The Medium

# The Medium: Intel Core i5-10400F + AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT — Benchmark Analysis

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT delivers a split personality in The Medium, a horror title that punishes high-resolution enthusiasts while rewarding those who dial settings down. At 1080p Low, the combo produces a smooth 97.6 FPS average, but cranking everything to Ultra at 4K collapses the frame rate to 19.5 FPS. The data reveals a system heavily constrained by graphics load at higher resolutions, with the CPU's six cores and twelve threads seldom becoming the bottleneck. This combination ranks 1059th out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate curve from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the performance ceiling lives. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 97.6 FPS, which drops to 78.1 FPS at 1440p Low — a 20% reduction — and then to 65.4 FPS at 4K Low, another 16% drop. This scaling pattern at Low settings suggests the GPU remains the dominant limiting factor, but the CPU's headroom becomes evident when comparing across settings tiers.

Move to High settings, and the picture shifts dramatically. The gap between 1080p High (44.6 FPS) and 1440p High (36.6 FPS) is 18%, while the jump to 4K High (28.9 FPS) costs another 21%. The scaling between 1440p and 4K at High settings is steeper than at Low, indicating that the Radeon RX 6650 XT's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus are being saturated by the higher resolution's pixel workload. At Ultra settings, the degradation becomes brutal: 1080p Ultra delivers 35.6 FPS, 1440p Ultra drops to 25.6 FPS, and 4K Ultra falls to 19.5 FPS — a 45% loss from 1080p to 4K.

The Medium's fixed camera angles and pre-rendered environments appear to amplify the GPU load at 4K, as the data shows the frame rate halving between Low and Ultra at every resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low (97.6 FPS) and Ultra (35.6 FPS) is a 63% reduction, while at 4K the same settings spread yields a 70% reduction (65.4 FPS down to 19.5 FPS). This suggests that the game's higher preset tiers introduce effects that disproportionately impact the RX 6650 XT's RDNA 2 architecture, particularly at 4K where the fill rate and memory bandwidth become critical.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT is built on the Navi 23 chip with RDNA 2.0 architecture, fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It packs 11,060 million transistors into a 237 mm² die, with a transistor density of 46.7 million per square millimeter. The GPU's 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units provide the raw throughput, while 32 ray accelerators handle the game's lighting effects. Clock speeds are aggressive: a 2055 MHz base, 2410 MHz game clock, and 2635 MHz boost clock, with memory running at 2190 MHz (17.5 Gbps effective) across an 8 GB GDDR6 pool on a 128-bit bus, yielding 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth.

In The Medium, the GPU's VRAM capacity becomes a defining factor. The game's high-resolution textures and fixed-camera scenes demand significant memory, and the 8 GB frame buffer appears to be a constraint at 4K Ultra, where the combo manages only 19.5 FPS. The pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 337.3 GTexel/s are respectable for the class, but the data shows that at 4K High (28.9 FPS) and 4K Medium (39.9 FPS), the card struggles to maintain playable frame rates. The FP32 throughput of 10.79 TFLOPS (with FP16 at 21.59 TFLOPS via 2:1 ratio) is sufficient for 1080p gaming, yet the 4K results indicate the memory subsystem becomes the limiting factor.

The GPU's benchmark positioning reinforces this interpretation. The RX 6650 XT scores 17,166 in Passmark G3D and 7,532 in Passmark GPU Compute, with a percentile rank of 72 among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon RX 6800M (delta 0%), AMD Radeon RX 470 (delta 0.1%), Intel Arc A370M (delta -0.5%), and AMD Radeon RX Vega M GH (delta -0.6%). This clustering suggests the card performs within a tight band of mid-range GPUs, which aligns with the measured FPS data showing solid 1080p performance but 4K inadequacy.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT ranks 1059th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 37th percentile of all configurations. The CPU itself holds a 73rd percentile ranking among all processors, while the GPU sits at the 72nd percentile, yet their combined performance in this title falls well below both individual percentiles. This discrepancy highlights how The Medium's demanding visual effects and resolution scaling penalize the combo more than synthetic benchmarks would suggest.

The CPU's benchmark scores provide context for its role. In Cinebench R23, the i5-10400F scores 10,297 multi-core and 1,453 single-core, while Geekbench shows 5,783 multi-core and 1,454 single-core. The Passmark multi-thread score of 12,115 and single-thread score of 2,541 indicate a capable processor that should not bottleneck a mid-range GPU at most resolutions. The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7552 (delta 0.4%), AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (delta -0.8%), Intel Core i5-8500 (delta -1.1%), and AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 (delta -1.2%), all within 1.2% of its average benchmark score of 14,168.

Given that the combo ranks near the bottom third of tested configurations, the data suggests that The Medium favors systems with stronger graphics cards or more balanced pairings. The 6-core, 12-thread CPU with a 2.90 GHz base and 4.30 GHz boost clock provides adequate compute, but the GPU's limitations at 4K drag the overall ranking down. At 1080p, the combo performs respectably, but the game's high preset demands at higher resolutions expose the GPU's 8 GB memory and 128-bit bus as weaknesses.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play The Medium with this combo?*

A: Based on the data, 1080p Low delivers the highest average frame rate at 97.6 FPS, while 1080p Medium achieves 62.2 FPS. For a balance of quality and performance, 1080p Medium is the highest setting that maintains a playable frame rate above 60 FPS.

*Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in The Medium?*

A: The data shows 4K performance is poor. At 4K Low, the combo averages 65.4 FPS, but High settings drop to 28.9 FPS, Medium to 39.9 FPS, and Ultra to 19.5 FPS. Only 4K Low approaches playable territory, and even that is marginal.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F has an average benchmark score of 14,168, placing it 0.4% above the AMD EPYC 7552 (14,115), 0.8% below the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14,277), 1.1% below the Intel Core i5-8500 (14,332), and 1.2% below the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 (14,336). These are all within a narrow performance band.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration and how does it affect performance?

A: The Radeon RX 6650 XT features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 280.3 GB/s bandwidth. The data indicates this configuration struggles at 4K, where frame rates drop below 40 FPS at all settings above Low, suggesting memory bandwidth limitations in high-resolution scenes.

Q: What is the GPU's launch MSRP?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT has a launch MSRP of 399 USD.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 1059th out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. This ranking reflects the GPU's difficulty with The Medium's demanding 4K presets.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1080p (1920x1080):

• Low: 97.6 FPS average
• Medium: 62.2 FPS average
• High: 44.6 FPS average
• Ultra: 35.6 FPS average

1440p (2560x1440):

• Low: 78.1 FPS average
• Medium: 52.8 FPS average
• High: 36.6 FPS average
• Ultra: 25.6 FPS average

4K (3840x2160):

• Low: 65.4 FPS average
• Medium: 39.9 FPS average
• High: 28.9 FPS average
• Ultra: 19.5 FPS average

The measured FPS data reveals consistent scaling across resolutions, with Low settings maintaining the highest frame rates at every tier. At 1080p, the combo delivers a smooth experience at Low and Medium, with High and Ultra falling below 60 FPS. The 1440p results show a similar pattern but with a 20% performance penalty across all settings compared to 1080p. At 4K, only Low settings exceed 60 FPS, and the gap between Low and Ultra widens to a 70% frame rate reduction, underscoring the GPU's limitations at extreme resolutions. The data confirms that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming with medium settings, where it delivers a playable experience without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.