The Medium

Intel Core i7-14700KF and Intel Arc B390 is an extremely lopsided pairing for The Medium. The CPU is a high-end 20-core, 28-thread Raptor Lake Refresh part, scoring in the 94th percentile among all CPUs. The GPU, however, is an integrated-class Arc B390 with a 3DMark Steel Nomad score of just 1482, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. The recorded benchmark data confirms that the graphics card is the overwhelming bottleneck: at no resolution, from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, does this combo reach the 60 FPS playable threshold. The best recorded average is 51 FPS at 1080p Low, and every other setting and resolution falls well short. This is a combination where the CPU is essentially idle, waiting on a GPU that cannot keep up with even the lowest workload in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The database contains measured FPS for 12 combinations of three resolutions and four quality presets. Min and max figures are only recorded for Medium settings; other presets have only the average FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor. Ultra averages 12 FPS. High averages 15 FPS. Medium averages 21 FPS, with a minimum of 18 FPS and a maximum of 24 FPS. Low averages 34 FPS. The gap from Low to Ultra is 22 FPS, which shows that the GPU is already saturated at 4K and quality scaling has a very limited range.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern continues with slightly better averages. Ultra averages 15 FPS. High averages 19 FPS. Medium averages 27 FPS, with a minimum of 23 FPS and a maximum of 31 FPS. Low averages 43 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 28 FPS, a wider spread than at 4K, but still far from playable.

At 1920x1080, the best results in the entire dataset appear. Ultra averages 18 FPS. High averages 23 FPS. Medium averages 32 FPS, with a minimum of 27 FPS and a maximum of 37 FPS. Low averages 51 FPS. This 51 FPS figure is the only recorded average within 9 FPS of the 60 FPS playable threshold, but it still does not cross it.

The scaling between resolutions for the same preset is consistent. Low at 1080p is 51 FPS, dropping to 43 FPS at 1440p (a 15.7% reduction) and 34 FPS at 4K (a 33.3% reduction from 1080p). Medium at 1080p is 32 FPS, dropping to 27 FPS at 1440p and 21 FPS at 4K. High at 1080p is 23 FPS, dropping to 19 FPS at 1440p and 15 FPS at 4K. Ultra at 1080p is 18 FPS, dropping to 15 FPS at 1440p and 12 FPS at 4K. These reductions show a GPU that is heavily limited by pixel throughput, not by CPU or memory bandwidth.

Best Settings per Resolution

The playable threshold is 60 FPS. The verdict data shows no playable settings at any resolution. The database records an empty list of playable settings for 3840x2160, 2560x1440, and 1920x1080. Therefore, there is no "best settings" preset that stays at or above 60 FPS at any resolution. The closest result is 1080p Low at 51 FPS average, but that is still 9 FPS below the threshold and cannot be recommended as a playable configuration.

For users who must run this game on this hardware, the practical maximum quality that remains closest to the threshold is 1080p Low. At 1440p, Low averages 43 FPS, which is a visible step down. At 4K, even Low averages only 34 FPS, which is borderline for a slow-paced horror game but still below standard playability. No preset at any resolution reaches 60 FPS, and the data provides no reason to expect that any combination of settings would bridge the gap, since the highest average recorded anywhere is 51 FPS.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The GPU is the limiting factor, and its nearest rivals in the database are all very low-end or legacy parts. The Arc B390 has an average benchmark score of 1482. The closest competitor is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX with an average score of 1463, a 1.3% delta. The NVIDIA GeForce 800M follows at 1460, a 1.5% delta. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM scores 1446, a 2.5% delta. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 scores 1443, a 2.7% delta. All four of these GPUs are within 2.7% of the Arc B390's average score, meaning that swapping to any of them would produce nearly identical frame rates in The Medium, all of them equally below the playable threshold.

The CPU side is entirely different. The Intel Core i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70163. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F at 69996 (0.2% delta), the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX at 69875 (0.4% delta), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at 69515 (0.9% delta), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K at 70879 (1% faster, shown as a negative delta of -1). These CPUs are all within 1% of each other in average score, so any of them paired with the Arc B390 would produce essentially identical performance in this game, because the GPU is the bottleneck. The data suggests that replacing the Core i7-14700KF with any of these rivals would change nothing in The Medium, while replacing the Arc B390 with any of its rivals would also change nothing, since all of them are grouped at the same low performance level.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run The Medium at 1080p?

A: No. The highest recorded average at 1920x1080 is 51 FPS on Low settings, which is below the 60 FPS playable threshold. Medium averages 32 FPS, High averages 23 FPS, and Ultra averages 18 FPS.

Q: What is the best frame rate this hardware can achieve in The Medium?

A: The best recorded result is 51 FPS average at 1920x1080 with Low settings. No other preset or resolution in the database exceeds this.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to other GPUs in the database?

A: The Arc B390 has an average benchmark score of 1482, which puts it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, scores 1463, a 1.3% difference, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 scores 1443, a 2.7% difference.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU is the bottleneck at every resolution. The Core i7-14700KF is in the 94th percentile of CPUs with an average score of 70163, while the Arc B390 is in the 9th percentile of GPUs. Frame rates scale strongly with resolution, dropping from 51 FPS at 1080p Low to 34 FPS at 4K Low, which is typical of GPU-bound performance.

Q: Is there any resolution and settings combination that reaches 60 FPS?

A: No. The database shows an empty list of playable settings for 3840x2160, 2560x1440, and 1920x1080. The closest value is 51 FPS at 1080p Low.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 3314 out of 3724 tested combos for The Medium. This places it in the lower portion of the database, consistent with its GPU-bound performance and sub-60 FPS results at all settings.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark data reveals a clear division of labor. The Core i7-14700KF is a desktop flagship with 20 cores, 28 threads, and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 44167 and single-core score is 6235. The Arc B390, by contrast, is an integrated GPU with 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, 24 ROPs, and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. Its only recorded benchmark is 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. The GPU's percentile rank of 9 versus the CPU's percentile rank of 94 tells the entire story: this is a CPU that could handle far more demanding graphics hardware, paired with a GPU that is below even entry-level discrete cards.

Looking at resolution scaling, the GPU's load is evident. At 1080p Low, the average is 51 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops it to 43 FPS, an 8 FPS loss. Moving from 1440p Low to 4K Low drops it to 34 FPS, another 9 FPS loss. The same pattern holds for every preset. Medium goes from 32 FPS at 1080p to 27 FPS at 1440p to 21 FPS at 4K. High goes from 23 to 19 to 15. Ultra goes from 18 to 15 to 12. The monotonic decrease with resolution is a classic sign of a pixel-bound GPU, not a CPU-limited scenario. If the CPU were the constraint, frame rates would remain flat across resolutions or vary only slightly, but the data shows reductions of roughly 15 to 33 percent between resolution steps.

Quality presets also demonstrate GPU dominance. At 1080p, dropping from Ultra (18 FPS) to Low (51 FPS) nearly triples the frame rate. At 1440p, the same drop goes from 15 FPS to 43 FPS, and at 4K from 12 FPS to 34 FPS. These are enormous swings that only a GPU with very limited shading and texture throughput would exhibit. The Core i7-14700KF is not changing between these runs, so the entire variation is attributable to the Arc B390's inability to handle higher quality settings.

For a game like The Medium, a horror title with fixed camera angles and pre-rendered scenes, the GPU stress is likely tied to the game's rendering style. The data does not show any scenario where the CPU matters, because the GPU never allows the frame rate to rise high enough for CPU overhead to become relevant. Even at 1080p Low, the CPU is almost certainly waiting on the GPU for the majority of each frame. The practical advice from this data is simple: if you own the Core i7-14700KF, this GPU is holding you back everywhere, and no settings change or resolution reduction will make the game playable. If you own the Arc B390, the CPU is not the issue, and upgrading the GPU would be the only path to 60 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The database ranks this combination 3314 out of 3724 tested combos for The Medium. That places it in the bottom 11% of all tested systems. The ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data: no playable settings at any resolution, a best average of 51 FPS, and a GPU percentile of 9. The CPU's high rank, 94th percentile, does not lift the overall combo because the game's performance is entirely GPU-bound. Combo rank in this case tracks the GPU's weakness much more than the CPU's strength. A system with a weaker CPU but a stronger GPU would almost certainly rank higher, since the frame rates would be higher at the same settings. This rank is a warning for anyone considering this pairing for The Medium: the recorded data shows a system that cannot deliver a smooth experience, regardless of the CPU's considerable compute capabilities. The 410 positions from the bottom of the database reflect a GPU that is, based on nearest rival scores, comparable to discrete GPUs from over a decade ago, and the game's requirements are far beyond what that class of hardware can deliver.