Thief

The AMD Radeon 890M integrated GPU paired with the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H delivers a playable experience in Thief only at lower resolutions and settings, with the data showing a clear ceiling at 1080p Medium. Benchmark results indicate that this combination is best suited for 1080p Low to Medium presets, where it maintains average frame rates of 77 and 58 FPS respectively, providing a smooth experience for the game's stealth-focused gameplay. At higher resolutions such as 1440p and 4K, the integrated graphics struggle to maintain acceptable performance, making those settings impractical for consistent play.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data shows that the optimal experience for this hardware combination in Thief is achieved at 1080p with the Low preset, which delivers an average of 77 FPS. This is the only configuration that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold, making it the clear choice for players prioritizing smooth, responsive gameplay. The Medium preset at 1080p also offers a viable experience with an average of 58 FPS and a minimum of 49 FPS, which is acceptable for a stealth game where precise timing is less critical than in fast-paced action titles.

For players who prefer higher visual fidelity without sacrificing too much performance, the High preset at 1080p yields an average of 44 FPS, which remains playable but with noticeable dips during demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 42 FPS average, showing that the incremental visual improvements are not worth the performance cost on this hardware. At 1440p, the Low preset provides a playable 53 FPS average, but the Medium preset falls to 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS, which may feel sluggish during intense stealth sequences. The data clearly suggests that 1080p Low or Medium is the sweet spot, as moving to 1440p or higher resolutions severely impacts frame rates across all settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 890M is an integrated graphics processor based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, featuring 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units. Its base clock is 400 MHz with a boost clock reaching 2900 MHz, and it draws a thermal design power of just 15 W, highlighting its efficiency-focused design for mobile platforms. The GPU's memory configuration is system shared, meaning it relies on the host system's RAM rather than dedicated VRAM, with bandwidth described as system dependent. This shared memory architecture is a critical factor in Thief's performance, as the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth, which becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions and settings.

The 890M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, ensuring compatibility with modern graphics APIs that Thief can utilize. Its pixel rate is 92.80 GPixel/s and texture rate is 185.6 GTexel/s, while its FP32 performance is rated at 5.939 TFLOPS. These specifications place the 890M at the 45th percentile among all GPUs, indicating mid-range performance for integrated graphics. The benchmark results show that in Thief, the GPU is the primary bottleneck at resolutions above 1080p, as the average frame rates drop dramatically from 44 FPS at 1080p High to 30 FPS at 1440p High and further to 18 FPS at 4K High. This performance degradation is consistent with the GPU's limited memory bandwidth and shared memory architecture, which cannot keep up with the increased pixel throughput demanded at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and predictable scaling pattern across resolutions for this hardware combination. At 1080p with Low settings, the average frame rate is 77 FPS, which drops to 53 FPS at 1440p and further to 31 FPS at 4K, representing a 31% decrease from 1080p to 1440p and a 60% decrease from 1080p to 4K. This scaling pattern indicates that the GPU becomes increasingly the limiting factor as resolution increases, with the system shared memory bandwidth struggling to feed the rendering pipeline at higher pixel counts.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend, with 58 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 23 FPS at 4K. The High preset follows the same pattern, with 44 FPS at 1080p, 30 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset exhibits the steepest decline, from 42 FPS at 1080p to 29 FPS at 1440p and 17 FPS at 4K. The consistent drop of roughly 30-35% from 1080p to 1440p and an additional 40-45% from 1440p to 4K across all settings strongly suggests that the AMD Radeon 890M's compute and memory resources are the primary constraint, rather than the CPU. At 1080p, the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H provides sufficient processing power to keep the GPU fed, but as resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows exponentially, exposing its limitations.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H and AMD Radeon 890M ranks 2692 out of 2851 tested combos for Thief, placing it in the bottom 6% of all configurations. This ranking underscores the integrated GPU's limitations for this game, which was released in 2014 but still demands significant graphics processing power at higher settings. The combo's position near the bottom of the rankings indicates that most dedicated GPUs, even older models, outperform this integrated solution in Thief.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 45 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9210, places it in a competitive position against other integrated and entry-level discrete graphics solutions. However, in the context of Thief, the combo's low ranking suggests that the game's engine and rendering requirements are not well-suited to the 890M's architectural strengths. The CPU's percentile ranking of 79 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27507, indicates that the processor is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The deltaPct values from the nearest rivals show that the CPU performs within 0.5% of comparable processors like the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 and Intel Core i5-12600K, confirming that the GPU is the bottleneck in this pairing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H features 14 cores and 18 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, operating within a 28 W TDP. Its cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache, providing ample on-chip storage for frequently accessed data. The processor is built on Intel's 7 nm process node using the Meteor Lake architecture and supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration, offering a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. This bandwidth is shared with the integrated GPU, which is a critical consideration for gaming performance.

Benchmark results for the CPU show strong multi-threaded capabilities, with Cinebench R23 multi-core scoring 12804.5 and single-core scoring 1647.5. The PassMark multi-thread score of 21100 and single-thread score of 3399 further confirm the processor's balanced performance profile. In Thief, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI calculations, which it does efficiently given its high multi-core performance. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the CPU is not the bottleneck, as the GPU limits performance to 77 FPS. Even at 1080p Ultra, where the average drops to 42 FPS, the CPU maintains sufficient headroom, suggesting that the GPU's shared memory bandwidth and compute capabilities are the limiting factors rather than the processor's processing power. The CPU's 14 cores and 18 threads provide ample parallel processing capability for the game's stealth AI and environmental interactions, ensuring no frame rate drops are attributable to processor limitations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Thief provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers the highest average frame rate of 77 FPS, followed by Medium at 58 FPS with a minimum of 49 FPS and maximum of 67 FPS, High at 44 FPS, and Ultra at 42 FPS. This progression shows a 45% drop from Low to Medium and a further 24% drop from Medium to High, while the difference between High and Ultra is minimal at just 4.5%.

At 1440p, the performance decreases significantly across all settings. The Low preset averages 53 FPS, which is 31% lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium averages 40 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and maximum of 46 FPS, representing a 31% decrease from 1080p Medium. High averages 30 FPS, a 32% drop from 1080p High, while Ultra averages 29 FPS, a 31% decrease from its 1080p counterpart. This consistent 31% reduction across settings at 1440p indicates a uniform GPU bottleneck that scales with resolution.

At 4K, the performance becomes marginal for playable frame rates. The Low preset averages 31 FPS, which is 42% lower than 1440p Low and 60% lower than 1080p Low. Medium averages 23 FPS with a minimum of 20 FPS and maximum of 27 FPS, while High averages 18 FPS and Ultra averages 17 FPS. The 4K results show a 26% drop from Low to Medium and a 22% drop from Medium to High, with Ultra performing nearly identically to High. These figures confirm that 4K is not a viable resolution for this hardware combination, as even the lowest settings fail to reach 32 FPS, making the game feel sluggish and unresponsive.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware in Thief?*

A: The data shows that 1080p with Low settings delivers the highest average frame rate at 77 FPS, making it the optimal configuration for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset at 1080p also provides a playable experience with 58 FPS average and 49 FPS minimum.

Q: How does the AMD Radeon 890M's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score of 9210 places it within 1% of the AMD Radeon Vega 8 (9221), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (9273), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 (9294), and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M (9302), with delta percentages ranging from -0.1 to -1.

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

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the primary bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions. The CPU ranks in the 79th percentile with an average score of 27507, while the GPU ranks in the 45th percentile with an average score of 9210, and the frame rate drops consistently with resolution increases.

*Q: Can this hardware run Thief at 4K?*

A: No, the data shows that at 4K, even the Low preset only achieves 31 FPS average, with the Ultra preset dropping to 17 FPS. These frame rates are below acceptable playability thresholds for a stealth game requiring responsive controls.

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: This combination ranks 2692 out of 2851 total combos tested for Thief, placing it in the bottom 6% of all configurations, indicating that most dedicated GPU solutions outperform this integrated graphics setup.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 1440p at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the average frame rate is 58 FPS, while at 1440p Medium, it drops to 40 FPS, representing a 31% decrease. The minimum frame rate also drops from 49 FPS at 1080p to 34 FPS at 1440p.