The Medium

The Medium pairs a 4-core Intel Core i3-12100F with AMD’s flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX, a combination that pits a modest entry-level processor against one of the fastest GPUs on the market. This pairing results in a heavily GPU-bound experience across most settings, though the CPU’s limitations become apparent at lower resolutions and higher frame rates. The data shows a system that delivers playable performance at 4K Ultra, but one where the processor consistently holds back the graphics card’s full potential.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a 58 W TDP. The chip includes 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. Its benchmark profile shows a strong single-thread showing, with a 3dmark single-thread score of 893 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681, but its multi-threaded results are more modest, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 7413.

The Medium is a horror title that relies on fixed camera angles and pre-rendered transitions, which typically places a greater burden on the GPU than the CPU. However, the benchmark results indicate that the 12100F’s 4-core design still matters. At 1080p Low, the system hits 146.1 FPS, which is high enough that the CPU must feed frames quickly. The processor’s percentile rank of 72 versus all CPUs places it in the upper-middle tier, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (0.1% faster) and the Intel Core i7-7700K (1.8% faster), showing that its overall compute power is competitive with much older high-end parts. For a game like The Medium, the 12100F provides enough single-thread performance to avoid severe stutters, but the data suggests that at lower settings, the CPU becomes the limiting factor, capping frame rates below what the GPU could otherwise deliver.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the centerpiece of this configuration, featuring 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture (Navi 31 chip) using a 5 nm process from TSMC, with a base clock of 1929 MHz and a boost clock of 2498 MHz. It houses 6144 shading units, 384 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, along with 96 ray accelerators. Its compute capabilities are substantial, with an FP32 throughput of 61.39 TFLOPS and a pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s.

In The Medium, this GPU’s raw power translates directly into high frame rates, but the game’s demands scale steeply with settings. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 43.8 FPS, which is playable but not smooth. Dropping to 4K High raises the average to 51 FPS, while 4K Medium hits 71.2 FPS. The GPU’s 24 GB VRAM is far beyond what The Medium requires, even at 4K Ultra, so memory capacity is not a constraint. Instead, the limiting factor is the GPU’s raw shading and pixel throughput, which is taxed heavily by the game’s volumetric effects and dual-reality rendering sequences. The GPU’s percentile rank of 85 versus all GPUs places it in the top tier, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile (0.8% faster) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (2% slower), showing that it sits at the apex of desktop graphics performance.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases, with a notable exception at the lowest settings that exposes CPU limitations. From 1080p to 4K at High settings, the average frame rate drops from 75.4 FPS to 51 FPS, a reduction of approximately 32%. This moderate decline indicates that the GPU is doing most of the work, but the absolute frame rates are lower than expected for a 7900 XTX, suggesting the CPU is already a bottleneck at 1080p High.

At Medium settings, the scaling is more pronounced: 1080p yields 108.2 FPS, 1440p yields 92.3 FPS, and 4K yields 71.2 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 4K is about 34%, which is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario. However, at Low settings, the behavior changes dramatically. The system achieves 146.1 FPS at 1080p, 135.7 FPS at 1440p, and 117.2 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Low is only about 20%, which is far smaller than the scaling seen at higher settings. This compression indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is the primary limiter; the GPU has spare capacity, but the 12100F cannot push frame rates much higher than 146 FPS regardless of resolution. The result is that the 7900 XTX is effectively underutilized at 1080p Low, while at 4K Ultra, the GPU is fully saturated, and the CPU has minimal impact.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The benchmark results provide a complete matrix of average frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 146.1 FPS on Low, 108.2 FPS on Medium, 75.4 FPS on High, and 64.8 FPS on Ultra. These numbers show a steep performance penalty for each quality step, with Ultra being 56% slower than Low. The 1080p Ultra result of 64.8 FPS is notably lower than the 1440p High result of 65.6 FPS, which is unusual and suggests that Ultra settings introduce effects that disproportionately impact this particular CPU-GPU combination.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 135.7 FPS on Low, 92.3 FPS on Medium, 65.6 FPS on High, and 53.8 FPS on Ultra. The step from Medium to High at 1440p is a 29% drop, while the step from High to Ultra is an 18% drop. At 3840x2160, the results are 117.2 FPS on Low, 71.2 FPS on Medium, 51 FPS on High, and 43.8 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low result of 117.2 FPS is particularly telling: it shows that even at 4K, the CPU can still feed the GPU enough frames to exceed 100 FPS, but only when the graphical load is minimal. The 4K Ultra result of 43.8 FPS is the lowest in the entire dataset, and it highlights the game’s demanding nature at maximum quality. Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently delivers frame rates above 117 FPS, while the Ultra preset never exceeds 65 FPS, demonstrating that The Medium’s visual fidelity comes at a steep computational cost.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific configuration of the Intel Core i3-12100F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 226th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the top 13.4% of all systems evaluated. This rank is respectable, but it is lower than what the GPU alone would suggest, given that the 7900 XTX sits in the 85th percentile of all GPUs. The discrepancy is attributable to the CPU: the 12100F’s 4-core design, while strong for its class, cannot fully unlock the 7900 XTX’s capabilities in this title.

The combination rank reflects the overall average performance across all settings and resolutions, and the data shows that the system excels at 4K Medium and 1440p High, where the GPU is the primary driver. At those settings, the 7900 XTX’s 24 GB memory and high bandwidth allow it to maintain smooth frame rates. However, at 1080p Low, the system’s performance is constrained by the CPU, and it falls behind what a more balanced pairing might achieve. The rank of 226 suggests that while this combo is not a bottleneck disaster, it is also not an optimal match. Users seeking maximum performance in The Medium would benefit from a stronger processor, but for those who prioritize resolution over frame rate, this combination delivers solid 4K performance, particularly at Medium and High settings. The data indicates that the 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this pairing, and its power is best utilized at higher resolutions where the CPU’s limitations are less pronounced.