The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding workload that scales steeply with both resolution and quality settings. For the combination of the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, the benchmark data reveals a configuration that is heavily influenced by the graphics card's capabilities. The measured frames per second (FPS) across the twelve tested configurations show clear thresholds for playability, indicating that the choice of settings is more critical than the resolution for achieving a smooth experience. The data suggests that this pairing is best utilized at 1080p or 1440p with conservative quality presets, as the highest settings and 4K resolution push the GPU beyond its comfortable performance envelope.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal experience for this combo is found at the Low preset across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 103.6 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this configuration. Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset still produces a highly playable 101.7 FPS, showing remarkable consistency. Even at 3840x2160, the Low preset maintains an average of 85.3 FPS, which is impressive and indicates that the GPU has significant headroom when graphical effects are minimized.

The Medium preset offers a balanced alternative, though it comes with a noticeable performance cost. At 1080p, Medium yields 76.4 FPS, which is a 26% reduction from Low. At 1440p, the average drops to 66.4 FPS, still a solid frame rate for a horror title. However, at 4K, the Medium preset falls to 51.5 FPS, which begins to approach the threshold where motion smoothness can be compromised.

The High preset is not recommended for this pairing. At 1080p, it produces 54.9 FPS, which is borderline for a smooth experience. At 1440p, this drops to 44.4 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to 37.7 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding and only achieves 46.4 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 30.8 FPS at 4K. These figures are below the standard for fluid gameplay, particularly for a game that relies on atmospheric tension. The data clearly indicates that the Low preset is the best choice for maximizing frame rate, while Medium is the highest setting that keeps the average FPS above 60 at 1080p and 1440p.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is the primary driver of performance in this configuration. The GPU's specifications include 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 432.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz with an effective 18 Gbps transfer rate. The core operates with a base clock of 1435 MHz, a game clock of 2171 MHz, and a boost clock of 2544 MHz. These clocks, combined with 3456 shading units, allow the card to reach a pixel rate of 244.2 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 549.5 GTexel/s.

The data shows that the GPU's performance scaling is non-linear. The gap between the Low and Ultra presets is substantial, with the 1080p Low score of 103.6 FPS being more than double the 1080p Ultra score of 46.4 FPS. This indicates that the GPU's raw compute power is sufficient for lower settings, but the increased shading and texture demands of higher presets quickly overwhelm it. The GPU's compute performance, measured at 35.17 TFLOPS for FP32, is the limiting factor in this scenario. The card's position in the benchmark hierarchy, with a percentile of 73 against all GPUs, confirms it is a mid-range performer. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, has a nearly identical average benchmark score with a deltaPct of 0, suggesting they are performance equivalents on paper, yet the in-game results for this title show how the specific workload affects the final FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The impact of resolution on frame rate is significant, but it is not uniform across all settings. At the Low preset, the FPS drops from 103.6 at 1080p to 101.7 at 1440p, a negligible 2% decrease. The move to 4K results in a larger drop to 85.3 FPS, an 18% decrease from 1080p. This pattern shows that at Low settings, the CPU and GPU are not overtaxed until the pixel count increases substantially.

For the Medium preset, the scaling is more pronounced. The frame rate goes from 76.4 at 1080p to 66.4 at 1440p (a 13% drop) and then to 51.5 at 4K (a 33% drop from 1080p). This suggests that at Medium, the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading capacity start to become a bottleneck as resolution increases. The High preset shows an even steeper decline: 54.9 at 1080p, 44.4 at 1440p (a 19% drop), and 37.7 at 4K (a 31% drop from 1080p). The Ultra preset follows the same trend with 46.4 at 1080p, 35 at 1440p (a 25% drop), and 30.8 at 4K (a 34% drop from 1080p).

The data reveals that the limiting component is the GPU. The scaling pattern, where higher settings lead to larger percentage drops when moving to 4K, is characteristic of a system where the graphics card's processing power is exhausted. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is not the primary constraint here, as the FPS differences between 1080p and 1440p at Low are minimal, indicating the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall database of tested combinations for The Medium, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-10400F and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT holds a rank of 790 out of 1689 combos. This places it in the upper-middle portion of the performance spectrum. The percentile rank of 73 for the GPU and 73 for the CPU individually suggests that both components are above average, but the combination does not push into the top tier of results.

The ranking is likely influenced by the game's demanding nature. The CPU's performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10297 and a single-core score of 1453, is respectable but not exceptional for high-refresh-rate gaming. The GPU's average benchmark score of 30097 is also solid, but the game's engine appears to favor NVIDIA architectures, as indicated by the GPU's nearest rival being the RTX 5060 with a deltaPct of 0. The fact that this combo sits at rank 790 suggests that many other pairings with stronger CPUs or GPUs achieve higher frame rates, particularly at the higher settings presets where this configuration struggles.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The processor's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 and 256 KB of L2 per core, with a shared 12 MB L3 cache. It supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing a memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s.

In the context of The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, but its performance is still measurable. The 3DMark scores show a single-thread score of 688 and a max-thread score of 4735. The PassMark single-thread score is 2541, and the multithread score is 12115. These figures indicate a processor that can handle the game's logic and physics without being a major bottleneck at lower settings.

The data from the resolution scaling test supports this. At the Low preset, the FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p is only 1.9 FPS, which suggests the CPU is not struggling to keep up with the GPU's frame output. However, the CPU's limitations become apparent when examining the average benchmark score of 14168, which is only 0.4% higher than the AMD EPYC 7552 and 1.1% lower than the Intel Core i5-8500. The CPU's percentile of 73 against all CPUs indicates it is a competent performer, but its older 14 nm process node and DDR4 memory support are not current-generation. For this game, the CPU is sufficient to avoid being the primary bottleneck, but it does not contribute to pushing frame rates higher at the more demanding presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo at 1080p?

A: The highest average FPS is 103.6, achieved at the Low preset with a 1920x1080 resolution.

Q: Is the Medium preset playable at 1440p?

A: Yes, the data shows an average of 66.4 FPS at 2560x1440 with the Medium preset, which is above the standard 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the GPU's performance compare to its closest rival?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT has an average benchmark score of 30097, which is exactly equal to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060's score of 30109, resulting in a deltaPct of 0.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at 4K with Low settings?

A: No, the data shows the 4K Low preset still achieves 85.3 FPS, indicating the GPU is still the primary driver and the CPU is not limiting performance at that resolution.

Q: What is the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at the High preset?

A: The average FPS drops from 54.9 at 1920x1080 to 37.7 at 3840x2160, a decrease of 17.2 FPS, or approximately 31%.

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

A: The combination ranks 790th out of 1689 total combos tested for The Medium.