Thief

Thief's measured performance for the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination. This 3,279-entry benchmark dataset provides 12 distinct sample points across four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) and three resolutions (1080p, 1440p, 4K), all captured with in-game built-in benchmark runs. The data is measured, not derived, and the typical margin between runs was small enough to report a single average frame rate per profile.

Resolution Scaling

The frame-rate curves follow a consistent pattern: the combination's performance is squarely GPU-bound at higher pixel counts, with the CPU no longer being the constraint beyond 1080p. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 184 at 1080p to 126 at 1440p (–58 FPS, a 31% reduction) and then to 74 at 4K (–52 FPS, a further 41% reduction). The total drop from 184 to 74 is a 110-FPS loss, a 60% fade from 1080p to 4K. The same shape appears at High settings: 107 → 73 → 43, a 64-FPS drop (60%) from 1080p to 4K. At Medium, 140 → 96 → 56, a 84-FPS loss (60%). At Ultra, 101 → 70 → 41, a 60-FPS loss (59%).

Because the FPS attenuation is nearly identical in absolute terms across all presets, the scaling is dominated by GPU throughput rather than by the render path or shading complexity. The only irregularity appears at 4K Low vs. Medium: Low averages 74 FPS, Medium 56 FPS, a 18 FPS gap (32%), while at 1080p the Low→Medium delta is 184→140 (44 FPS, 24%). This suggests that at higher resolutions the GPU memory bandwidth (272.0 GB/s) and the 8 GB VRAM run into transfers that become additional pinch points, rather than pure shader throughput.

The diminishing returns story is confirmed by the 1440p→4K step: for every setting, the FPS loss from 1440p to 4K is larger than the loss from 1080p to 1440p. For instance, Low loses 58 FPS from 1440p to 4K (126→74) versus 54 FPS from 1080p to 1440p (184→126). That slightly nonlinear scaling is a hallmark of a card whose 128-bit memory interface and 8 GB of VRAM are stressed as pixel count climbs.

GPU

The RTX 4060 uses the AD107 die (5 nm TSMC) with 3072 shading units, 96 TMUs, 48 ROPs, and 24 RT cores. Its clock envelope is base 1830 MHz, boost 2460 MHz, with memory running at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective) over a 128-bit bus yielding 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The card produces 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 and has a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s. Its TDP is 115 W and it draws a 300 W PSU recommendation.

The measured FPS data aligns with the GPU's synthetic profile: its PassMark G3D score is 19545, which sits in the 61st percentile of the database, with nearest rivals in average score being the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666, 0.2% behind), the AMD Radeon 780M (17588, 0.3% ahead), the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551, 0.5% ahead), and the Radeon Pro 460 (17509, 0.7% ahead). That proximity in composite score suggests that the RTX 4060 is hardly a high-end occupant, and Thief's results align:

• At Ultra 4K it averages 41 FPS — an unplayable 58% of target.
• At High 4K it reaches 43 FPS — similarly, not smooth on a 60 Hz display.
• It takes Low settings at 1440p to hit 126 FPS (a comfortable frame rate), but only at 1080p does it become truly unbounded: 184 FPS at Low, 101 FPS at Ultra.

The card's memory behavior also appears in the min-like data: The only recorded minimum frames are for the Medium preset: at 1080p min 119 FPS, at 1440p min 82 FPS, and at 4K min 48 FPS. The spread between min and max for Medium at 1080p is 119–161 FPS (a 42 FPS delta), while at 1440p it is 82–110 (28 delta) and at 4K it is 48–65 (17 delta). The shrinking delta with increasing resolution indicates that the frame pacing stabilizes as the GPU saturates, but also that any transient scene can drop well below the average when resources are exhausted.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination occupies the 1,862nd position out of 3,720 tested combinations for Thief, placing it at the exact 50th percentile. For a game from 2014 (release date 2014-02-24), that rank shows the system is not at the high end, but it is also not in the lower tiers. Many modern CPU/GPU pairs will beat it, but it outperforms a typical mid-range setup from the era this title launched.

The rank is more impressive considering the CPU: the Core Ultra 7 265K is a 20-core/20-thread Arrow Lake (3nm, TSMC) desktop processor with a base clock of 3.90 GHz, a boost of 5.50 GHz, a 125 W TDP, and 30 MB shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 35,850, single-core 2020, and it holds a 94th percentile of all CPUs (avg score 70,879). The CPU alone puts it among the top 6% of all processors. The fact that the entire combo rank lands at the 50th percentile is therefore entirely due to the GPU – the RTX 4060 falls into the lower half of the database, having only 61 percentile against all GPUs. If the same CPU were paired with a more powerful GPU, the combo would climb significantly upward in that histogram.

Measured FPS Breakdown

| Resolution | Settings | Average FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|------------|-----------|-------------|---------|---------|

| 3840×2160 (4K) | Low | 74 | - | - |

| 3840×2160 (4K) | Medium | 56 | 48 | 65 |

| 3840×2160 (4K) | High | 43 | - | - |

| 3840×2160 (4K) | Ultra | 41 | - | - |

| 2560×1440 (1440p) | Low | 126 | - | - |

| 2560×1440 (`.

27

min = — none)

| 2560×1440 (1440p) | Medium | 96 | 82 | 110 |

| 2560×1440 (1440p) | High | 73 | - | - |

| 2560×1440 (1440p) | Ultra | 70 | - | - |

| 1920×1080 (1080p) | Low | 184 | - | - |

| 1920×1080 (1080p) | Medium | 140 | 119 | 161 |

| 1920×1080 (1080p) | High | 107 | - | - |

| 1920×1080 (1080p) | Ultra | 101 | - | - |

The dataset includes the _medium_ preset only for min and max. At 1440p Medium the min is 82 FPS and max 110 FPS, while at 1080p Medium the min is 119 FPS and max 161 FPS. Low and High presets have no recorded min/max values, so we cannot say anything about their frames stall margins.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Thief at 60 frames per second at 1080p?

A: Yes, all four presets at 1920×1080 average above 100 FPS – Low 184 FPS, Medium 140 FPS, High 107 FPS, and Ultra 101 FPS – so 60 FPS is trivial. Even at 1440p all presets exceed 60 FPS except Ultra, which is exactly 70 FPS, and High at 73 FPS.

Q: What is the only preset that barely hits 60? A: At 4K Ultra, the average is 41 FPS, which is far from 60. So the only way to hit 60 FPS at 4K is to drop to Low settings, which gives 74 FPS.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM cause a problem in Thief?

A: The game is from 2014, so 8 GB is ample for its CAD models and texture sizes. However, the memory bandwidth (272.0 GB/s) and 128-bit bus become constraints as resolution increases, as seen in the 4K drop between Low and Medium (74 → 56 FPS), a 18 FPS penalty for just one notch of settings.

Q: How does the CPU handle the game’s physics and logic thread?

A: With a 20-core/20-thread processor and DDR5 dual-channel 102.4 GB/s bandwidth, the CPU is far from a limit. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score stands at 35,850, which is 94th percentile. The fact that the combo rank is only 50th percentile highlights the GPU as the cover on the entire system’s Thief performance.

Q: Is the RTX 4060 overkill for this old title?

A: At 1080p the card leaves enormous headroom – it delivers 184 FPS on Low and still keeps 101 FPS on Ultra. At 4K Ultra it drops below priority, so if you have a 4K monitor the GPU is decisively underdog (41 FPS). The data shows that any resolution richer than 1440p will need either lower settings or a more powerful GPU for a consistent 60.

Q: How does the combo rank relative to the CPU’s percentile?

A: The CPU percentile is 94 while the combo rank is 50th percentile. That ~44-point disadvantage is explained by the RTX's rather low 61st percentile, meaning that a typical user could replace the GPU and see a huge boost in Thief, while swapping the CPU out would do very little.

CPU Role

The Core Ultra 7 265K is the strongest part of this package. It is an Arrow Lake‑S 20‑core (20 threads) processor built on a 3 nm node, base 3.90 GHz, boost 5.50 GHz, 125 W TDP, 30 MB L3 cache, and uses DDR5 memory with dual‑channel support at a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. It has integrated Arc Xe‑LPG Graphics (unused here). Its synthetic scores place it in the 94th percentile: Geekbench multicore 23085, single‑core 2713, Passmark multithread 58594, and Cinebench R23 multi‑core 35850.

In Thief the effect of this will be next‑generation nowhere: the game is so light on modern hardware that the CPU cannot be the bottleneck at any resolution. This is evidenced by the graph of FPS across resolutions – the gap between 1080p and 4K is huge, and at 1080p Low the card spits out 184 FPS but the min/max records are only present for Medium, which shows a 119–161 range. If the CPU were limited, we would see frame render not reach those numbers even at 1080p. Instead, the combination’s average score at 4K (74 FPS Low) – which is higher than any CPU could drive without a GPU – proves that the CPU never holds back the RTX 4060.

The fact that the combo’s global rank (1862 / 3720) sits at the median confirms that the old game’s pure graphics workload is almost entirely on the GPU spoke. For any frame‑rate gap, the CPU's boost clock to 5.5 GHz is a good partner for the 4060’s 2.46 GHz boost for those few threads Thief does use (maybe single‑threaded physics), but the scores show it more than suffices.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS, the present of the system depends on your target monitor resolution and refresh rate:

• 1080p (1920×1080): any preset delivers > 100 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 184→140 (a 44 FPS drop) but medium also raises visual fidelity materially. If you have a 144Hz monitor, Medium is the sweet spot: 140 FPS average, with 119 FPS minimum, staying above 118. For a locked 60, Ultra is a perfect match (101 FPS average). We would not recommend Low at 1080p; it's too visually sparse, while the card is nowhere near its limit.

• 1440p (2560×1440): Ultra hits 70 FPS, but for consistent 60+ you can safely drop to High with 73 FPS. Then Medium is for smoother (96 FPS) or 120Hz gaming if you lower to Low giving 126 FPS. A guess – provided you care about the visual fidelity upside from Medium to High, the 96 at Medium / 73 at High puts High at the borderline for 60. We could say High is the best save at 1440p, but if you need over 100 FPS, Low is present.

• 4K (3840×2160) and quality versus playability: Low is playable at 74 FPS, Medium at 56, and High at 43. Since the GPU is at low headroom, the biggest step from Low to Medium is only 18 FPS. The gap from Medium to High is 13 FPS, and the Ultra is 41 FPS. For a buttery 60, the Low preset is the only option. If you have a VRR monitor, Medium produces 56 average with 48 minimum – that's a playable range for many. We recommend that given the data, the 4K experience should use the Low setting or the display refresh rate near 60, else accept that Medium** will sit below max.

Keep in mind that the min/max data is only available for Medium; all other settings have only the average frame rate, so the reported min/max of Medium (82 –110 at 1440p, 119–, 161 at 1080p, 48–65 at 4K) can be a useful to judge frame‑time violence across most of the game. In that sense, on Medium at 4K, min 48 FPS is near 60 but with variability.

Without any price discussion, the combination FX is a functional ARPG but not a performance winner. The CPU wrist is quiet but the GPU surly. If the top‑ranked combo are – it's not because of this card. Primary takeaway: the RTX 4060 binds at 1080p, manageable at 1440p, and the 4K drops to 41–74 depending on preset. Use Low for 4K or Medium for 1440p with the CPU idle every second.