The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents an interesting stress profile for the combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. The measured data reveals a system that is heavily influenced by graphics settings, with the CPU's 4-core/8-thread configuration occasionally surfacing as a limiting factor at lower resolutions. The benchmark results show a wide performance envelope, from a highly playable 141.7 FPS average at 1080p on Low to a demanding 40.8 FPS average at 4K on Ultra, indicating that users must make deliberate choices about visual fidelity versus frame rate.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data suggests that the "High" preset offers the most balanced experience across all three tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, High yields an average of 78.9 FPS, which is a substantial drop from the 141.7 FPS seen on Low but still provides a smooth, responsive experience. Moving to 2560x1440, High produces 64.8 FPS, and at 3840x2160, it maintains a playable 53 FPS average. This consistency makes High the most versatile setting, as it avoids the steep performance penalties of Ultra while delivering a significant visual upgrade over Medium.

The "Ultra" preset appears to be a demanding option that is only viable for users prioritizing image quality over frame rate. At 1080p, Ultra achieves 60.8 FPS, which is just at the threshold of smoothness, but this drops to 54.7 FPS at 1440p and 40.8 FPS at 4K. The data suggests that Ultra is not well-suited for high-refresh-rate displays, and the average FPS figures at higher resolutions may lead to noticeable stutter in a game that relies on atmospheric tension. For most users, High is the recommended preset, as it provides a clear performance headroom over Ultra while being less demanding than the Low preset, which likely sacrifices too much visual detail for a marginal FPS gain.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to use with this combo for a consistent 60+ FPS experience?

A: Based on the data, 2560x1440 on High is the most reliable choice, delivering an average of 64.8 FPS. At 1920x1080, the High preset reaches 78.9 FPS, but the 1440p High setting offers a better balance of resolution and performance, while 4K High falls below the 60 FPS threshold at 53 FPS.

Q: How much of a performance drop is there between the Low and Ultra settings?

A: The drop is significant. At 1920x1080, the average FPS falls from 141.7 on Low to 60.8 on Ultra, a reduction of 80.9 FPS. The margin widens at 4K, where Low averages 116.9 FPS and Ultra drops to 40.8 FPS, a difference of 76.1 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at lower resolutions?

A: The data suggests a potential CPU limitation at 1080p. The FPS difference between 1080p High (78.9 FPS) and 1440p High (64.8 FPS) is 14.1 FPS, while the difference between 1440p High and 4K High (53.0 FPS) is 11.8 FPS. The relatively smaller drop from 1080p to 1440p compared to the GPU-heavy 4K test indicates the CPU may be holding back performance at the lower resolution.

Q: What is the combo's overall standing among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 228th out of 1689 tested combinations for The Medium, placing it in the top 13.5% of all configurations. This indicates a strong overall performance level, though it is not at the absolute top tier.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER's large memory pool beneficial for this game?

A: The GPU's 16 GB of memory and 672.3 GB/s of bandwidth are likely sufficient for The Medium's demands, as the data does not show any unusual performance collapses at higher settings that would indicate memory capacity issues. The performance scaling is more closely tied to the computational load of the Ultra preset.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data across resolutions reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling, but with a notable CPU influence at 1080p. When moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on the High preset, the average FPS drops from 78.9 to 64.8, a 17.9% decrease. However, the transition from 1440p to 3840x2160 sees a further drop to 53.0 FPS, an 18.2% decrease. This relatively linear scaling suggests the GPU is the primary limiting factor at these settings.

The Low preset data tells a different story. At 1080p, Low achieves 141.7 FPS, but at 1440p it only drops to 138.1 FPS, a mere 2.5% decrease. This tiny performance gap strongly indicates that the CPU is the bottleneck at 1080p, as the GPU has enough headroom to handle the 1440p workload without a significant FPS penalty. The 4K Low result of 116.9 FPS shows a more substantial 15.3% drop from 1440p, indicating that the GPU becomes the limiting factor once the resolution increases enough to stress it.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, with FPS dropping from 60.8 at 1080p to 54.7 at 1440p (a 10.0% decrease) and then to 40.8 at 4K (a 25.4% decrease). This suggests that the Ultra preset's heavy demands on the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are the primary constraint, and the CPU's role diminishes as the resolution increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER achieves a rank of 228 out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium. This places it in the upper echelon of configurations, with roughly 86.5% of tested combos performing worse. The ranking reflects the high performance of the GPU, which sits in the 86th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU's 72nd percentile ranking is a more modest contributor.

The data implies that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is the dominant component driving this combo's strong position. The GPU's average benchmark score of 48704 is substantial, and its nearest rivals in the data (NVIDIA CMP 50HX at 49071, Intel Arc A550M at 49737) are within a 2.1% delta, indicating a tightly contested performance tier. The CPU's nearest rivals (AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX at 13534, Intel Core i7-7700K at 13280) are also closely matched, with a maximum delta of 1.8%. This suggests that the combo's 228th rank is largely a product of the GPU's high absolute performance, rather than a synergistic pairing of equally strong components.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 10 nm Alder Lake architecture provide a solid foundation for gaming, but the data suggests its 4-core limit becomes apparent in The Medium. The benchmark scores show peak multi-threaded performance at 8 threads (3dmark_8_threads score of 4026), which matches the thread count, but the single-thread score of 893 in 3dmark indicates moderate per-core strength.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p on Low settings, where the 141.7 FPS average is likely near the CPU's maximum frame generation capability. The fact that increasing resolution to 1440p only reduces FPS by 3.6 (to 138.1) confirms that the CPU is the limiting factor at this point. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11912 and single-core score of 1681 indicate a processor that is capable but not exceptional, which aligns with its 72nd percentile ranking. The data implies that players using this CPU may find frame rates capped around 140 FPS in less demanding scenarios, regardless of GPU headroom.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the performance range is broad. The Low preset produces an average of 141.7 FPS, which is the highest measured result for this combo. Medium drops to 109.8 FPS, High to 78.9 FPS, and Ultra to 60.8 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 31.9 FPS reduction, while the step from High to Ultra is an 18.1 FPS reduction, showing that the Ultra preset's additional effects are costly but less impactful than the jump from Low to Medium.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 138.1 FPS on Low, 93.7 FPS on Medium, 64.8 FPS on High, and 54.7 FPS on Ultra. The Low preset remains near the 1080p result, reinforcing the CPU bottleneck, while the other settings show more pronounced GPU scaling. The gap between Medium and High is 28.9 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 10.1 FPS, indicating that High is a more efficient choice than Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 116.9 FPS on Low, 71.5 FPS on Medium, 53.0 FPS on High, and 40.8 FPS on Ultra. The Low preset finally shows a significant drop from the 1440p result (a 21.2 FPS decrease), confirming that the GPU is now the primary bottleneck. The Ultra preset's 40.8 FPS average is the lowest measured, highlighting the extreme demands of 4K Ultra on this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is a high-end GPU with 8448 shading units, 264 TMUs, and 96 ROPs, built on the 5 nm Ada Lovelace architecture. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 672.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for The Medium's textures and effects. The GPU's boost clock of 2610 MHz and FP32 performance of 44.10 TFLOPS position it as a powerful rendering engine, and its 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms its top-tier status.

The data shows that the GPU is the primary driver of performance at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the 40.8 FPS average confirms the GPU's workload, as the CPU's 4 cores are likely not the limiting factor at this resolution. The GPU's nearest rivals (NVIDIA CMP 50HX, NVIDIA RTX A2000, Intel Arc A550M) are all within a 2.1% delta in average benchmark score, yet the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER's 16 GB VRAM and high bandwidth give it a distinct advantage in memory-intensive scenes. The GPU's performance scaling from 1080p to 4K on the Medium preset (109.8 FPS to 71.5 FPS) shows a 34.9% decrease, which is a typical GPU-bound pattern, indicating that the GPU's compute and memory subsystems are being fully utilized as resolution increases.