant constraint. The RTX 2060’s 80.64 GPixel/s pixel rate and 201.6 GTexel/s texture rate are simply insufficient for 4K Ultra, where the 31 FPS average confirms the GPU is the definitive bottleneck.