The Medium

The Medium is a demanding title that exposes the limits of this specific hardware pairing, particularly at higher resolutions. The data shows a system where the AMD Radeon RX 7600 is clearly the primary bottleneck at 4K, while the Intel Core i3-12100F holds its own at 1080p. The benchmark results indicate that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can deliver a smooth experience, but struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 1440p and 4K with higher settings.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is severe and reveals a GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 41 FPS at 1920x1080 to 35 FPS at 2560x1440, a 14.6% decrease. This decline accelerates dramatically at 4K, where the average FPS drops to 27, a further 22.9% reduction from the 1440p result. This steep curve indicates that the Radeon RX 7600’s rendering capabilities are quickly overwhelmed as pixel count increases.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p sees a 16.3% drop (from 92 FPS to 77 FPS), and then a 20.8% drop from 1440p to 4K (from 77 FPS to 61 FPS). This consistent ~20% penalty for each step up in resolution at lower settings suggests a pure fill-rate limitation. The GPU's 169.9 GPixel/s pixel rate and 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are simply insufficient to feed the massive pixel count of a 3840x2160 display.

The fact that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows at higher resolutions is also telling. At 1080p, Ultra is 64.1% slower than Low (33 FPS vs 92 FPS), but at 4K, that difference shrinks to 63.9% (22 FPS vs 61 FPS). This indicates that while the GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions, the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU becomes relatively less important as the resolution increases. The system is firmly in a GPU-bound state, and the Core i3-12100F is not the primary constraint.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame places this pairing at 2571 out of 3724 tested combinations. This puts it in the lower 31st percentile of all tested hardware pairings for The Medium. The ranking reflects a system that is capable of entry-level 1080p gaming but is far from a high-performance setup for this specific title.

This ranking is consistent with the individual component performance. The RX 7600 has an avgBenchmarkScore of 15171 and a percentileVsAllGpus of 57, meaning it outperforms 57% of all GPUs in the database. However, its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, which scores 15199 (a 0.2% difference), and the AMD Radeon 680M, which scores 15270 (a 0.7% difference). This places the GPU in the mid-range tier, and its performance in The Medium aligns with that positioning.

The Core i3-12100F has an avgBenchmarkScore of 13494 and a percentileVsAllCpus of 68, placing it above 68% of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core 3 N355, scores an almost identical 13492 (a 0% difference). Despite this relatively high CPU percentile, the combo’s overall rank is dragged down by the GPU's limitations in this specific game. The data shows that for The Medium, the GPU is the decisive factor in determining the overall rank, as the CPU’s relative strength cannot compensate for the GPU’s inability to handle high resolutions and settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear directive for optimal settings. For a smooth, playable experience, players should target the Low preset. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 92 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay. At 2560x1440, the Low preset still achieves 77 FPS, making it a viable option for users with 1440p monitors. Even at 4K, the Low preset manages an average of 61 FPS, which is technically playable, though it may not feel as fluid as higher frame rates.

The Medium preset is a compromise that offers improved visual fidelity at a significant performance cost. At 1080p, it delivers an average of 57 FPS with a minimum of 49 FPS. While this is playable, the frame rate is noticeably lower than the Low preset. At 1440p, the Medium preset drops to 48 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 38 FPS with a minimum of 32 FPS. These lower frame rates may be acceptable for a slower-paced horror game, but they are not ideal.

The High and Ultra presets are not recommended for this hardware combination. At 1080p, High delivers 41 FPS and Ultra delivers 33 FPS. At 1440p, these drop to 35 FPS and 27 FPS, respectively. At 4K, they fall to an unplayable 27 FPS and 22 FPS. The benchmark results indicate that the visual improvements from High and Ultra do not justify the severe performance penalty. The data strongly suggests that the Low preset is the optimal choice to maintain a consistent and responsive experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full FPS data across all resolutions and settings paints a clear picture of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 92 FPS on Low, 57 FPS on Medium, 41 FPS on High, and 33 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution shows a minimum of 49 FPS and a maximum of 66 FPS, indicating a stable frame time with some variance.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops across the board. The Low preset averages 77 FPS, the Medium preset averages 48 FPS (with a minimum of 41 and a maximum of 56), the High preset averages 35 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 27 FPS. This data shows that 1440p is only playable on the Low and Medium presets, with the latter having a minimum frame rate that dips below 45 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the system is severely challenged. The Low preset is the only one that achieves a playable average frame rate at 61 FPS. The Medium preset averages 38 FPS (with a minimum of 32 and a maximum of 44), while the High and Ultra presets fall to 27 FPS and 22 FPS, respectively. The data shows a clear hierarchy: 1080p is the target resolution, 1440p is playable only at Low settings, and 4K is only viable on the absolute lowest settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is the decisive component in this pairing's performance. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus is a key limitation, as is its 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth. The game's performance scaling suggests that the GPU's memory subsystem and compute units are saturated at higher resolutions and settings. The 4K results, where even the Low preset struggles to maintain 61 FPS, highlight the card's limitations.

The GPU's clock speeds are a bright spot. The base clock is 1720 MHz, with a game clock of 2250 MHz and a boost clock of 2655 MHz. These relatively high frequencies help the card achieve a 21.75 TFLOPS FP32 performance. However, this raw compute power is hamstrung by the memory bandwidth. The 128-bit bus and 8 GB capacity are simply not enough to feed the GPU at high resolutions in a game like The Medium, which appears to be memory-intensive.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the mid-range. Its passmark_g3d score is 16634, and its 3dmark_steel_nomad_dx12 score is 2310. These scores are nearly identical to its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, which has an avgScore of 15199. The data indicates that the RX 7600 is a solid 1080p card, but its performance in The Medium confirms that it is not suited for 4K gaming. The 57th percentile ranking for the GPU alone shows it is an average performer, and its role in this combo is to be the limiting factor at resolutions above 1080p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F plays a supporting role in this system, and its performance is more than adequate for the task. With 4 cores and 8 threads, it has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache is sufficient for feeding the GPU. The benchmark results show that the CPU does not bottleneck the system at 1080p, as the frame rates are primarily dictated by the GPU's rendering speed.

The CPU’s synthetic benchmarks, such as the cinebench_r23_multicore score of 11860 and the geekbench_singlecore score of 1932, indicate a capable processor. Its passmark_multithread score of 14015 and passmark_single_thread score of 3444 further confirm its mid-range standing. The 68th percentile ranking for the CPU means it outperforms the majority of CPUs in the database, which is a strong result for a quad-core part.

The data shows that the CPU is not the primary constraint in The Medium. The fact that the frame rate drops so dramatically as resolution increases is a clear sign of a GPU bottleneck. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rates would be more consistent across resolutions. The Core i3-12100F’s performance is sufficient to keep up with the RX 7600 at 1080p, but it is not powerful enough to overcome the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions. The CPU's role is to provide a stable foundation, and it does so without becoming a performance bottleneck.