The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding fixed-camera horror experience, and the measured data for the Intel Core i5-11400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 reveals a configuration that can handle the game comfortably at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles at 4K. The benchmark results show a clear hierarchy across presets and resolutions, with the RTX 3070’s 8 GB of VRAM and the i5-11400F’s 6-core/12-thread layout playing distinct roles in determining final frame rates. This analysis breaks down the optimal settings, the GPU’s influence, and how the CPU holds up in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates indicate that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for this specific hardware pairing. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 77.7 FPS, which is a significant leap from the High preset’s 54.8 FPS and nearly double the Ultra preset’s 45.9 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium is also substantial, moving from 125.7 FPS down to 77.7 FPS, but the visual improvement typically justifies this cost. For players with 1440p monitors, the Medium preset remains the sweet spot, yielding 64.8 FPS, which is playable and only slightly below the 60 FPS target. Pushing to High at 1440p drops the average to 47.6 FPS, a noticeable step down in smoothness.

The Ultra preset is generally not recommended for this configuration. At 1080p, Ultra produces 45.9 FPS, which is below the ideal threshold for a horror game where smooth camera transitions are crucial. At 1440p, Ultra falls to 38.6 FPS, and at 4K it bottoms out at 29 FPS. The data shows that the performance cost of Ultra is steep, with a drop of roughly 31 FPS from Medium to Ultra at 1080p. The High preset sits in an awkward middle ground; it provides a moderate visual upgrade over Medium but at a performance penalty of over 20% at every resolution tested. Therefore, the data strongly supports Medium as the default recommendation for a consistent experience, with Low available as a high-refresh-rate option for competitive or high-FPS play, where the 125.7 FPS average at 1080p shows the hardware’s headroom.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is the primary driver of frame rates in The Medium, and its specifications explain the performance scaling. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at Medium settings, but the data suggests it becomes a limiting factor at higher resolutions and presets. The GPU’s 5888 shading units and 46 RT cores are the workhorses, and its boost clock of 1725 MHz helps sustain the frame rates seen in the Low preset tests.

The RTX 3070’s benchmark scores place it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28238. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, which is only 0.9% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which is 1% faster. This indicates the 3070 is a solid mid-to-high performer, but its relative position explains why it cannot handle the Ultra preset smoothly at 1440p or 4K. The 8 GB VRAM is likely the bottleneck at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 29, a 41% decrease from the 4K Medium result of 49.9 FPS. The GPU’s 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is substantial, but the memory bandwidth and capacity appear to be the constraining factors in this specific title’s higher-fidelity modes.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data across resolutions reveals a typical GPU-bound scaling pattern, but with some notable quirks that highlight the CPU’s capabilities. At the Low preset, the performance scales smoothly: 125.7 FPS at 1080p, 104.8 FPS at 1440p, and 84.2 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 33%, which is modest and indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor at these low settings. However, at the Medium preset, the scaling is steeper: 77.7 FPS at 1080p drops to 64.8 FPS at 1440p (a 17% decrease) and then to 49.9 FPS at 4K (a 36% total drop from 1080p).

The High preset shows an even more pronounced scaling issue. At 1080p, it achieves 54.8 FPS, but at 1440p it falls to 47.6 FPS, and at 4K it drops to 33.8 FPS. The 4K result is particularly telling, as it represents a 38% decrease from the 1080p High score. This steep curve suggests that the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM is being saturated at 4K High, causing a disproportionate performance hit. The Ultra preset follows a similar trend, with 45.9 FPS at 1080p dropping to 29 FPS at 4K, a 37% reduction. The data indicates that while the CPU can keep up with the game’s demands at lower resolutions, the RTX 3070’s memory limitations become the primary constraint as resolution and settings increase, particularly at 4K where the average FPS at Ultra falls below 30.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a 60 FPS target at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset is the recommended choice, as the measured average FPS at 2560x1440 is 64.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS line. The High preset falls short at 47.6 FPS.

Q: Can this hardware run the game at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at lower settings. The Low preset at 3840x2160 achieves an average of 84.2 FPS, and the Medium preset achieves 49.9 FPS. The High and Ultra presets are not playable, with averages of 33.8 FPS and 29 FPS respectively.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 compare to its closest rival in this context?

A: The RTX 3070 has an average benchmark score of 28238, which is 0.9% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti. This places it in a close performance band with those cards.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck at standard resolutions. The Intel Core i5-11400F scores in the 75th percentile of all CPUs, and its performance scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings shows only a 33% drop, indicating headroom remains.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: The Low preset averages 125.7 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 45.9 FPS. This represents a difference of 79.8 FPS, or a performance cut of over 60% when moving to the highest preset.

Q: Does the GPU’s VRAM affect the 4K performance?

A: The data indicates a severe drop at 4K High and Ultra, where the 8 GB VRAM is likely saturated. The 4K Ultra average of 29 FPS is a 41% drop from the 4K Medium average of 49.9 FPS, suggesting memory capacity is the limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F provides a stable foundation for The Medium, with its 6 cores and 12 threads proving adequate for the game’s demands. The CPU’s base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz allow it to handle the game’s logic and AI without becoming a bottleneck, as evidenced by the strong performance at Low settings where the GPU is not stressed. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for this title’s data streaming requirements.

The i5-11400F’s benchmark scores reinforce its position as a capable mid-range processor. It scores 14372 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2029 in single-core, with a 3DMark max-threads score of 5652. Its average benchmark score of 17181 places it in the 75th percentile of all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and the Intel Core i7-1260P, both with essentially identical average scores (17189 and 17212 respectively, with deltaPct values of 0 and -0.2). This indicates that the CPU is well-matched to the RTX 3070, as it can feed the GPU enough data to reach the frame rates observed.

The CPU’s role is most apparent when comparing the performance scaling at Low settings. The drop from 125.7 FPS at 1080p to 84.2 FPS at 4K is a 33% reduction, which is entirely attributable to the GPU’s workload increase, not CPU limitations. Even at Medium settings, the CPU maintains frame rates above 60 FPS at 1440p, suggesting it has headroom for more demanding titles. In The Medium, the i5-11400F demonstrates that a 6-core/12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake generation is more than sufficient for a horror game with fixed camera angles, allowing the RTX 3070 to be the sole determinant of visual quality scaling.