Instant compatibility check with FPS benchmarks and optimization tips
The Medium
Performance
1080p (Full HD)
1440p (2K / QHD)
4K (Ultra HD)
Requirements Check
Recommendations
Your hardware doesn't meet minimum requirements for this game.
Your GPU supports ray tracing.
Average FPS: resolution vs quality settings
| Ultra | High | Medium | Low | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4K Ultra HD | 47 | 56 | 63 | 76 |
| 1440p QHD | 56 | 60 | 68 | 82 |
| 1080p Full HD | 59 | 64 | 72 | 87 |
Cell color: green is 120+ FPS, teal is 60+, amber is 30+, red is below 30. Cards marked Estimated above have no measured row and are scaled from your GPU benchmark percentile.
Performance Analysis: The Medium on Your System
The Medium is a heavy horror title that leans hard on the GPU, and this pairing of an Intel Core i5-9400 with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is a classic mismatch: a mid-range Coffee Lake six-core feeding one of the fastest graphics cards in the database. The recorded data shows the combination clears 60 FPS at every resolution, but only just, and only at specific presets. The CPU sits in the 47th percentile of all processors tested, while the GPU sits in the 87th percentile, so the processor is clearly the limiter here.
FAQ
Q: Can the Core i5-9400 + RTX 5080 run The Medium at 4K?
A: Yes, but only at Low and Medium presets. Medium averages 63 FPS with a recorded range of 54 to 73 FPS, while High falls to 56 FPS and Ultra to 47 FPS, both below the 60 FPS threshold.
Q: What is the best playable setting at 1440p?
A: High, at an average of 60 FPS. Low delivers 82 FPS and Medium 68 FPS, but High is the most demanding preset that stays at or above the threshold. Ultra at 1440p averages 56 FPS and does not qualify.
Q: Is 1080p faster than 1440p on this setup?
A: Only marginally. Low climbs from 82 to 87 FPS and Medium from 68 to 72 FPS going from 1440p to 1080p, but High only moves from 60 to 64 FPS. That small gap between resolutions is the signature of a CPU bottleneck.
Q: What CPU is in this build, and how does it compare to rivals?
A: The Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread Coffee Lake processor with a 2.90 GHz base and 4.10 GHz boost on Socket 1151. Its average benchmark score of 2254 puts it within a fraction of a percent of rivals like the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 (2259, 0.2 percent slower), the Intel Core i7-10710U (2248, 0.3 percent faster), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 (2246, 0.4 percent faster), and the Intel Core i3-10305 (2264, 0.4 percent slower).
Q: How strong is the RTX 5080 on paper?
A: Very strong. It is a Blackwell 2.0 part on TSMC's 5 nm node with 10,752 shading units, 84 RT cores, 16 GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus delivering 960 GB/s of bandwidth, and 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. Its launch MSRP was 999 USD.
Q: Where does this exact combination rank for The Medium?
A: Rank 1294 out of 3724 tested combinations in the database, which places it in the middle of the field despite the elite GPU.
CPU and GPU Roles
The scaling data tells a clear story. Going from 1440p to 1080p at the same preset yields tiny gains: Low improves by 5 FPS, Medium by 4 FPS, High by 4 FPS. Going from 4K to 1440p yields slightly larger but still modest gains: Low improves by 6 FPS, Medium by 5 FPS, High by 4 FPS. In a GPU-limited system, halving or quartering the pixel count would produce much larger jumps, especially on a card with the RTX 5080's resources.
That means the CPU is the dominant factor at every resolution in this pairing. The i5-9400's single-core results (94 in Cinebench R15, 392 in R20, 935 in R23) reflect its 2018-era architecture on the 14 nm node, and The Medium's frame pacing appears to be capped by that throughput before the GPU can stretch its legs. The RTX 5080 posts a 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 8637 and a PassMark G3D score of 36565, numbers that would typically crush a 2021 horror title at Ultra 4K if the processor could feed it.
The practical implication: upgrading the GPU further would gain nothing in this game, while a stronger CPU would likely unlock higher frame rates at all three resolutions, including 4K Ultra.
Best Settings per Resolution
- 1920x1080: High, averaging 64 FPS. Medium runs at 72 FPS (62 to 83 FPS range) and Low at 87 FPS if headroom is preferred. Ultra averages 59 FPS, one frame short of the threshold.
- 2560x1440: High, averaging 60 FPS, exactly at the playable line. Medium at 68 FPS (58 to 79 FPS) is the safer choice for consistent frame delivery. Ultra at 56 FPS falls short.
- 3840x2160: Medium, averaging 63 FPS (54 to 73 FPS). Low is also playable at 76 FPS. High at 56 FPS and Ultra at 47 FPS do not clear the bar.
Note the pattern: the ceiling barely moves with resolution. The best playable preset only drops one tier from 1080p to 4K, from High to Medium, confirming that the processor, not pixel count, defines the limit.
Similar Performance Alternatives
On the CPU side, the database shows four rivals within half a percent of the i5-9400's average score, and any of them would behave nearly identically in The Medium: the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, the Intel Core i7-10710U, the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500, and the Intel Core i3-10305. Swapping the i5-9400 for any of these would not change the results in a meaningful way.
On the GPU side, the RTX 5080's closest rivals are the AMD Radeon 8060S (0.6 percent behind), the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (0.7 percent behind), the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (2.3 percent behind), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (2.2 percent ahead). Any of these cards paired with a comparable CPU would land in the same performance bracket for this game. Given the CPU bottleneck observed here, even these swaps would produce indistinguishable frame rates as long as the processor stays the same.
The Verdict
Yes, this PC can run The Medium at 60 FPS or better at every resolution, with preset adjustments at 4K. At 1080p, Low, Medium, and High all clear the threshold, with High at 64 FPS as the best option. At 1440p, Low, Medium, and High qualify, with High at 60 FPS sitting right on the line, so Medium at 68 FPS is the more comfortable pick. At 4K, only Low (76 FPS) and Medium (63 FPS) are playable, and Medium is the best setting.
Ultra is off the table at every resolution: 59 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, and 47 FPS at 4K. The data indicates the fix is not more GPU power but a faster processor, since frame rates barely respond to resolution changes. Players who want Ultra at 4K on this card should plan around a CPU upgrade.
How This Combo Ranks
This pairing ranks 1294 out of 3724 combinations tested in The Medium, putting it ahead of roughly two-thirds of the field but far below what the RTX 5080 alone would suggest. The GPU ranks in the 87th percentile of all graphics cards, while the CPU ranks in the 47th percentile, and the combined result lands closer to the CPU's level than the GPU's. That gap between component quality and in-game rank is the defining feature of this build for this title. Combinations pairing the same class of GPU with a stronger processor will rank substantially higher in the database, and the recorded data here shows exactly why: the frame rate ceiling is set at the CPU, and the RTX 5080 spends most of its capacity waiting.