The Medium

The Medium places the Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT in a demanding spot, with the data showing this pairing lands in the 65th percentile of all tested combinations for this title. The combination's ranking of 2434 out of 3724 tested configs indicates a mid-pack result, where the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer and the CPU's six-core layout interact with the game's fixed-camera horror scenes in specific ways across resolutions and settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a steep performance cliff as resolution climbs, with the gap between 1080p and 4K widening dramatically at higher settings. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 95 at 1920x1080 to 80 at 2560x1440, then falls to 63 at 3840x2160 — a total reduction of roughly one-third from the 1080p baseline. This scaling pattern suggests the GPU remains the dominant bottleneck even at lower quality presets, though the CPU's influence becomes more apparent when comparing the Medium preset's narrower drop.

The Medium settings data shows a more compressed curve: 59 FPS at 1080p, 50 FPS at 1440p, and 39 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium result of 39 FPS (with a minimum of 33 and maximum of 45) sits just above the playability threshold, while the High preset at 4K falls to 28 FPS — a figure that indicates the resolution is pushing the Radeon RX 6650 XT well past its comfort zone. The Ultra preset at 4K bottoms out at 22 FPS, which is the lowest recorded average across the entire dataset.

The scaling behavior points to a system where the GPU's 8 GB memory and 128-bit bus become limiting factors at higher resolutions, particularly when texture quality increases. At 1080p Low, the 95 FPS average shows headroom, but the jump to 1080p High reduces that to 43 FPS — a 55% drop that cannot be explained by resolution alone. This suggests the game's asset streaming and shadow quality settings disproportionately tax the GPU's memory subsystem, which has a bandwidth of 280.3 GB/s. The 1440p results reinforce this interpretation: Low hits 80 FPS, but Medium drops to 50 FPS and High to 36 FPS, with Ultra at 28 FPS.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 6650 XT brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's clocks are set at a 2055 MHz base, a 2410 MHz game clock, and a 2635 MHz boost, with memory running at 2190 MHz (17.5 Gbps effective). These specifications place the card in the 65th percentile of all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 19765. The nearest rivals in the GPU rankings include the NVIDIA Tesla K40m (19885, -0.6% delta) and the AMD FirePro W7000 (19905, -0.7% delta), which indicates the 6650 XT is performing within a tight band of older workstation-class hardware.

In The Medium specifically, the GPU's 32 ray tracing cores and 2048 shading units are tasked with rendering the game's dual-reality mechanic, which often presents two simultaneous perspectives. The measured results show that at 4K Ultra, the card manages only 22 FPS, while 4K Low reaches 63 FPS — a spread of 41 FPS that highlights how much headroom exists in the card's compute capacity when visual effects are reduced. The 10.79 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 337.3 GTexel/s texture rate are sufficient for 1080p Medium (59 FPS) but fall short for 1440p High (36 FPS) and 4K High (28 FPS).

The GPU's memory configuration appears to be the critical constraint at higher resolutions. The 8 GB capacity is adequate for 1080p Medium and Low, but the 4K Medium result of 39 FPS (with a 33 FPS minimum) suggests the card is hitting memory bandwidth limitations during complex scenes. The pixel rate of 168.6 GPixel/s and ROP count of 64 further indicate that fill-rate bound scenarios, such as the game's volumetric lighting effects, will cause frame rate drops at 4K regardless of the CPU's performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT combination ranks 2434 out of 3724 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 65th percentile of all systems tested. This mid-tier ranking reflects a balance where neither component is severely mismatched for the game's requirements, but the overall result is constrained by the GPU's performance ceiling. The combo rank sits between the CPU's 72nd percentile (vs. all CPUs) and the GPU's 65th percentile (vs. all GPUs), suggesting the graphics card is the limiting factor in this pairing.

Compared to the CPU's nearest rivals, the i5-12400's average benchmark score of 18683 is nearly identical to the AMD EPYC 7643 (18697, -0.1% delta) and Intel Core i7-1355U (18730, -0.3% delta). The AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 scores 18811 (-0.7% delta), while the Intel Core i3-14100F comes in at 18519 (0.9% delta). These tight margins indicate that the CPU is not a differentiator in this game — the frame rates are driven almost entirely by GPU load.

The GPU's benchmark position reinforces this: the Radeon RX 6650 XT's 19765 average score is within 1% of the NVIDIA Tesla K40m (19885), AMD FirePro D300 (19637), and NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (19602). In game-specific terms, this means the combo's 2434 rank is likely to shift significantly if the GPU were swapped for a higher-tier card, while CPU changes would produce minimal FPS movement. The 4K Medium result of 39 FPS, for instance, is more indicative of the GPU's memory bandwidth than any CPU limitation.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear tiering across settings. Low settings produce an average of 95 FPS, which is the highest recorded figure for this combo. Medium settings drop to 59 FPS with a minimum of 51 and maximum of 68. High settings yield 43 FPS, and Ultra falls to 34 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium (36 FPS) is larger than the gap between Medium and High (16 FPS), suggesting that the Medium preset activates effects that disproportionately impact performance.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages compress. Low delivers 80 FPS, Medium provides 50 FPS (minimum 43, maximum 58), High manages 36 FPS, and Ultra drops to 28 FPS. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 15-20% of performance at each settings tier, which is consistent with a GPU that has sufficient compute but limited memory bandwidth. The 1440p Medium result of 50 FPS is the most balanced point for this resolution, offering a playable experience without the significant drops seen at High.

At 3840x2160, the results are marginal for most settings. Low achieves 63 FPS, which is surprisingly close to the 1440p High result of 36 FPS — indicating that Low settings at 4K are roughly equivalent in load to High settings at 1440p. Medium drops to 39 FPS (minimum 33, maximum 45), High falls to 28 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 22 FPS. None of the 4K settings except Low provide a consistently smooth experience, and the 4K Ultra result of 22 FPS is below what most users would consider playable for a slow-paced horror title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process with a die size of 163 mm². Its base clock is 2.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, and it carries 18 MB of shared L3 cache along with 1.25 MB of L2 per core. The CPU's TDP is 65 W, and it supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel interface. The CPU's benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15989 and a single-core score of 2257, with a Geekbench multicore score of 8564 and single-core of 1848.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is largely secondary to the GPU. The game's fixed camera angles and pre-rendered environments place most of the computational load on the graphics card, and the CPU's six cores are sufficient to feed the Radeon RX 6650 XT at most settings. The 1080p Low result of 95 FPS suggests the CPU can sustain frame rates well above what the GPU can deliver at higher settings, and the 4K Low result of 63 FPS further indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck even at lower resolutions where CPU load tends to be higher.

The CPU's 72nd percentile ranking vs. all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18683, places it in a competitive position. Its nearest rival comparisons show it performing within 1% of several enterprise and mobile processors, which suggests that for a game like The Medium, the CPU's thread scheduling and cache layout are adequate. The 3DMark results — 5873 for 16 threads, 1692 for 2 threads, and 910 for single-thread — confirm that the CPU has balanced multi-threaded and single-threaded performance, which is relevant for a game that may not scale perfectly across all twelve threads.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this pairing in The Medium?

A: The 1080p Medium preset provides 59 FPS average with a minimum of 51 and maximum of 68, which is the most balanced result. At 1440p, Medium delivers 50 FPS (minimum 43, maximum 58), while 4K Low achieves 63 FPS but with reduced visual quality.

Q: How does the GPU perform relative to its closest rivals?

A: The Radeon RX 6650 XT scores 19765 on average, placing it between the NVIDIA Tesla K40m (19885, -0.6% delta) and the AMD FirePro D300 (19637, 0.7% delta). The NVIDIA Quadro K5200 scores 19602 (0.8% delta), and the AMD FirePro W7000 scores 19905 (-0.7% delta).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 22 FPS and 4K High of 28 FPS indicate the Radeon RX 6650 XT cannot handle the resolution at higher settings, while the CPU's 4K Low result of 63 FPS shows headroom remains.

Q: What is the CPU's benchmark position compared to similar processors?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 18683, which is 0.1% lower than the AMD EPYC 7643 (18697), 0.3% lower than the Intel Core i7-1355U (18730), 0.7% lower than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (18811), and 0.9% higher than the Intel Core i3-14100F (18519).

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 59 at 1920x1080 to 50 at 2560x1440, then to 39 at 3840x2160. The total loss from 1080p to 4K is 20 FPS, representing a 34% reduction.

Q: Does the CPU support the memory types used in the benchmark?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400 supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel interface. The benchmark results do not specify which memory type was used, but the CPU's architecture is compatible with both.