Thief

# Thief with Intel Core Ultra 7 155H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

This combination of Intel's Core Ultra 7 155H mobile processor and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5080 desktop GPU places at rank 987 out of 3,720 tested combos for Thief, situating it in the top 27% of all configurations. The pairing pairs a 2023 mobile CPU with a 2025 flagship desktop GPU, and the measured frame rates reveal a system that is clearly GPU-bound at higher resolutions while showing signs of CPU limitation at 1080p. The data shows a wide performance spread across settings tiers, with the RTX 5080's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 960.0 GB/s bandwidth proving more than sufficient for a 2014 stealth title, while the Core Ultra 7 155H's 16 cores and 22 threads deliver consistent results that edge out close rivals by narrow margins.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 987 out of 3,720 tested configurations places it comfortably in the upper quartile of all systems tested for Thief. This ranking reflects the substantial GPU headroom provided by the RTX 5080, which sits in the 87th percentile of all GPUs benchmarked, against a CPU that holds the 83rd percentile among all processors. The delta between these two percentile positions — a 4-point gap favoring the GPU — hints that the processor may be the limiting factor in certain scenarios, particularly at lower resolutions where frame rates climb past 160 FPS.

Looking at the GPU's nearest rivals, the RTX 5080's average benchmark score of 56,083 places it just 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) and 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698). The data shows a tighter race at the top than the raw frame rates might suggest; the RTX 5080 trails the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by 2.2% (which scores 57,367), meaning Thief's performance could vary noticeably if that rival were paired with this same CPU.

For the processor, the Core Ultra 7 155H's average benchmark score of 32,697 puts it in a virtual tie with the Intel Core i5-14600T (32,707, 0% delta) and the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (32,662, 0.1% delta). The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F sits 0.2% behind at 32,750, and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H trails by 0.4% with a score of 32,812. These sub-1% differences suggest that swapping between these CPUs would produce nearly indistinguishable results in Thief, making the GPU the primary differentiator for this combo's ranking position.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data across all three resolutions points to Medium settings as the sweet spot for this combination. At 3840x2160, Medium delivers an average of 77 FPS with a minimum of 65 FPS and maximum of 88 FPS, which represents the only 4K preset that maintains playable frame rates while offering visual fidelity beyond the Low preset. The step from Medium to High at 4K costs 19 FPS (77 to 58), a 24.7% drop that pushes the average below the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra at 4K further reduces performance to 56 FPS average, making it the least desirable choice at that resolution.

At 2560x1440, Medium achieves 130 FPS average with a minimum of 111 FPS and maximum of 150 FPS, providing a wide safety margin above display refresh rates for most monitors. The jump from Medium to High at 1440p costs 31 FPS (130 to 99), while Ultra drops to 95 FPS average. For 1920x1080, Medium produces 152 FPS average (minimum 129, maximum 175), which is only 16 FPS below the Low preset's 168 FPS average and 14 FPS above High's 138 FPS.

The data indicates that Low settings offer diminishing returns at every resolution. At 1080p, Low's 168 FPS is just 10.5% higher than Medium's 152 FPS, while at 1440p the gap narrows to 13.8% (148 vs 130 FPS). At 4K, Low's 101 FPS is 31.2% higher than Medium's 77 FPS, but this comes at the cost of visual quality in a stealth game where spotting enemies and environmental details matter. Medium consistently provides the best balance, keeping frame rates above 60 FPS even at 4K while avoiding the visual compromises of Low.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that transitions from CPU-bound to GPU-bound as resolution increases. At Medium settings, the progression is 152 FPS at 1080p, 130 FPS at 1440p, and 77 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 14.5%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 40.8%. This accelerating decline as resolution increases is the classic signature of GPU limitation — the RTX 5080's rendering workload grows faster than the pixel count as resolution scales.

For High settings, the pattern is similar but steeper: 138 FPS at 1080p, 99 FPS at 1440p (a 28.3% drop), and 58 FPS at 4K (a 41.4% drop from 1440p). The Low preset shows the most extreme scaling behavior: 168 FPS at 1080p, 148 FPS at 1440p (11.9% drop), and 101 FPS at 4K (31.8% drop from 1440p). The smaller percentage drops at Low settings suggest that at lower graphical loads, the CPU begins to assert more influence, particularly at 1080p where the 168 FPS average approaches what the Core Ultra 7 155H can feed to the GPU.

Ultra settings display the tightest scaling curve: 135 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p (29.6% drop), and 56 FPS at 4K (41.1% drop from 1440p). The convergence of Ultra and High at 4K — 56 vs 58 FPS — indicates that at maximum resolution, the GPU's rendering pipeline becomes the bottleneck regardless of preset, with the extra effects in Ultra costing only 2 FPS on average.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured frame rates span a wide range across presets. Low produces 101 FPS average, Medium delivers 77 FPS (minimum 65, maximum 88), High drops to 58 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 56 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 45 FPS, representing a 44.6% performance penalty for maximum visual quality. Notably, the step from High to Ultra at 4K costs just 2 FPS (58 to 56), suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects are nearly free at this resolution — likely because the GPU is already saturated.

At 2560x1440, the data shows a more linear progression. Low achieves 148 FPS average, Medium reaches 130 FPS (minimum 111, maximum 150), High delivers 99 FPS, and Ultra produces 95 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 53 FPS (35.8% reduction). The Medium preset's minimum of 111 FPS indicates that even in demanding scenes, this combo stays well above 100 FPS at 1440p, making it an excellent choice for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 1920x1080, frame rates approach the upper limits of what this CPU-GPU pairing can achieve. Low hits 168 FPS average, Medium delivers 152 FPS (minimum 129, maximum 175), High reaches 138 FPS, and Ultra produces 135 FPS. The compression of results at 1080p — only 33 FPS separating Low from Ultra — strongly suggests CPU involvement in limiting performance. The Core Ultra 7 155H's single-thread performance, measured at 1,743 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 3,468 in PassMark single-thread, appears to cap frame rates around the 170 FPS region regardless of GPU headroom.

GPU Role

The RTX 5080 brings 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth — a figure that dwarfs the requirements of a 2014 title like Thief. This memory configuration explains why even at 4K Ultra, the GPU maintains playable frame rates without any signs of VRAM pressure. The card's 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units provide the raw throughput needed for the game's DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set, though Thief's age means it likely doesn't fully exercise the Blackwell 2.0 architecture's capabilities.

Clock speeds tell an interesting story for this GPU. The base clock of 2,295 MHz boosts to 2,617 MHz, and the memory runs at 1,875 MHz (30 Gbps effective). These figures, combined with the 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 compute throughput, position the RTX 5080 well above the performance level needed for Thief at any resolution. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 36,565 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8,637 confirm its high-end status, placing it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs.

The pixel fill rate of 293.1 GPixel/s and texture fill rate of 879.3 GTexel/s suggest that the RTX 5080 could theoretically push far beyond the measured frame rates if not for CPU limitations. The data supports this interpretation: at 1080p, frame rates plateau around 135-168 FPS across all presets, while at 4K, the GPU's workload increases enough to drop frame rates to a range where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die (120.6M transistors per mm²) at 5 nm TSMC process represent a massive compute resource that Thief's engine can only partially utilize.

CPU Role

The Core Ultra 7 155H's 16 cores and 22 threads, based on the Meteor Lake architecture at 7 nm, provide substantial multi-threaded capability for a mobile processor. Its boost clock of 4.80 GHz and base clock of 3.80 GHz deliver single-thread performance measured at 1,743 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 3,468 in PassMark single-thread. These figures, while respectable for a mobile chip, appear to be the ceiling for Thief's frame rate at lower resolutions.

The CPU's multi-threaded scores — 15,028 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 8,754 in R20 multi-core, and 24,873 in PassMark multi-thread — indicate strong parallel performance that Thief, a 2014 title, likely cannot fully exploit. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB L2 per core provide ample memory hierarchy for the game's data access patterns, while the 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth (dual-channel DDR5) ensures the GPU receives data without starving.

The percentile ranking of 83 for this CPU places it among solid performers, but its nearest rivals show how close the competition is. The Intel Core i5-14600T scores 32,707 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 scores 32,662 (0.1% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F scores 32,750 (-0.2% delta) — all within a fraction of a percent of the Core Ultra 7 155H's 32,697 average. This clustering suggests that Thief's performance at CPU-bound settings would be nearly identical with any of these processors, making the GPU choice far more impactful for this combo's overall ranking.

FAQ

Q: Why does the 1080p performance (135-168 FPS) not scale much between Low and Ultra settings?

A: The data shows only a 33 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p (168 vs 135 FPS), compared to a 45 FPS spread at 4K (101 vs 56 FPS). This compression indicates the CPU becomes the limiting factor at lower resolutions, as the Core Ultra 7 155H's single-thread performance (1,743 in Cinebench R23 single-core) caps frame rates before the GPU's full potential is reached.

Q: Is this combo better suited for 1440p or 4K gaming?

A: The measured data favors 1440p, where Medium settings deliver 130 FPS average (minimum 111, maximum 150) and even Ultra maintains 95 FPS. At 4K, Medium drops to 77 FPS and High falls to 58 FPS, making 1440p the resolution where the RTX 5080's power is fully utilized without CPU bottlenecking.

Q: How significant is the gap between the RTX 5080 and its nearest GPU rival in this game?

A: Based on average benchmark scores, the RTX 5080 (56,083) leads the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) by 0.6% and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698) by 0.7%. However, it trails the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (57,367) by 2.2%, suggesting that specific game optimizations could alter Thief's performance ranking among these GPUs.

Q: What does the Medium preset's minimum FPS tell us about gameplay consistency?

A: The Medium preset's minimum frame rates — 65 FPS at 4K, 111 FPS at 1440p, and 129 FPS at 1080p — indicate that even in the most demanding scenes, this combo maintains playable performance at all resolutions. The 4K minimum of 65 FPS is particularly notable as it stays above the 60 FPS threshold despite the average being only 77 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU's mobile design limit performance in Thief?

A: The data suggests yes at lower resolutions. The 1080p frame rates plateau around 168 FPS on Low, which aligns with the CPU's single-thread benchmark scores (1,743 Cinebench R23, 3,468 PassMark). At 4K where the GPU becomes the bottleneck, the CPU's 16 cores and 22 threads provide sufficient throughput, as evidenced by the smooth scaling from High to Ultra (58 vs 56 FPS).

Q: How does this combo's rank of 987 out of 3,720 reflect its overall capability?

A: This rank places the combo in the top 26.5% of all tested configurations for Thief. Given that the GPU ranks in the 87th percentile and the CPU in the 83rd percentile, the slightly lower game-specific rank suggests that Thief's engine does not fully leverage the RTX 5080's strengths, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU's massive compute resources (56.28 TFLOPS FP32) go partially underutilized.