Thief

Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti form a 2023-vintage CPU paired with a 2025 GPU, and in Thief this combination produces a mixed bag of results depending on resolution. At 1080p the system is capable of very high frame rates, but the data reveals that the CPU’s 24 cores and 32 threads, with a boost clock reaching 6.00 GHz, are more than sufficient for a game from 2014. The processor’s Raptor Lake architecture, built on a 10 nm process, delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a single-core score of 7040, placing it in the 97th percentile of all CPUs. This headroom means that at lower resolutions, the graphics card becomes the primary bottleneck, but at 4K the GPU’s workload increases enough that the CPU’s advantage is less pronounced. The RTX 5070 Ti, with 8960 shading units and a boost clock of 2452 MHz, is a Blackwell 2.0 part with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is critical for high-resolution texture work, yet the frame rates at 4K Ultra (71.3 FPS) and 4K High (71.6 FPS) suggest that even this modern GPU struggles to maintain high refresh rates in a title that is nearly a decade old. The combination ranks 39th out of 1642 tested combos, which is a strong position, but the scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a significant drop that points to the GPU as the limiting factor in most scenarios.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. In Thief, this hardware is far beyond what the game requires, as the title’s release date of 2014-02-24 predates the CPU’s launch on 2023-10-16 by nearly a decade. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and single-core score of 7040 indicate exceptional processing power, and its Passmark single-thread score of 4697 reinforces that even single-threaded performance is strong. The processor’s 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample storage for game data, though Thief’s engine likely does not exploit this fully. The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 230.3 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded across all tests, and this is only 12.6% higher than the 204.1 FPS seen at 1440p Low. This relatively small drop between 1080p and 1440p at low settings indicates that the CPU is not the bottleneck, as the GPU can still push high frame rates. However, when comparing 1080p Ultra (174.1 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (118.5 FPS), the drop is 31.9%, which suggests that the GPU is starting to struggle with the increased resolution. The CPU’s 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 79824, which is only 0.3% behind the AMD EPYC 7413, shows that this processor is a top-tier part that will not hold back the GPU in most gaming scenarios. The i9-14900K’s support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory, with a dual-channel bus, adds flexibility, but the game’s performance is more dependent on the GPU at high resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU with a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2452 MHz. It has 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a substantial amount for a modern graphics card. The GPU’s Passmark G3D score of 32974 places it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 52086 is essentially identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, with a deltaPct of 0.0%. In Thief, the GPU’s performance is directly tied to resolution and settings. At 4K Ultra, the card produces 71.3 FPS, which is just 0.4% lower than 4K High (71.6 FPS), indicating that the Ultra preset does not add significant strain beyond High. However, dropping to 4K Medium raises the frame rate to 93.3 FPS, a 30.8% improvement over Ultra, and 4K Low reaches 126.9 FPS, which is 78% higher than Ultra. These results show that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as the CPU has plenty of headroom to handle the game’s logic. At 1440p, the GPU performs much better, with 1440p Ultra hitting 118.5 FPS and 1440p Low reaching 204.1 FPS. The 16 GB VRAM is not a concern at any resolution in this game, as even 4K Ultra does not show signs of memory pressure, but the GPU’s raw compute power is what determines the frame rates. The card’s 43.94 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 686.6 GTexel/s texture rate are more than enough for Thief, but the game’s age means it does not benefit from newer features like ray tracing, which this GPU supports with 70 RT cores.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ranks 39th out of 1642 tested combos in Thief, placing it in the top 2.4% of all configurations. This ranking is impressive, but the data shows that the position is driven more by the CPU’s high benchmark scores than by the GPU’s gaming-specific performance. The CPU’s 97th percentile ranking and the GPU’s 87th percentile ranking combine to produce a system that is well above average, yet the GPU is the weaker link in this pairing. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 52086 is nearly identical to the RTX 4080 (52085, deltaPct 0.0%), but the RTX 5070 Ti is slower than the AMD Radeon RX 7700S by 0.8% and faster than the NVIDIA RTX A1000 by 2.5% in synthetic tests. These narrow margins indicate that the GPU is not a class-leading part, and in Thief, this is reflected in the frame rates. The combo’s rank of 39 suggests that there are 38 other combinations that achieve higher average frame rates, likely due to more powerful GPUs or better CPU-GPU balance. The 1080p Ultra score of 174.1 FPS and 1440p Ultra score of 118.5 FPS are solid, but they are not exceptional for a system with this hardware. The data indicates that the CPU’s 24 cores and high clock speeds do not provide a significant advantage in Thief because the game is not heavily threaded, and the GPU’s performance at 4K is the main constraint on the combo’s overall ranking.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest frame rate this combo achieves in Thief?

A: The highest frame rate recorded is 230.3 FPS at 1080p with Low settings. The lowest is 71.3 FPS at 4K with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 Ti compare to the RTX 4080 in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5070 Ti has an average benchmark score of 52086, which is essentially identical to the RTX 4080’s 52085, resulting in a deltaPct of 0.0%. This means they perform nearly the same in synthetic tests.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: The data shows that at 4K, the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU’s high single-core and multi-core scores are not fully utilized, as the frame rates drop significantly from 1080p to 4K, indicating the GPU’s workload is the constraint.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 39th out of 1642 tested combos in Thief, placing it in the top 2.4% of all systems tested.

Q: How does the CPU’s performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Intel Core i9-14900K has an average benchmark score of 79824, which is 0.3% lower than the AMD EPYC 7413’s 80041, and 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i9-14900KF’s 79245. This shows it is competitive with other top-tier CPUs.

Q: Does the GPU’s 16 GB of VRAM cause any issues in Thief?

A: The 16 GB of GDDR7 memory is not a limiting factor at any resolution or setting, as the game does not appear to exceed this capacity. The GPU’s compute performance, not memory size, determines the frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K in Thief reveals a clear picture of where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 230.3 FPS, which drops to 204.1 FPS at 1440p Low, a decrease of 11.4%. Moving to 4K Low, the frame rate falls to 126.9 FPS, which is a 37.8% drop from 1440p Low and a 44.9% drop from 1080p Low. This steep decline at low settings shows that the GPU is struggling to render at higher resolutions, even with minimal graphical demands. At High settings, the pattern is similar: 1080p High produces 181.5 FPS, 1440p High drops to 126.1 FPS (a 30.5% decrease), and 4K High falls to 71.6 FPS (a 43.2% decrease from 1440p). The Ultra settings follow this trend, with 1080p Ultra at 174.1 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 118.5 FPS (a 31.9% drop), and 4K Ultra at 71.3 FPS (a 39.8% drop from 1440p). The data shows that the drop from 1080p to 1440p is relatively consistent across all settings, averaging around 30%, which indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint. However, the drop from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced at low settings (37.8%) than at high settings (43.2%), suggesting that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and shader throughput are being taxed more heavily as resolution increases. The CPU’s performance, which is in the 97th percentile, does not change with resolution, so the frame rate differences are entirely due to the GPU’s rendering load. This is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario, as the CPU has more than enough headroom to feed the GPU at all resolutions. The fact that 4K Ultra (71.3 FPS) and 4K High (71.6 FPS) are nearly identical indicates that the Ultra preset adds minimal extra GPU work beyond High, and the game becomes heavily GPU-limited at this resolution.