The Medium

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 presents a lopsided combination for The Medium: a strong GPU carrying a modest quad-core CPU. Measured data shows this combo can hit 60 FPS at 1080p and 1440p on High settings, and at 4K on Medium settings, but Ultra presets fall short at every resolution. The RTX 5070’s raw performance dominates the frame rate, while the i3-12100F’s four cores prove sufficient for this horror title’s demands, though the CPU’s 68th percentile ranking among all processors suggests it is not the bottleneck in most scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the best playable setting at 1920x1080 for this combo?

A: High settings deliver an average of 71.1 FPS, which is the most demanding preset that stays above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra settings drop to 56.3 FPS average, just below playable.

Q: Can this system run The Medium at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, but not on the highest presets. Medium settings at 3840x2160 produce an average of 64.6 FPS, while High falls to 50.1 FPS and Ultra drops to 40 FPS. Low settings reach 107.6 FPS but sacrifice visual quality.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score is 40377, placing it 0.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 580, 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, and 2% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile. It sits 1.2% behind the AMD Radeon Pro 5300.

Q: Is the Intel Core i3-12100F a weak link for this game?

A: The CPU’s multi-threaded Cinebench R23 score is 11860, and its single-thread score is 1674. It ranks in the 68th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core 3 N355, scores nearly identically (13492 vs 13494 average). For The Medium, the frame rates suggest the GPU governs performance more than the CPU.

Q: What is the difference between Low and High settings at 1440p?

A: Low settings average 138.4 FPS, while High settings average 63.5 FPS. The gap is 74.9 FPS, indicating a heavy cost for higher visual fidelity, but both remain comfortably above 60 FPS.

Q: Does the combo rank well among all tested configurations for this game?

A: It ranks 706th out of 3724 tested combos, placing it in the top 19% of all configurations tested for The Medium.

CPU and GPU Roles

The measured FPS data across resolutions and presets reveals that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the dominant component in this pairing. At 1920x1080, dropping from High (71.1 FPS) to Low (144.7 FPS) more than doubles the frame rate, a shift driven almost entirely by GPU load. The CPU’s four cores and eight threads are adequate to feed the GPU at this resolution, as evidenced by the fact that even the most demanding preset (Ultra at 56.3 FPS) is only marginally below the 60 FPS target.

Scaling to 2560x1440 shows a similar pattern. High settings yield 63.5 FPS, Medium 84.1 FPS, and Low 138.4 FPS. The GPU still has headroom, but the CPU begins to exert more influence at lower presets where the frame rate ceiling rises. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor: High settings drop to 50.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40 FPS. The CPU’s role diminishes further because the GPU is saturated at these resolutions, and the i3-12100F’s single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1674) is sufficient to avoid stalling the pipeline.

The data indicates that the RTX 5070’s 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs and its 30.87 TFLOPS FP32 throughput provide the bulk of the performance headroom. The i3-12100F, with a 68th percentile CPU ranking, does not bottleneck the GPU at any resolution tested, but it also does not boost performance. The gap between 1080p High (71.1 FPS) and 1440p High (63.5 FPS) is only 7.6 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is scaling well with resolution while the CPU maintains a stable floor. At 4K, the GPU’s workload increases substantially, and the CPU’s contribution becomes negligible—the 4K High average of 50.1 FPS is 21.4% lower than 1440p High, a drop attributable to the GPU’s memory bandwidth (672.0 GB/s) and pixel rate (201.0 GPixel/s) rather than CPU compute.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is High, with an average of 71.1 FPS. Medium runs at 99.2 FPS and Low at 144.7 FPS, but High offers the best visual fidelity while maintaining a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. Ultra falls short at 56.3 FPS.

At 2560x1440, High settings again provide the best balance, averaging 63.5 FPS. This is the highest preset that clears 60 FPS, with Medium at 84.1 FPS and Low at 138.4 FPS as alternatives. Ultra drops to 48.3 FPS, which is not playable.

At 3840x2160, Medium settings are the most demanding playable option, averaging 64.6 FPS. High settings average 50.1 FPS and Ultra 40 FPS, both below the 60 FPS target. Low settings reach 107.6 FPS but sacrifice significant visual quality.

The Verdict

This PC can run The Medium, but the playable range depends heavily on resolution. At 1920x1080, High settings clear the 60 FPS threshold with an average of 71.1 FPS, and Low and Medium also qualify. At 2560x1440, High settings average 63.5 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS line, and Low and Medium are also playable. At 3840x2160, only Low and Medium settings are playable, with Medium averaging 64.6 FPS as the best option.

Ultra settings are not playable at any resolution: 56.3 FPS at 1080p, 48.3 FPS at 1440p, and 40 FPS at 4K. The verdict is clear: for a smooth experience, stick to High at 1080p or 1440p, and Medium at 4K. The RTX 5070’s 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and 192-bit bus are sufficient for this game’s demands, but the GPU cannot handle Ultra presets even at 1080p with this CPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are as follows: Low settings produce 144.7 FPS, Medium 99.2 FPS, High 71.1 FPS, and Ultra 56.3 FPS. No minimum or maximum FPS values were recorded, so averages are the sole metric.

At 2560x1440, Low settings average 138.4 FPS, Medium 84.1 FPS, High 63.5 FPS, and Ultra 48.3 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 90.1 FPS, showing a steep performance curve as settings increase.

At 3840x2160, Low settings average 107.6 FPS, Medium 64.6 FPS, High 50.1 FPS, and Ultra 40 FPS. The 4K results show the most pronounced impact from settings changes, with Ultra delivering less than a third of Low’s frame rate.

Across all resolutions, the pattern is consistent: Low settings offer the highest headroom, Medium provides a solid balance, High approaches the 60 FPS limit, and Ultra falls below it. The lack of min/max FPS data means the data cannot confirm frame time consistency, but the averages indicate that stuttering is unlikely at the playable presets given the GPU’s high benchmark scores.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i3-12100F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination ranks 706th out of 3724 tested combos for The Medium, placing it in the top 19% of all configurations. This is a strong result for a CPU that sits in the 68th percentile of all processors and a GPU in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs.

The CPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Core 3 N355 (0% delta, avg score 13492 vs 13494), Intel Core i5-9500 (0.3% ahead), Intel Core 5 120UL (0.7% behind), and Intel Core i7-1250U (1.1% ahead). These small deltas show the i3-12100F is competitive with mid-range processors from several generations, and its 12 MB of L3 cache and 4.30 GHz boost clock are adequate for this game’s threading model.

The GPU’s nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (0.1% behind), AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (0.8% behind), AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (1.2% ahead), and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (2% behind). The RTX 5070’s average benchmark score of 40377 is significantly higher than its rivals, but the ranking in The Medium reflects real-world game performance, which is influenced by the CPU pairing. The 706th rank out of 3724 indicates that while this combo is not top-tier, it outperforms the majority of tested systems, and the measured FPS data confirms it delivers playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p High, and 4K Medium.