The Medium

The Intel Core i5-12400 and Intel Arc B580 combination sits at rank 2812 out of 3724 tested combos for The Medium, placing it in the lower third of all systems measured. This is a pairing where the headline components—a six-core Alder Lake CPU and a Battlemage graphics card—might suggest midrange competence, but the in-game data tells a different story. Across every resolution tested, only the Low preset manages to stay above the 60 FPS playable threshold, and even then, the margin is thin at 4K. The measured frames indicate a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics workload, with the CPU largely untapped. This is not a combination that unlocks the game's higher visual tiers; rather, it provides a stable baseline at the lowest fidelity settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame of 2812 out of 3724 combos places this pairing in the bottom quarter of all tested configurations. This is a sobering position for hardware that includes a dedicated GPU like the Intel Arc B580. The ranking implies that in the context of The Medium, this system is near the tail end of what is considered viable for gaming, with only roughly 912 combos performing worse. The percentile for the CPU alone is 72, meaning it scores higher than 72% of all CPUs in general benchmarks, and the GPU sits at the 68th percentile. Yet, the game-specific ranking is far lower, pointing to a distinct software or workload characteristic that penalizes this hardware pairing.

The data suggests that the Arc B580, despite its respectable standing in general benchmarks, is not translating its compute power into frame rate in this title. The GPU's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 3080, both of which are typically associated with much stronger gaming performance, yet the B580's deltaPct against them is minimal (0.6% and -0.7% difference in average score, respectively). This close benchmark parity with high-end cards that normally crush 1080p gaming makes the low in-game rank even more curious. It indicates that The Medium's rendering pipeline, likely with its heavy use of ray tracing and fixed resolution scaling, is not a favorable environment for this specific graphics architecture.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals a clear pattern: the GPU is the dominant bottleneck at all test resolutions, but the extent of that bottleneck varies with the settings. Looking at 1920x1080, the gap between Low and Ultra is stark, with a 89 FPS average on Low collapsing to 33.9 FPS on Ultra. This is a 55.1 FPS swing driven entirely by GPU workload. The CPU, an Intel Core i5-12400 with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz and twelve threads, is not the limiting factor here; the frame rate scales with the graphics preset.

When moving from 1920 to 2560x1440, the average FPS at every preset drops. At Low, it goes from 89 to 72.1, a 16.9 FPS reduction. At High, it drops from 38.3 to 30.9. This scaling shows that the GPU is already at its limit, and adding more pixels directly reduces throughput. The 4K resolution (3840x2160) further crushes the system, with the Low preset barely hitting 60.5 FPS and Ultra dropping to 21.9 FPS. The CPU's role becomes even less prominent at higher resolutions because the GPU is so heavily saturated that the frame rate is completely dictated by the graphics card's pixel and texture fill rates.

The data suggests that at 1080p, there is a slight chance the CPU could influence the minimum frame rate, but with the GPU only delivering 38.3 FPS at High, any headroom is irrelevant. The story is purely about the GPU's inability to handle the game's higher settings at any resolution. The CPU is effectively a bystander, providing sufficient processing power to feed the GPU but never being the reason for the low frame rates.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run The Medium at 60 frames per second?

A: Yes, but only the Low preset is playable. At 1920x1080, Low achieves 89 FPS, at 2560x1440 it reaches 72.1 FPS, and at 3840x2160 it just clears the threshold at 60.5 FPS. All other presets fall below 60 FPS.

Q: What is the best preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: The only preset that stays above 60 FPS is Low, with an average of 89 FPS. Medium drops to 54.1 FPS, High to 38.3 FPS, and Ultra to 33.9 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its rivals?

A: The Arc B580's avg benchmark score is 23021, while its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, scores 23061 (a -0.2% delta), the RTX 2080 scores 22895 (0.6% delta), and the RTX 3080 scores 23172 (-0.7% delta). These are nearly identical scores, indicating the B580 is tuned to a specific performance tier.

Q: Is the CPU or the GPU the limiting factor?

A: The GPU is the clear limiting factor. The CPU's benchmark scores (e.g., Cinebench R23 multi-core: 15989) are strong, but the game's frame rates are heavily determined by the graphics presets, dropping from 89 FPS Low to 33.9 FPS Ultra at 1080p, which is a GPU-driven change.

Q: Does the combo rank improve at lower resolutions?

A: No, the rank is a single game-wide statistic. The data shows that even at 1920x1080, only Low preset is playable, and the rank of 2812 out of 3724 does not change based on resolution, as it is a fixed measurement of the combo's overall performance.

Q: What is the minimum FPS for the playable settings?

A: The measured data for this combo only lists average FPS values without separate min or max columns, so exact minimum frame rates are not available in the data. The average is the only metric provided.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest rivals for the Intel Core i5-12400 (avg score 18683) are the AMD EPYC 7643 (18697, -0.1%), Intel Core i7-1355U (18730, -0.3%), AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (18811, -0.7%), and the Intel Core i3-14100F (18519, 0.9%). These processors, within a 1% benchmark delta, would likely behave the same in this game, meaning that the CPU, the GPU is the bottleneck, so the FPS would be unchanged.

For the Intel Arc B580 (avg score 23021), the closest peers are the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP (23061, -0.2%), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 (22895, 0.6%), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (23172, -0.7%). These graphics cards are all within 1% of the B580's score, so swapping to any of these would produce similar frame rates in The Medium. The data indicates that these are not better or worse alternatives in practice; they are the same performance tier. This is a surprising list, but the numbers make it clear that the game's performance is not about the brand or generation, but the raw compute power that falls into this specific band.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the only playable setting is Low, with an average of 60.5 FPS. This is the minimum preset required to hit the 60 FPS target. At 2560x1440, Low also the best, reaching an average of 72.1 FPS. At 1920x1080, Low is the top preset, delivering an average of 89 FPS. There is no scenario where Medium, High, or Ultra are recommended, as they all fail the 60 FPS threshold at every resolution. The data suggests a simple rule: the only viable option for a smooth experience is the Low preset, regardless of resolution.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC can run The Medium, but only at the lowest fidelity settings. The verdict by resolution confirms that the playable settings for all resolutions are limited to "Low" only. At 3840x2160, the system achieves 60.5 FPS, which clears the 60 FPS threshold, but barely. At 2560x1440, it reaches 72.1 FPS, and at 1080p it has headroom with 89 FPS. The system cannot handle Medium, High, or Ultra settings at any resolution, as they all fall below 60 FPS. In short, it is a playable experience, but visually it is severely limited, with a preset that removes most of the graphical features that make a horror game like The Medium atmospheric.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080:

• Low: 89.0 avg FPS
• Medium: 54.1 avg FPS
• High: 38.3 avg FPS
• Ultra: 33.9 avg FPS

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 72.1 avg FPS
• Medium: 45.6 avg FPS
• High: 30.9 avg FPS
• Ultra: 27.4 avg FPS

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 60.5 avg FPS
• Medium: 36.2 avg FPS
• High: 28.1 avg FPS
• Ultra: 21.9 avg FPS

The data shows a consistent scaling pattern: each resolution increase costs roughly 20-30% of the average FPS, and each preset increase from Low to Medium costs about 15-20 FPS. The game is most demanding at 4K, where the gap between Low and Ultra is 38.6 FPS. The frame rates are all below the 60 FPS threshold except for the Low configurations, indicating that the Intel Arc B580's 12 GB of memory and compute power are not sufficient to handle the game's higher preset demands.