The Medium

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers a compelling performance profile in The Medium, with benchmark results showing a clear hierarchy across resolutions and presets. Measured data indicates this combination handles the game’s fixed-camera horror presentation with substantial headroom at standard resolutions, while 4K Ultra demands careful settings management to maintain fluidity.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that sustains at least 60 FPS is High, which records an average of 62 FPS. This is the precise ceiling for 4K playability, as the jump to Ultra drops the average to 52.3 FPS, falling below the 60 FPS playable threshold. The data shows a steep scaling curve at this resolution: Medium delivers 88.4 FPS, while Low reaches 138.8 FPS. Users targeting 4K should stick with High to guarantee smooth playback, as the gap between High and Ultra represents a 15.6% performance loss for marginal visual gains.

At 2560x1440, the best settings are Ultra, which achieves an average of 63.9 FPS. This resolution unlocks the full preset stack, with High at 77.8 FPS, Medium at 110.5 FPS, and Low at 158 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result sits just 3.9 FPS above the 60 FPS floor, indicating that this combo is right at the edge of maximum fidelity at this resolution—a single demanding scene could theoretically dip below the threshold, but average performance comfortably clears it.

At 1920x1080, the best settings are also Ultra, delivering a robust 78 FPS average. The 1080p results show remarkable consistency: High runs at 97.5 FPS, Medium at 130.5 FPS, and Low at 169.6 FPS. The margin between Ultra and the next preset down is substantial, meaning 1080p users can enjoy the highest visual quality without any compromise. The data suggests this resolution is where the RTX 4090’s raw compute power is most fully expressed, with even the heaviest preset leaving over 25% performance headroom above the 60 FPS target.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core i7-12700KF and RTX 4090 ranks 109th out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 3% of all configurations evaluated. This percentile ranking reflects the GPU’s dominance in this title, as the RTX 4090 sits at the 88th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU holds the 85th percentile among all processors. The combo’s rank is slightly below what the individual component percentiles might suggest, indicating that The Medium’s performance ceiling is influenced by factors beyond raw hardware capability, such as engine optimization and frame pacing.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks show a tightly clustered field: the Intel Core i7-13700T scores 0.1% higher, the Intel Core 5 213PE scores 0.2% higher, while the Intel Core i5-13600T and Core i7-12700K each score 0.2% lower. This minuscule spread, with deltas ranging from -0.2% to +0.2%, confirms that the i7-12700KF is perfectly positioned within its performance tier—any CPU swap within this group would yield negligible real-world differences in The Medium.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4090’s nearest rivals in aggregate benchmarks are far weaker: the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M trails by 2.5%, the AMD Radeon PRO V710 is 2.9% behind, while the Intel Arc Pro A60 matches within 0% and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 sits 0.3% ahead. The data reveals that the RTX 4090’s nearest competitors are professional workstation cards rather than gaming-focused alternatives, underscoring its position as the top consumer GPU. In gaming workloads like The Medium, this translates to a performance advantage that is difficult to replicate with any other single-GPU configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured averages across presets are: Low at 138.8 FPS, Medium at 88.4 FPS, High at 62 FPS, and Ultra at 52.3 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 62.3% performance reduction, with the most dramatic drop occurring between Medium and High (a 29.9% decrease). The gap between High and Ultra is 15.6%, which is proportionally smaller than the Medium-to-High step, suggesting that Ultra’s additional effects tax the GPU heavily but not as inefficiently as High’s feature set. No minimum or maximum FPS values were recorded in the data, so variance cannot be assessed from this dataset.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 158 FPS, Medium at 110.5 FPS, High at 77.8 FPS, and Ultra at 63.9 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 59.6%, slightly less severe than at 4K. The step between High and Ultra is 17.9%, while Medium to High costs 29.6% of performance. Interestingly, the delta between Medium and High at 1440p (32.7 FPS) is nearly identical to the delta at 4K (26.4 FPS), indicating that High preset’s cost is resolution-independent in absolute terms. The Ultra result at 63.9 FPS is the closest any preset comes to the 60 FPS floor across all tested configurations, making it the most precarious playable setting.

At 1920x1080, the averages are: Low at 169.6 FPS, Medium at 130.5 FPS, High at 97.5 FPS, and Ultra at 78 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra represents a 54% reduction, the smallest proportional drop among the three resolutions. The absolute deltas are larger here than at higher resolutions—Low to Medium costs 39.1 FPS, Medium to High costs 33 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 19.5 FPS—but the higher baseline means every preset stays far above the 60 FPS threshold. The 1080p results also show the smallest relative gap between High and Ultra (20%), suggesting that at this resolution, the GPU is less constrained and can more fully utilize its shader and rasterization resources.

FAQ

Q: Can this PC run The Medium at 4K with maximum settings?

A: No. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average FPS is 52.3, which falls below the 60 FPS playable threshold. The highest playable preset at 4K is High, which averages 62 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 2560x1440 offers the best balance, achieving 63.9 FPS at Ultra settings. This provides maximum visual fidelity while staying above 60 FPS, unlike 4K which requires dropping to High.

Q: How much performance is lost when upgrading from High to Ultra?

A: At 4K, the drop is from 62 FPS to 52.3 FPS (a 15.6% loss). At 1440p, it goes from 77.8 FPS to 63.9 FPS (a 17.9% loss). At 1080p, it drops from 97.5 FPS to 78 FPS (a 20% loss).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game?

A: The GPU dominates performance scaling. The RTX 4090 ranks at the 88th percentile among GPUs, and frame rates scale dramatically with resolution, indicating GPU-bound behavior. The CPU’s 85th percentile ranking is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking.

Q: What FPS can I expect at 1080p with Medium settings?

A: The measured average is 130.5 FPS, which is more than double the 60 FPS threshold and provides ample headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors.

Q: Which preset should I choose at 1440p for competitive play?

A: Low settings yield 158 FPS, which is the highest average at that resolution. However, even Ultra at 63.9 FPS clears the playable threshold, so the choice depends on whether visual quality or raw frame rate is prioritized.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data shows a clear GPU-bound scenario in The Medium. At 4K, the difference between Low and Ultra is 86.5 FPS, while at 1440p it is 94.1 FPS, and at 1080p it is 91.6 FPS. The consistency of these absolute deltas across resolutions—despite the 4K resolution requiring four times the pixel throughput of 1080p—indicates that the RTX 4090’s compute resources are the primary determinant of frame rate. The CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and geometry, and the i7-12700KF’s 20 threads and 25 MB of shared L3 cache provide sufficient throughput to avoid becoming a limiting factor.

The resolution scaling between 1080p and 1440p shows a 6.2% average FPS reduction across presets, while the scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a 25.6% reduction. This nonlinear relationship suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth (1.01 TB/s) and pixel rate (443.5 GPixel/s) become increasingly strained as resolution climbs, but the CPU’s workload remains relatively constant. The fact that 1080p Ultra (78 FPS) outperforms 4K High (62 FPS) by 25.8% reinforces that resolution is the dominant variable, with the GPU’s 24 GB of GDDR6X memory preventing capacity-related bottlenecks even at 4K.

At 1080p, the frame rates exceed what a 60 Hz display can show, with Low hitting 169.6 FPS and even Ultra reaching 78 FPS. This indicates that at lower resolutions, the system is less likely to be GPU-bound and more likely to be constrained by CPU single-thread performance. However, the i7-12700KF’s single-thread score of 1043 in 3DMark places it in the top percentile, so no meaningful CPU bottleneck appears in the measured data. The game’s fixed-camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds likely reduce CPU draw-call overhead compared to open-world titles, further emphasizing the GPU’s role.

The Verdict

This PC can run The Medium at playable frame rates across all tested resolutions, with the caveat that 4K requires a preset compromise. At 3840x2160, the playable settings are High, Medium, and Low, with High providing the best visual experience at 62 FPS average. Ultra at 52.3 FPS is the only non-playable configuration in the dataset, falling 7.7 FPS short of the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, all four presets are playable, with Ultra achieving 63.9 FPS. This resolution offers the full range of visual options, making it the sweet spot for this combination. The margin above 60 FPS at Ultra is thin (3.9 FPS), but the average performance clears the threshold, and users could drop to High (77.8 FPS) for additional safety margin.

At 1920x1080, every preset is comfortably playable, with Ultra at 78 FPS providing a 30% buffer above the 60 FPS target. The lowest recorded average across all presets at this resolution is 78 FPS, meaning there is no configuration that fails to meet the playable threshold. The RTX 4090’s dominance in this title is evident: it delivers high frame rates even at 4K, and only the most demanding Ultra preset at that resolution pushes the system below the 60 FPS line. For users with 4K displays, High settings are the recommended choice; for 1440p and 1080p users, Ultra is fully viable.