The Medium

The Medium presents a heavy load for the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination, with benchmark results showing a wide performance spread across resolutions and presets. The data indicates a system capable of smooth play at lower settings but one that struggles to maintain high frame rates at maximum graphical fidelity, particularly at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a predictable decline as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop varies significantly by preset. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 sees a modest reduction from 125.1 FPS to 119.7 FPS, a drop of roughly 4.3%. Moving further to 3840x2160 brings the average down to 105.2 FPS, representing a 15.9% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This relatively shallow scaling curve at Low settings suggests the GPU is not the primary bottleneck, with the CPU and memory subsystem playing a more significant role in limiting performance.

The pattern shifts dramatically at higher presets. With High settings, the average frame rate falls from 71.8 FPS at 1080p to 61.6 FPS at 1440p, and then to 51 FPS at 4K. This represents a 29% total decline from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the rendering load is beginning to saturate the GPU's capabilities. The Ultra preset shows the steepest scaling curve, dropping from 59.1 FPS at 1080p to 48.5 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 36.4 FPS at 4K — a 38.4% reduction across the resolution range.

The Medium preset demonstrates intermediate behavior, with frame rates of 104 FPS at 1080p, 85.9 FPS at 1440p, and 64.6 FPS at 4K. The 4K result for Medium is particularly telling: it outperforms the 1080p Ultra result by 5.5 FPS, yet the gap between Medium and High at 4K is only 13.6 FPS. This suggests that The Medium's graphical settings have a non-linear impact on GPU load, with the jump from Medium to High being more demanding than from Low to Medium.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 brings substantial hardware to this title, featuring 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's 6144 shading units and 48 RT cores are backed by boost clocks reaching 2512 MHz, with a base clock of 2325 MHz. The memory operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed, and the card's FP32 performance is rated at 30.87 TFLOPS.

These specifications translate into a strong but not overwhelming showing in The Medium. At 1080p Ultra, the RTX 5070 manages 59.1 FPS, which is playable but falls short of the smooth 60 FPS target. The GPU's percentile ranking of 83rd among all GPUs places it in the upper tier, yet the measured results show that this game's demanding nature requires careful settings management. The 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for this title, as the frame rate drops from Medium to Ultra at 4K (64.6 to 36.4 FPS) are more consistent with compute-bound rendering rather than memory capacity exhaustion.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 with a 0.2% higher average score, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 at 0.6% below. This positions the RTX 5070 as a capable performer, but the measured FPS figures in The Medium show it operating near its limits at higher settings. The data suggests that the RTX 5070's architecture, with its 5 nm process and Blackwell 2.0 design, handles the game's fixed-function workloads well but is constrained by the overall rendering complexity.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 104 FPS, which is 32.2 FPS higher than High and 44.9 FPS higher than Ultra. The frame rate advantage over Low is only 21.1 FPS, while the visual upgrade from Low to Medium is typically substantial in horror titles. At 2560x1440, Medium produces 85.9 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and only 4.3 FPS below the 1080p High result.

For 4K gaming, High settings at 51 FPS represent the most viable option, as Medium at 64.6 FPS is playable but may not fully showcase the game's atmosphere, while Ultra at 36.4 FPS falls below acceptable smoothness. The Low preset at 4K achieves 105.2 FPS, but this likely sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a horror game that relies on environmental detail and lighting effects.

Users seeking the highest frame rates should consider Low settings, which achieve 125.1 FPS at 1080p and 119.7 FPS at 1440p. However, the data indicates that Medium provides the most consistent experience across all three resolutions, with the smallest relative performance penalty when moving from 1080p to 1440p (a 17.4% drop) compared to High (14.2% drop) and Ultra (17.9% drop).

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable at 4K with this system?

A: The maximum average frame rate at 3840x2160 is 105.2 FPS, achieved with Low settings. Medium settings produce 64.6 FPS, High produces 51 FPS, and Ultra drops to 36.4 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 compare to its closest benchmark rivals?

A: The RTX 5070 has an average benchmark score of 41687, placing it between the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 at 41610 (0.2% higher) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 at 41441 (0.6% lower). The NVIDIA Tesla M40 scores 41897, which is 0.5% above the RTX 5070.

Q: Is the Core i5-11400F a bottleneck at lower resolutions?

A: At 1080p Low, the system achieves 125.1 FPS, while at 1440p Low it reaches 119.7 FPS — a difference of only 5.4 FPS. This small scaling gap suggests the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are limiting performance at lower resolutions and settings, where the GPU has spare capacity.

Q: What is the performance difference between Medium and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings deliver 85.9 FPS, while Ultra drops to 48.5 FPS — a difference of 37.4 FPS (43.5% lower). This indicates that Ultra settings impose a significant rendering load that the RTX 5070 cannot fully sustain at this resolution.

Q: How does the combo rank in the overall performance database?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 ranks 370th out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium, placing it in the top 22% of all systems.

Q: What is the GPU's memory bandwidth and how does it relate to 4K performance?

A: The RTX 5070 has 672.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth from its 12 GB GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus. At 4K, the frame rate drops from 64.6 FPS at Medium to 51 FPS at High, suggesting that the bandwidth is adequate but the rendering workload at higher presets becomes the limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Rocket Lake processor features 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 512 KB of L2 cache per core, with an 80 KB L1 cache per core. The CPU's memory bandwidth is rated at 51.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR4, and it operates on the Intel Socket 1200 platform with a 65 W TDP.

Benchmark scores for the i5-11400F show a single-thread performance of 868 in 3DMark and 2029 in Cinebench R23 single-core, with multi-thread results of 5652 in 3DMark max threads and 14372 in Cinebench R23 multicore. The processor's 75th percentile ranking among all CPUs and average benchmark score of 17181 place it near the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (0% delta) and Intel Core i7-1260P (-0.2% delta). These figures indicate a capable mid-range processor, but the game's scaling patterns reveal its limitations.

In The Medium, the CPU's influence is most apparent at low settings, where frame rates plateau. At 1080p Low, the system hits 125.1 FPS, but this only rises to 119.7 FPS at 1440p Low — a decline that suggests the processor is keeping up with the reduced GPU load. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5619 and 8-thread score of 4691 show that the CPU has headroom for multi-threaded workloads, yet the game's performance at 4K Ultra (36.4 FPS) indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint at high settings.

The CPU's 14 nm process node and 276 mm² die size contribute to its thermal characteristics, but the data does not show thermal throttling affecting results. The processor's 4.40 GHz boost clock provides adequate single-thread performance for The Medium's horror gameplay, which often relies on scripted sequences and environmental interactions that can be CPU-sensitive.