Thief

# FAQ

Q: What is the measured average FPS for this CPU-GPU combination in Thief at 1080p Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 delivers an average of 94 FPS. This is the lowest average among the four settings presets at 1080p, with Low reaching 171 FPS, Medium at 130 FPS, and High at 99 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations in Thief?

A: This specific configuration ranks 1586th out of 2851 total tested combos in Thief. This places it in the middle of the overall distribution, suggesting it sits roughly at the 55th percentile of all tested hardware pairings for this title.

Q: What is the FPS difference between 1440p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 Medium settings, the average FPS is 89, while at 3840x2160 Medium, it drops to 52 FPS. This represents a 37 FPS decline, or approximately a 41.6% reduction in performance when moving from 1440p to 4K.

Q: Which resolution and settings combination yields the highest measured average FPS?

A: The best performance comes from 1920x1080 with Low settings, producing an average of 171 FPS. This is followed by 1440p Low at 117 FPS and 1080p Medium at 130 FPS. Notably, the jump from 1080p Low to 1440p Low shows a 54 FPS drop.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS values recorded for this combo?

A: The data includes min/max values only for Medium settings across all three resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the range is 110 to 149 FPS; at 1440p Medium, it spans 76 to 102 FPS; and at 4K Medium, it falls between 45 and 60 FPS. No min/max data is provided for Low, High, or Ultra presets.

Q: How does the GPU's benchmark percentile compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Radeon RX 9060 sits at the 59th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16014. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, scores 16129, which is only 0.7% higher. The AMD Radeon R9 370X and RX 7700 trail by 1% and 1.3% respectively.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K brings 20 cores and 20 threads to this pairing, operating with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. This Arrow Lake-S architecture chip, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC, features 30 MB of shared L3 cache and a 125 W TDP. The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded capability — its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35850 and Geekbench multi-core of 23085 position it well above the 94th percentile of all CPUs.

For a game like Thief, which launched in 2014, the CPU's single-thread performance often matters more than raw core counts. The 265K delivers a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2020 and a Geekbench single-core of 2713, figures that comfortably handle older game engines. The 20 cores are largely underutilized in this title, but the high boost clock ensures that the few threads the game does use run at maximum speed.

The CPU's nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores include the Intel Xeon 6511P (0.2% higher), Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (0.7% higher), Intel Core i7-14700KF (1% lower), and AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (1.3% lower). This tight grouping suggests the 265K performs at a level consistent with both server and desktop chips in synthetic workloads. The PassMark multi-thread score of 58594 and integer math score of 143242 further reinforce its capability in compute-heavy scenarios.

In Thief specifically, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining frame rates across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 171 FPS average, which indicates the CPU is feeding frames rapidly. The fact that 1080p Ultra still achieves 94 FPS suggests the CPU maintains consistent throughput even when the GPU is handling more graphical work. The 20 threads provide ample headroom for background tasks, though the game itself likely uses only a fraction of them.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 uses the Navi 44 chip with RDNA 4.0 architecture, built on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It comes with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's clocks are notable: a base of 1700 MHz, game clock of 2400 MHz, and boost up to 2990 MHz. With 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, it produces a pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 59 places it in the mid-range tier, with its nearest rival being the RTX 3060 Ti at just 0.7% higher average score. The Radeon R9 370X and RX 7700 both score 1% lower, while the Radeon Pro W5500 trails by 2.1%. Its PassMark G3D score of 17631 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3322 give context to its gaming performance.

In Thief, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM capacity proves adequate even at 4K Ultra settings, where the combo still produces 38 FPS average. The memory bandwidth of 288 GB/s appears to be a limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the frame rate drops from 94 FPS at 1080p Ultra to 65 FPS at 1440p Ultra — a 30.9% reduction. At 4K Ultra, the 38 FPS result indicates the GPU is heavily taxed, though the game remains playable at Medium settings where it hits 52 FPS.

The GPU's boost clock of 2990 MHz is remarkably high, and this helps maintain solid performance at 1440p where most settings presets exceed 65 FPS. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures full compatibility with modern rendering paths. The 64 ROPs handle fill-rate demands well for a game of Thief's era, though the 128-bit memory bus constrains performance at extreme resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience. At 1080p, Medium settings deliver 130 FPS average with a minimum of 110 FPS and maximum of 149 FPS. This represents a sweet spot: it's 31 FPS faster than High (99 FPS) and 36 FPS faster than Ultra (94 FPS), while only sacrificing 41 FPS compared to Low (171 FPS). The min FPS of 110 ensures smooth gameplay without stutters.

At 1440p, Medium again proves optimal with 89 FPS average, a 76 FPS minimum, and 102 FPS maximum. High settings at 1440p achieve 68 FPS, which is playable but noticeably slower, while Ultra drops to 65 FPS. Low settings at 1440p reach 117 FPS but at the cost of visual fidelity that Medium likely restores without a proportional performance hit.

For 4K, the recommendation shifts to Low settings, which produce 69 FPS average. Medium at 4K yields 52 FPS with a 45 FPS minimum — this falls below the 60 FPS threshold many players prefer. High settings at 4K deliver 40 FPS, and Ultra drops to 38 FPS. The data suggests that 4K Medium is only viable if the user can tolerate occasional dips below 50 FPS.

Overall, Medium settings at 1080p or 1440p provide the best balance of visual quality and frame rate. The min/max data available only for Medium presets shows consistent frame pacing at all three resolutions, indicating this preset is well-optimized for the combo. At 1080p, Ultra is also viable at 94 FPS, but the 36 FPS penalty versus Medium may not justify the visual uplift for a stealth game where smoothness matters.

How This Combo Ranks

This configuration ranks 1586th out of 2851 tested combos in Thief, placing it slightly above the median of all tested hardware pairings. The percentile positioning suggests that roughly 44% of tested combos perform better, while 56% perform worse. Given the mid-range nature of the GPU (59th GPU percentile) and high-end CPU (94th CPU percentile), the combo rank reflects a pairing where the GPU likely constrains overall performance.

The CPU's high percentile (94) versus the GPU's lower percentile (59) indicates an imbalance — the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is significantly more capable than the Radeon RX 9060 in general benchmarks. In Thief, this imbalance manifests at lower resolutions where the CPU could push more frames if the GPU weren't the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the 171 FPS result shows the combo can reach high rates, but the GPU's limits appear at 4K Ultra where it manages only 38 FPS.

The rank of 1586 out of 2851 suggests that many combos with similar or lower CPU performance achieve better results, likely because they pair with stronger GPUs. Conversely, the combo outperforms the bottom half of tested configurations, which likely include older or entry-level components. The GPU's nearest rival being the RTX 3060 Ti — a card from a previous generation — contextualizes where this combo sits in the performance hierarchy.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results across all settings. Low settings produce 171 FPS average, Medium reaches 130 FPS (min 110, max 149), High achieves 99 FPS, and Ultra manages 94 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 77 FPS drop, with the largest single-step decline occurring between Low and Medium (41 FPS).

At 2560x1440, performance scales down predictably. Low settings yield 117 FPS, Medium produces 89 FPS (min 76, max 102), High reaches 68 FPS, and Ultra delivers 65 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 52 FPS, and the step from Medium to High (21 FPS) is the largest decline in this resolution tier.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor. Low settings manage 69 FPS, Medium achieves 52 FPS (min 45, max 60), High drops to 40 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 38 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra is only 2 FPS, suggesting that Ultra settings impose additional graphical load that the GPU cannot compensate for at this resolution.

The data reveals consistent scaling: Medium settings always sit approximately 40-50% higher than Ultra at each resolution. At 1080p, Medium is 36 FPS faster than Ultra; at 1440p, it's 24 FPS faster; at 4K, it's 14 FPS faster. The absolute FPS differences shrink as resolution increases, indicating the GPU's workload grows faster than its capabilities at higher pixel counts.

Resolution Scaling

Moving from 1080p to 1440p, the FPS drops are substantial across all settings. Low falls from 171 to 117 FPS (a 54 FPS or 31.6% reduction), Medium drops from 130 to 89 (41 FPS or 31.5%), High goes from 99 to 68 (31 FPS or 31.3%), and Ultra declines from 94 to 65 (29 FPS or 30.9%). These nearly uniform percentage drops — all hovering around 31% — suggest a consistent scaling factor tied to pixel count rather than settings complexity.

The transition from 1440p to 4K shows even steeper declines. Low drops from 117 to 69 FPS (48 FPS or 41%), Medium falls from 89 to 52 (37 FPS or 41.6%), High goes from 68 to 40 (28 FPS or 41.2%), and Ultra declines from 65 to 38 (27 FPS or 41.5%). Again, the percentage drops are remarkably consistent across settings, around 41%.

This uniform scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The 4K pixel count is 2.25 times that of 1440p, and the FPS drops by approximately 41% — close to the theoretical inverse scaling if the GPU were fully saturated. At 1080p, the CPU's strong performance (94th percentile) means the GPU is also the limiter, but the higher frame rates suggest the GPU still has headroom at lower resolutions. The consistent 31% drop from 1080p to 1440p, versus 41% from 1440p to 4K, reflects the GPU's diminishing ability to keep up as resolution increases, cementing the RX 9060 as the bottleneck in this pairing for Thief.