The Medium

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti delivers a distinctly GPU-bound experience in The Medium, ranking 1206th out of 3724 tested combos. This places the configuration in the upper third of all systems, with the CPU’s 68th percentile standing against all processors and the GPU’s 83rd percentile against all graphics cards indicating that the silicon pairing is well-matched for this title’s demands. The data shows a configuration that can handle the game’s fixed-camera horror presentation with strong frame rates at mainstream resolutions, though 4K Ultra settings push the GPU to its limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1206 out of 3724 tested systems places it in the 67.6th percentile of all configurations tested for The Medium. This is a strong showing, given that the game’s fixed-camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds still impose significant rendering workloads that favor a capable GPU. The RTX 3080 Ti’s 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs is the primary driver of this placement, while the i5-10400F’s 68th percentile among CPUs ensures it does not bottleneck the graphics card in most scenarios.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU’s average score of 14185 places it within a tight cluster of rivals: it sits 0.2% ahead of the Intel Xeon 6756E (14163), 0.5% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115), and trails the Intel Core 7 160UL by 0.3% (14232) and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C by 0.6% (14277). These deltas are negligible, indicating that the i5-10400F delivers performance parity with a wide range of server and mobile-class parts in general compute tasks. For the GPU, the RTX 3080 Ti’s average score of 41187 places it 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (40870) and 2% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 (40377), while trailing the NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB by 1.2% (41707) and the Tesla M40 by 1.7% (41897).

For The Medium specifically, the combo’s rank reflects a system that is capable of delivering playable frame rates at 1440p and 1080p with high settings, but struggles to maintain smooth performance at 4K Ultra. The data indicates that the RTX 3080 Ti’s raw horsepower is the deciding factor; the CPU’s six cores and twelve threads are sufficient to feed the GPU in this title, which is not heavily threaded. Benchmark results show that the combo’s overall ranking is consistent with a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range CPU, a common configuration that yields strong 1080p and 1440p performance.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo perform at 1080p compared to higher resolutions?

A: At 1080p, the combo achieves 106 FPS on Low settings, 89 FPS on Medium, 67 FPS on High, and 53 FPS on Ultra. These numbers drop to 100 FPS, 78 FPS, 56 FPS, and 45 FPS at 1440p, respectively, and further decline to 93 FPS, 61 FPS, 44 FPS, and 35 FPS at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck for the RTX 3080 Ti in this game?

A: The data suggests no significant CPU bottleneck. The i5-10400F’s 3DMark scores show strong multi-threaded performance (4748 in the 16-thread test) and single-thread capability (688 in the single-thread test), which are adequate for The Medium. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent with GPU limitation, not CPU limitation.

Q: What is the best settings preset for smooth gameplay at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, the Medium preset delivers 78 FPS average with a minimum of 67 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS, making it the highest settings level that maintains frame rates above 60 FPS. The High preset drops to 56 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the GPU’s memory configuration affect performance in this game?

A: The RTX 3080 Ti has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus with 912.4 GB/s bandwidth. This capacity and bandwidth are sufficient for The Medium at all tested settings, as evidenced by the consistent frame rate scaling across resolutions without sudden drops indicative of memory exhaustion.

Q: Does the game show a significant performance difference between Low and Ultra settings?

A: Yes. At 1080p, the difference between Low (106 FPS) and Ultra (53 FPS) is exactly 2x. At 1440p, the gap is 55 FPS (100 FPS vs 45 FPS), and at 4K, the gap is 58 FPS (93 FPS vs 35 FPS), indicating that the game’s visual settings have a substantial impact on GPU load.

Q: What is the RTX 3080 Ti’s standing relative to other GPUs in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU scores 26896 in Passmark G3D and 41187 on average across all tests, placing it in the 83rd percentile. It is 2% ahead of the RTX 5070, 0.8% ahead of the Radeon Pro 5300, and slightly behind the Tesla M40 variants.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution increases. At Low settings, the combo delivers 106 FPS at 1080p, 100 FPS at 1440p, and 93 FPS at 4K, representing a modest 12.3% drop from 1080p to 4K. This relatively small decline at Low settings suggests that the RTX 3080 Ti’s raw compute power is sufficient to handle the lower graphical load even at 4K, with the CPU providing enough headroom to keep frame rates high.

At Medium settings, the scaling becomes more pronounced: 89 FPS at 1080p drops to 78 FPS at 1440p (a 12.4% decrease) and then to 61 FPS at 4K (a 31.5% decrease from 1440p). This steeper drop at 4K indicates that the GPU is beginning to hit its limits as pixel count and shading complexity increase. The High settings preset shows a similar trend, with 67 FPS at 1080p, 56 FPS at 1440p, and 44 FPS at 4K, representing a 34.3% total drop from 1080p to 4K.

Ultra settings exhibit the most severe scaling: 53 FPS at 1080p, 45 FPS at 1440p, and 35 FPS at 4K, a 34% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The fact that the drop from 1080p to 1440p (15.1%) is smaller than from 1440p to 4K (22.2%) suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and shading units are the limiting factors at higher resolutions. The RTX 3080 Ti’s 912.4 GB/s bandwidth and 34.10 TFLOPS FP32 performance are being fully utilized at 4K Ultra, with the frame rate falling below the 40 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for a playable experience.

The data indicates that the i5-10400F is not the primary limiter at any resolution. The consistent pattern of decreasing frame rates with increasing resolution, combined with the CPU’s 3DMark scores (4748 in 16-thread, 688 in single-thread), shows that the processor can keep up with the GPU’s output demands. The scaling behavior is characteristic of a system where the GPU is the bottleneck, particularly at 4K where pixel throughput becomes the dominant factor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 106 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the dataset. Medium settings yield 89 FPS with a minimum of 75 FPS and a maximum of 102 FPS, providing a smooth experience for players with standard 60 Hz monitors. High settings reduce the average to 67 FPS, still above the 60 FPS threshold, while Ultra settings drop to 53 FPS, which may cause noticeable stutter on high refresh rate displays.

At 1440p, the performance degrades proportionally. Low settings maintain a strong 100 FPS average, barely lower than the 1080p result. Medium settings produce 78 FPS with a minimum of 67 FPS and a maximum of 90 FPS, making this the highest quality preset that reliably stays above 60 FPS. High settings fall to 56 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target but still playable on adaptive sync displays. Ultra settings drop to 45 FPS, which approaches the lower boundary of acceptable performance for action-oriented gameplay.

At 4K, the GPU’s limitations become apparent. Low settings still manage a respectable 93 FPS, showing that the RTX 3080 Ti has enough headroom for reduced graphical loads. Medium settings produce 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 FPS and a maximum of 71 FPS, placing it just above the 60 FPS threshold with occasional dips. High settings fall to 44 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 35 FPS, both of which are below the smoothness threshold and indicate that players should avoid these presets at 4K.

The data shows that the combo’s sweet spot is 1440p Medium, where it delivers 78 FPS with a narrow 23 FPS variance between minimum and maximum. At 1080p, the Medium preset offers 89 FPS with a 27 FPS variance, providing an even more comfortable margin. The 4K Medium preset (61 FPS) is the only 4K option that approaches acceptable performance, but its 19 FPS variance suggests potential frame pacing issues.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is the dominant component in this combo for The Medium. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivering 912.4 GB/s of bandwidth, the GPU has ample resources for the game’s textures and rendering workloads. The GA102 chip, built on Samsung’s 8 nm process, contains 28,300 million transistors across a 628 mm² die, providing 10,240 shading units, 320 TMUs, and 112 ROPs.

The GPU’s clock behavior is critical to understanding its performance. The base clock of 1365 MHz and boost clock of 1665 MHz, combined with memory running at 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective), allow the card to achieve 34.10 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. This compute throughput is directly reflected in the benchmark scores: the GPU scores 26896 in Passmark G3D and 170037 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs.

In the context of The Medium, the GPU’s 80 RT cores and 320 tensor cores are relevant for the game’s use of ray-traced effects and DLSS. However, the measured FPS data does not include ray tracing settings, so the direct impact of these features is not quantified. The card’s 186.5 GPixel/s pixel rate and 532.8 GTexel/s texture rate ensure that the fixed-camera scenes in the game are rendered efficiently.

The GPU’s 350 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate that it requires robust cooling, but the benchmark results show that this power translates into performance. The card’s 2% lead over the RTX 5070 in average benchmark score is notable, as is its 0.8% advantage over the Radeon Pro 5300. The measured FPS data confirms that the RTX 3080 Ti is the primary determinant of frame rates, with the CPU playing a supporting role.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F serves as the supporting component in this combo, providing six cores and twelve threads based on the Comet Lake architecture. Built on Intel’s 14 nm process, the CPU operates at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Its dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth is modest by modern standards, but sufficient for The Medium’s requirements.

The CPU’s benchmark results show a processor that is firmly in the mid-range tier. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10283 and single-core score of 1451 demonstrate solid multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. The 3DMark scores reveal a scaling pattern: 1350 in 2-thread, 2560 in 4-thread, 3929 in 8-thread, and 4748 in 16-thread tests, indicating that the CPU benefits from additional threads up to its 12-thread limit.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The game’s fixed-camera perspective reduces the CPU load compared to open-world titles, allowing the i5-10400F to keep up with the RTX 3080 Ti. The fact that frame rates scale consistently with resolution and settings, without any signs of CPU-induced stuttering or frame drops, confirms that the processor is not a bottleneck in this configuration.

The CPU’s 68th percentile ranking among all processors places it above average, but its nearest rivals include server-class chips like the Xeon 6756E and EPYC 7552, as well as low-power mobile parts like the Core 7 160UL and Ryzen 3 7320C. The small deltas (ranging from -0.6% to +0.5%) indicate that the i5-10400F’s performance is well-balanced, though it lacks the high core counts of its server rivals. For The Medium, this is sufficient; the game does not appear to be heavily multi-threaded, as evidenced by the moderate frame rate scaling across resolutions.