Thief

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination delivers a top-tier experience in Thief, a stealth title from 2014. The benchmark data, measured directly, shows this pairing ranks in the 99th percentile among 3,720 tested combos in this game. This analysis breaks down the GPU's role, CPU impact, resolution scaling, and exact frame rates across all tested settings.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the driving force behind most of the frame rate output in Thief. This GPU is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using the AD103 chip on a 5 nm process from TSMC. The GPU has a base clock of 2205 MHz and a boost clock of 2505 MHz, with 9,728 shading units handling the game's rendering work. The memory subsystem is equally substantial: 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 4080 also includes 76 RT cores, 304 tensor cores, and 304 texture mapping units, along with 112 ROPs. Its pixel rate is 280.6 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 761.5 GTexel/s. The GPU's FP32 compute is 48.74 TFLOPS, a figure that speaks to its raw shader performance.

In Thief, the GPU's memory bandwidth and capacity are key. The game is from 2014, but at 4K resolution with Ultra settings, the data shows the average frame rate drops to 72 FPS. The 16 GB VRAM buffer is more than sufficient for this title, which was designed for the hardware of its era. The RTX 4080's memory bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s ensures that textures and scene data are fed quickly to the shaders. The boost clock of 2505 MHz is the speed at which the GPU operates under load, and the benchmark results indicate that this is a decisive factor in the measured FPS. The card's performance percentile is 86th among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score is 54,247. When compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4080 is essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, which has a delta of just 0.1%. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% behind, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB and AMD Radeon 8060S are 2.6% and 2.7% behind, respectively. This places the RTX 4080 at the top of its immediate competitor group in synthetic benchmarks.

The GPU's clock speeds directly influence the measured frames in Thief. The base clock of 2205 MHz is the starting point, but the boost clock of 2505 MHz is where the card spends most of its time under load. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p Ultra settings, the card achieves 179 FPS, which is likely limited by the CPU at that lower resolution. At higher resolutions like 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and the boost clock is the limiting factor for the 76 FPS average seen at High settings at 3840x2160. The RTX 4080's pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s is a theoretical maximum, and Thief's shader complexity determines how close the card gets to that. The measured data shows that the card is never fully saturated at 1080p, which leads to the CPU role becoming more prominent.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of how Thief scales with resolution. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 188. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same High settings, the average FPS drops to 129. At 3840x2160, the average falls to 76 FPS. This represents a drop of about 59.6% from 1080p to 4K when using High settings. The scaling is consistent across settings, but the shape of the curve tells us about the limiting component.

At 1080p, the GPU is not the primary bottleneck. The data shows that the RTX 4080 is capable of producing 188 FPS at High, but when you look at the settings scaling at the same resolution, the story changes. At 1080p Low, the average is 230 FPS, Medium is 208 FPS, and Ultra is 179 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is only 51 FPS, which is relatively small. This indicates that the CPU is holding the GPU back at these lower resolutions. The RTX 4080's compute power is so high that Thief's engine, even at Ultra, cannot fully utilize the GPU at 1080p.

The drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant. At High, the FPS goes from 188 to 129, a reduction of 31.4%. This is a clear sign that the GPU starts to become the limiting factor. The 1440p resolution adds more pixels, which requires more GPU processing. The RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth are still sufficient, but the shading work increases. At 1440p, the frame rates remain high, but the scaling is less than ideal. With a perfect GPU bottleneck, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p would be proportional to the pixel count increase (1.77x), which would result in around 106 FPS if the 1080p High were 188. The measured 129 FPS is higher than that theoretical GPU-bound figure, which implies that the CPU is still playing a role in limiting the frame rate at 1440p.

The leap from 1440p to 4K is where the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor. At High, the FPS drops from 129 to 76, a reduction of 41.1%. At 4K, the pixel count is 2.25x that of 1440p, which would put a purely GPU-bound scenario at around 57 FPS if scaling were linear. The measured 76 FPS is higher than that, which suggests that the RTX 4080 is not fully saturated at 1440p, and the CPU is still able to feed it enough data at 4K. However, the gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is telling. At 4K Low, the average FPS is 131, while at Ultra it is 72. This is a 45% difference, whereas at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is only 22%. This reinforces the notion that at 4K, the GPU is the dominant bottleneck, and the CPU's role is diminished.

The data also shows that the Medium settings at all three resolutions provide a middle ground. At 4K Medium, the average FPS is 100, with a min of 85 and a max of 114. At 1440p Medium, the average is 169, with min 144 and max 195. At 1080p Medium, the average is 208, with min 177 and max 240. These figures are useful for understanding the frame pacing and variability. The higher-end cards like the RTX 4080 produce a smooth experience, and the min FPS values are close to the averages, indicating stable performance.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This is a 3 nm part from TSMC, with 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. The CPU's cache is substantial: 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3. It supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. The CPU's TDP is 65 W, which is modest, but its performance is not. The Core Ultra 7 265 is part of the Core Ultra Series 2, with a launch MSRP of $394.

In Thief, the CPU's role is most apparent at lower resolutions. The game was released in 2014, and its engine is not heavily threaded. The Core Ultra 7 265's process has 20 cores, but Thief cannot effectively use all of them. However, the CPU's high boost clock of 5.30 GHz is critical for the game's single-threaded performance. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p, the frame rate is limited by the CPU's ability to issue draw calls and manage the game's logic. The CPU's single-thread score in PassMark is 4,689, which is a measure of its single-core speed. In Cinebench R23, the single-core score is 5,960. These numbers indicate a very fast single-threaded processor, which is what Thief needs.

The CPU's performance is also reflected in its synthetic benchmarks. In Cinebench R23 multi-core, the score is 42,216, while the R20 score is 6,268 and R15 is 4,255. These scores show a strong multi-threaded performance, but for Thief, the relevant figures are the single-core ones. The CPU's PassMark multi-thread score is 49,682, and its data compression score is 522,983. The CPU's percentile ranking among all CPUs is 93rd, with an average benchmark score of 64,640. This places it in a high tier, but its rivals, such as the AMD EPYC 4464P, are close, with a delta of -0.3%. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265F is just 0.3% behind, and the AMD EPYC 7343 and EPYC 9124 are 0.7% and -0.7% ahead or behind, respectively.

At 1080p, the CPU's impact is clear. The data shows that at 1080p Ultra, the average FPS is 179, which is lower than the 188 at High. This indicates that the game's CPU demands increase with settings, but the GPU is not the only factor. The 1080p Low setting produces 230 FPS, which is likely the ceiling for the CPU's performance. The RTX 4080 could probably render more frames, but the CPU cannot generate the draw calls fast enough. The 4K resolution, the CPU's role is less important. At 4K Ultra, the FPS is 72, and at 4K High it is 76. These figures are primarily determined by the GPU, and the CPU provides a sufficient amount of data to keep the GPU busy.

The Core Ultra 7 265's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s is also a factor. Thief's performance is not heavily memory-bound, but the CPU's access to system memory can affect frame times. The CPU's integrated graphics, Arc Xe-LPG with 32 EU, is not used in this test, but it is present on the chip. The CPU's PCIe Gen 5 support with 20 lanes is also not a limiting factor for the RTX 4080, which uses PCIe 4.0 x16. In summary, the CPU is a strong partner for the RTX 4080 in Thief, but it is the GPU that ultimately determines the frame rate at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The pair of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is ranked 99th out of 3,720 tested combinations in Thief. This is a top-tier ranking, placing it in the 99th percentile of all systems tested. This is a remarkable position, meaning that the combo outperforms 99% of all other CPU-GPU pairings in the database for this game. The ranking is a direct result of both components' individual strengths: the CPU's high single-thread speed and the GPU's massive compute power.

Among the 3,720 combos, a rank of 99 means there are only about 37 combos that are faster in Thief. These are likely to be older systems with even more powerful GPUs or maybe overclocked parts, but the data shows that this combo is among the very best. The ranking is based on the measured FPS at various settings and resolutions, and the raw performance of the RTX 4080 is the key driver. The CPU's rank is also high, but the GPU's role is paramount in a game like Thief.

The combo rank of 99 is more impressive when considering the GPU's individual percentile of 86. This means the GPU is not the absolute fastest, but the CPU's 93rd percentile ranking helps push the system up. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265's single-thread performance is a perfect match for Thief's engine, which is more sensitive to single-core speed than to multi-core. The data shows that the combo's performance is not just the sum of its parts, but a synergy where the CPU's speed allows the GPU to stretch its legs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data is broken down by resolution and settings. At 1920x1080, the fastest setting is Low, which produces an average of 230 FPS. Medium produces 208 FPS with a min of 177 and max of 240. High produces 188 FPS, and Ultra produces 179 FPS. The trend shows that higher settings reduce frame rates, but the GPU is not the sole cause. The CPU's limit is around 230 FPS, as the 1080p Low cannot exceed that.

At 2560x1440, the values are lower. Low produces 203 FPS, Medium produces 169 FPS with a min of 144 and a max of 195. High produces 129 FPS, and Ultra produces 123 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant, but the FPS is still high for a 1440p monitor. The Low to Ultra gap at 1440p is 80 FPS, indicating that the GPU is becoming a larger factor.

At 3840x2160, the values are the lowest. Low produces 131 FPS, Medium produces 100 FPS with a min of 85 and max of 114. High produces 76 FPS, and Ultra produces 72 FPS. The 4K results show that the GPU is fully saturated, and the CPU is not a bottleneck. The Low setting at 4K is still above 100 FPS, which is remarkable for a 4K resolution. The Ultra setting at 4K is only 72 FPS, but that is still playable.

The FPS breakdown also shows that the Medium settings are the best for frame pacing. At 1080p, the Medium has a min of 177 and max of 240, which is a 63 FPS range. At 1440p, the Medium has a min of 144 and max of 195, a 51 FPS range. At 4K, the Medium has a min of 85 and max of 114, a 29 FPS range. This indicates that the frame times are stable at higher settings, which is good for gameplay.

The data also shows the scaling from Low to Ultra. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 51 FPS. At 1440p, the difference is 80 FPS. At 4K, the difference is 59 FPS. This indicates that the GPU's performance scales with settings, but the CPU is more of a factor at lower resolutions. In summary, the RTX 4080 and Core Ultra 7 265 provide high frame rates across all three resolutions, with the most demanding settings at 4K still delivering over 72 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank for the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and RTX 4080 in Thief?

The combo ranks 99th out of 3,720 tested combinations, placing it in the top 99th percentile for this game.

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with High settings?

The average FPS is 188 at 1080p with High settings, with a max of 240 FPS at Medium settings.

Q: How does the RTX 4080's performance compare to its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER?

The RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54,247, while the RTX 4080 SUPER has a score of 54,209, a delta of 0.1%. The two are effectively tied.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock and how does it affect Thief?

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 has a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This high single-thread speed is critical for Thief, which is a game that relies on a fast CPU, especially at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at 4K with Medium settings?

At 4K with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 85, with an average of 100 FPS and a maximum of 114 FPS.

Q: What is the CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score?

The Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 42,216, which is a measure of its multi-threaded performance.