The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents a unique challenge for the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combination. The measured data reveals a configuration that is fundamentally constrained by its graphics processor, struggling to maintain playable frame rates at most settings and resolutions. This analysis examines the benchmark results to characterize the performance ceiling of this pairing.

FAQ

Q: What is the overall performance rank of this combo in The Medium?

A: The combination ranks 1625 out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 4% of all systems tested for this game.

Q: What frame rate can this combo achieve at 1080p with Low settings?

A: The best measured result is 46.8 FPS average at 1920x1080 with Low settings, which is the only setting level that approaches a playable 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Core i3-12100F has an average benchmark score of 13516, which is 0.1% lower than the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX and 1.8% higher than the Intel Core i7-7700K.

Q: What is the GPU's DirectX 12 performance score?

A: The GTX 1650 scores 35 in the Passmark DirectX 12 benchmark, which is notably lower than its DirectX 11 score of 58, suggesting potential API overhead issues.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU more likely to be the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary constraint, as the CPU's 4-core/8-thread configuration with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz provides sufficient processing power, while the GPU's 4 GB VRAM and 128.1 GB/s bandwidth limit higher resolutions.

Q: What is the best 4K result recorded for this combo?

A: At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the combo achieves 27.6 FPS, which is the only 4K configuration that exceeds 20 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1625 out of 1689 tested combinations places this system near the bottom of the performance hierarchy for The Medium. This position reflects a hardware pairing that is severely underpowered for a game that demands substantial graphical resources. The rank indicates that approximately 96% of tested configurations deliver better performance, making this one of the least capable setups in the database for this specific title.

The ranking is particularly telling when considering the individual component percentiles. The CPU sits at the 72nd percentile among all processors, showing it is a reasonably capable mid-range part. However, the GPU falls to the 43rd percentile among all graphics cards, demonstrating that the graphics solution is the weaker link in this pairing. The substantial gap between these percentiles suggests a fundamental imbalance where the CPU's capabilities are largely wasted due to GPU limitations.

The game's fixed-camera perspective and horror atmosphere do not reduce the graphical demands. The combination's rank suggests that even at the lowest settings, the system operates near its limits. The measured data confirms this, with only the 1080p Low setting breaking past 40 FPS. Every other configuration tested produces average frame rates below 40 FPS, with several falling into single digits or low teens.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 serves as the primary performance limiter in this combination. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves insufficient for The Medium's memory-hungry scenes at higher resolutions. The GPU's 896 shading units and 32 ROPs, while adequate for older titles, struggle with the rendering demands of this 2021 horror game.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a modest boost to 1665 MHz from a base of 1485 MHz, but this headroom does little to compensate for the underlying hardware limitations. The 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 performance places it firmly in the entry-level segment, and the measured frame rates reflect this positioning. The DirectX 12 benchmark score of 35, compared to 58 for DirectX 11, indicates potential driver or architectural inefficiencies with modern APIs.

The 4 GB VRAM capacity becomes a critical constraint at 1440p and 4K resolutions. The measured data shows that increasing resolution from 1080p to 1440p at High settings drops performance from 20.5 FPS to 15.6 FPS, a 24% reduction. This pattern suggests the GPU is exhausting its memory bandwidth and capacity, forcing the system to rely on slower fallback paths.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent pattern of performance degradation across all resolutions and settings. At 1080p, the results range from 46.8 FPS at Low settings to 14.6 FPS at Ultra. The Medium setting produces 29.7 FPS, while High delivers 20.5 FPS. These numbers indicate that even at the most common gaming resolution, the combo cannot maintain smooth gameplay at medium or higher quality presets.

Moving to 1440p, the performance drops become more pronounced. Low settings yield 39.3 FPS, which is still sub-60. Medium produces 22.5 FPS, High falls to 15.6 FPS, and Ultra dips to 13.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at this resolution is 16.8 FPS, showing that the Medium preset roughly halves the frame rate compared to Low.

At 4K, the results are largely unplayable. Low settings achieve 27.6 FPS, Medium drops to 16 FPS, High falls to 13.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 10.2 FPS. The 4K Low result is notable as it is higher than the 1440p High result, suggesting that the Low preset's reduced graphical features allow the GPU to operate more efficiently despite the higher pixel count.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior provides clear evidence of GPU-bound performance. From 1080p to 1440p at Low settings, the frame rate drops from 46.8 FPS to 39.3 FPS, a 16% reduction. However, from 1440p to 4K at Low settings, the drop is more severe, falling to 27.6 FPS, a 30% reduction from 1440p. This accelerating decline indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth becomes increasingly insufficient as pixel count grows.

The scaling pattern at High settings shows an even steeper decline. From 1080p High (20.5 FPS) to 1440p High (15.6 FPS) is a 24% drop, and then to 4K High (13.6 FPS) is another 13% reduction. The diminishing percentage drops at higher resolutions suggest that the GPU is hitting a hard performance floor, likely due to VRAM capacity limits rather than pure compute throughput.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in resolution scaling. The Core i3-12100F's 4 cores and 8 threads, with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, provide sufficient single-thread performance to feed the GPU at all tested resolutions. The consistent pattern of frame rate drops proportional to pixel count increases confirms that the GTX 1650 is the constraining component.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F, despite being a budget-oriented 4-core processor, demonstrates sufficient capability for this game. Its 3.30 GHz base clock and 4.30 GHz boost clock provide strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Geekbench single-core score of 2224. The CPU's 12 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain data locality, and its 10 nm Alder Lake architecture delivers modern instruction set support.

The CPU's benchmark scores show it performs well above its core count would suggest. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912 and single-core score of 1681 indicate a processor that can handle both multi-threaded workloads and latency-sensitive tasks. The Passmark single-thread score of 3444 places it at the 72nd percentile among all CPUs, confirming its competence for gaming workloads.

The 3dmark scores reveal consistent scaling from 2 threads (1659) to 4 threads (2859) and 8 threads (4026), showing that the CPU efficiently utilizes its available threads. The max threads score of 4023 is nearly identical to the 8-thread score, indicating that the CPU reaches its performance ceiling with 8 threads. For The Medium, which likely does not heavily utilize more than 4-6 threads, this processor provides adequate headroom.

The CPU's role in this combination is to avoid becoming a bottleneck, which it successfully does. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU-related stuttering or frame rate plateaus that would indicate processor limitations. Instead, the GPU consistently limits performance across all settings and resolutions, allowing the i3-12100F to operate within its comfort zone. The 58W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 compatibility make it an efficient choice, but its full potential remains unrealized due to the GTX 1650's constraints.