The Medium

The Medium is one of the more demanding horror titles of its generation, built around dual-reality rendering that pushes both the CPU and GPU harder than a typical single-world game. Pairing the Intel Core i5-13400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 produces a configuration that lands in the lower-middle of the database rankings for this game, and the measured data tells a clear story: this combo can run The Medium, but only at reduced settings at 1080p and 1440p, and not at all comfortably at 4K. The Core i5-13400F sits in the 77th percentile of all CPUs in the database, while the RTX 2060 sits in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, so the graphics card is the limiting factor in this pairing by a wide margin.

FAQ

Q: Can the i5-13400F + RTX 2060 run The Medium at 1080p?

A: Yes. At 1920x1080 on the Low preset, the combo averages 83 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS playable threshold. However, Medium at 1080p averages only 52 FPS, so Low is the only preset that clears the bar at that resolution.

Q: Can this PC handle The Medium at 1440p?

A: Yes, but only on the Low preset. At 2560x1440 Low, the measured average is 70 FPS. Stepping up to Medium drops the average to 44 FPS, which falls short of the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Is 4K playable in The Medium with this hardware?

A: No. At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS. Low averages 55 FPS, Medium averages 34 FPS with a minimum of 29, High averages 25 FPS, and Ultra averages 20 FPS.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 2060 have, and does it matter here?

A: The RTX 2060 has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The steep FPS drops at 4K in The Medium are consistent with a card of this memory capacity and throughput being pushed beyond its comfortable resolution range.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations?

A: The database ranks this CPU and GPU pairing 2948th out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the bottom fifth of configurations measured for this game.

Q: Is the Core i5-13400F fast enough for The Medium?

A: The data indicates yes. The CPU scores 22604 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 11068 in Geekbench multi-core, and 960 in 3DMark single-thread, placing it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, including the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS and Intel Core 5 120, differ from it by less than half a percent in average benchmark score, and none of them would change the outcome here.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at hardware that would deliver a near-identical experience in The Medium, the nearest rivals on the CPU side are remarkably tight. The AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS matches the i5-13400F with a 0 percent delta in average benchmark score, the Intel Core 5 120 sits 0.3 percent ahead, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is also 0.3 percent ahead, and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H trails by 0.4 percent. Any of these processors would produce effectively indistinguishable frame delivery in The Medium when paired with the same graphics card, because the game's performance in this dataset is dictated by the GPU.

On the graphics side, the RTX 2060's nearest rivals span an unusual range. The NVIDIA GTX 580 posts an average score within 0 percent of the RTX 2060 in the database's aggregate, the AMD Radeon 680M integrated graphics lands 0.1 percent behind, the NVIDIA RTX 3050 OEM is 0.6 percent behind, and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 is 0.8 percent behind. In practical terms for The Medium, the RTX 3050 OEM and RX 7600 would behave most similarly in actual gameplay, and the RX 7600 in particular would be the closest substitute in spirit, a modern card landing within a rounding error of the RTX 2060's aggregate benchmark score of 15290. Users looking to replicate this exact performance envelope in The Medium could pair any of the four rival CPUs with any of the four rival GPUs and expect measured framerates within a few percent of the numbers recorded here, since all the deltas involved are under one percent.

How This Combo Ranks

A rank of 2948 out of 3724 tested combinations places the i5-13400F with the RTX 2060 firmly in the bottom tier for The Medium specifically. That placement deserves context. It is not because the CPU is weak, since the i5-13400F's average benchmark score of 25292 puts it in the 77th percentile of all processors in the database. It is because The Medium, with its simultaneous dual-world rendering, is one of the heavier titles in the records, and the RTX 2060 with its 1920 shading units, 30 RT cores, and 6.451 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput cannot keep pace at higher resolutions and presets.

The GPU's percentile placement of 58 among all GPUs confirms the imbalance. The i5-13400F is roughly twenty percentile points stronger within its own category than the RTX 2060 is within its own. In a game like The Medium, where the dual-reality scenes shift load heavily onto the graphics card, this imbalance translates directly into the measured numbers: 83 FPS at 1080p Low, falling to 30 FPS at 1080p Ultra. The CPU never appears to be the constraint, and the ranking reflects that the pairing as a whole is carried by its weaker component.

The Verdict

The verdict from the recorded data is unambiguous at 4K and conditional at lower resolutions. At 3840x2160, no preset is playable: the best result is 55 FPS on Low, and Medium drops to a 34 FPS average with a 29 FPS minimum, High to 25 FPS, and Ultra to 20 FPS. Four-kernel gameplay at 4K is not achievable with this hardware in The Medium.

At 2560x1440, the verdict is playable with compromise. Only the Low preset clears the 60 FPS threshold, delivering a 70 FPS average. At 1920x1080, the situation is the same in kind but better in margin: Low averages 83 FPS, a comfortable 23 FPS above the threshold. Medium at 1080p lands at 52 FPS average with a 44 FPS minimum, which is close but short of the bar.

So the answer to the question is yes, this PC can run The Medium, provided the player accepts the Low preset at 1080p or 1440p. Players who insist on Medium settings or higher at any resolution, or on any preset at 4K, will need stronger graphics hardware than the RTX 2060.

CPU and GPU Roles

The scaling data makes the division of labor clear. From 1080p to 1440p on the Low preset, the average drops from 83 to 70 FPS, a 16 percent decline. From 1440p to 4K on the same preset, it drops from 70 to 55 FPS, a 21 percent decline. Medium shows the same pattern: 52 FPS at 1080p, 44 at 1440p, and 34 at 4K. This steady, significant framerate decay as resolution rises is the signature of a GPU-bound configuration. If the CPU were the limiter, framerates would flatten across resolutions, and they do not.

Preset scaling reinforces the point. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium costs 31 FPS (83 to 52), Medium to High costs 15 (52 to 37), and High to Ultra costs 7 (37 to 30). Visual quality increases translate almost entirely into framerate losses, which again points at the graphics card. The Medium's ray-traced lighting and dual-world scenes fall squarely on the RTX 2060's 30 RT cores and 6 GB of GDDR6, and the card runs out of capacity quickly.

The i5-13400F, by contrast, shows no sign of strain in this data. Its benchmark profile, 7314 in 3DMark 16-thread testing, 25032 in PassMark multithread, 1996 in Geekbench single-core, and a 77th percentile placement overall, indicates a processor with substantial headroom above what The Medium demands. At every resolution and preset tested, the CPU's role is secondary: it feeds the engine, and the GPU decides the framerate. For this game on this hardware, upgrading the graphics card would change the numbers; upgrading the CPU would not.

Best Settings per Resolution

Based strictly on the measured averages and the 60 FPS playable threshold:

• 1920x1080: Low is the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS, averaging 83 FPS. Medium (52 FPS), High (37 FPS), and Ultra (30 FPS) all fall short.
• 2560x1440: Low is again the only qualifying preset, averaging 70 FPS. Medium reaches 44 FPS, High 31 FPS, and Ultra 25 FPS, all below the threshold.
• 3840x2160: No preset qualifies. The best result is Low at 55 FPS, followed by Medium at 34 FPS (29 minimum), High at 25 FPS, and Ultra at 20 FPS. 4K is not recommended on this hardware.

The pattern across all three resolutions is consistent: the RTX 2060 delivers playable The Medium performance only at the Low preset, and only below 4K. The i5-13400F contributes a strong processing foundation, but the recorded data shows this game's performance ceiling is set entirely by the graphics card.