The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built on Unreal Engine, presents a demanding workload that scales heavily with both resolution and graphical presets. For the combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and the AMD Radeon RX 7600, the measured frame rates across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K reveal a component balance that shifts decisively as pixel count increases. The data indicates that this pairing is capable of smooth gameplay at lower resolutions, but becomes heavily constrained by the GPU at 4K, particularly on higher presets.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K under the Medium preset illustrates a clear performance curve. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers an average of 55.4 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the average drops to 48.3 FPS, a reduction of approximately 12.8 percent. The most significant loss occurs when stepping up to 3840x2160, where the average falls to 38.7 FPS, a further 19.9 percent decline from the 1440p result. This pattern indicates that the scaling is not linear; the jump to 4K imposes a substantially heavier load than the transition from 1080p to 1440p.

Under the High preset, the scaling trend is similar but with lower absolute values. The 1080p average is 38.9 FPS, which drops to 37.4 FPS at 1440p — a modest 3.9 percent decrease. However, at 4K, the average plummets to 26.9 FPS, a 28.1 percent reduction from the 1440p figure. This steep drop at 4K under High settings strongly suggests that the GPU is the limiting component at this resolution, as the rendering overhead of the higher preset combines with the pixel count to overwhelm the Radeon RX 7600.

The Low preset offers a contrasting view. At 1080p, the combo achieves 92 FPS, which falls to 77.7 FPS at 1440p (a 15.5 percent drop) and then to 64 FPS at 4K (a 17.6 percent drop from 1440p). The more consistent scaling under Low settings indicates that when the graphical load is reduced, the system is better able to maintain performance across resolutions, though the GPU still exerts a noticeable influence at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the most severe degradation, with 33.7 FPS at 1080p, 26.5 FPS at 1440p, and 25 FPS at 4K. The relatively small gap between 1440p and 4K under Ultra suggests that the game is already heavily GPU-bound at 1440p on this preset, leaving little headroom for higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its benchmark results show a strong multi-threaded capability, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15935 and a single-core score of 2249. In synthetic 3DMark tests, the CPU achieves 5873 in the 16-thread test and 910 in the single-thread test, indicating a balanced performance profile that is well-suited for gaming workloads.

In the context of The Medium, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but it becomes more relevant at 1080p. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo reaches 92 FPS, a figure that suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU sufficiently to avoid a bottleneck at this lower resolution. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1692 and the 4-thread score of 3012 indicate that the processor's single-core and lightly-threaded performance is adequate for the game's logic and rendering threads. However, as resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows, and the CPU's influence on the final frame rate diminishes, as evidenced by the converging FPS numbers across presets at 4K.

The CPU's percentile ranking against all processors is 77, placing it above the majority of tested CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-9700 with an average score of 19831 (a 0.1 percent delta) and the Intel Core i7-8700 with 19894 (a -0.2 percent delta). These comparisons show that the i5-12400 performs essentially on par with these older i7 parts, which is notable given its lower core count. For The Medium, this means the CPU is unlikely to be the primary constraint in most scenarios, except possibly in the lowest resolution and preset combination where frame rates exceed 90 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience for this combo. At 1080p, the Medium preset yields 55.4 FPS, which is comfortably playable for a horror title where slower pacing is typical. At 1440p, the Medium preset drops to 48.3 FPS, still within a range that many players would find acceptable, though not ideal for fast-paced action. The High preset at 1080p produces 38.9 FPS, which is noticeably lower and may introduce stutter in scenes with heavy particle effects or complex geometry.

For players prioritizing visual fidelity, the High preset at 1440p yields 37.4 FPS, which is marginally better than the High preset at 1080p (38.9 FPS) in terms of image quality but with a similar frame rate. However, the Ultra preset is not recommended for this combination, as it produces 33.7 FPS at 1080p and falls below 30 FPS at both 1440p (26.5 FPS) and 4K (25 FPS). The Low preset, while achieving 92 FPS at 1080p and 77.7 FPS at 1440p, significantly compromises visual quality, which may detract from the game's atmospheric horror presentation.

The data suggests that the Medium preset at 1440p is the sweet spot for this hardware pairing, offering a 48.3 FPS average that balances fidelity and smoothness. At 4K, even the Medium preset drops to 38.7 FPS, which is playable but may feel less fluid. Given that The Medium is a slower-paced horror game, frame rates in the high 30s to 40s are generally acceptable, but the Medium preset provides the best trade-off between the measured metrics across all three resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 ranks 1151 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the database, indicating that while it is not a high-end configuration, it is also far from the bottom. The percentile ranking for the GPU is 63, meaning it outperforms 63 percent of all GPUs tested, while the CPU's percentile is 77, which is higher than the GPU's relative standing.

This discrepancy between the CPU and GPU percentiles suggests that the processor has more headroom for higher-end graphics cards, but the RX 7600 is the limiting factor in this pairing for this specific game. The GPU's average benchmark score is 20258, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT at 20146 (a 0.6 percent delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile at 20534 (a -1.3 percent delta). These close margins indicate that the RX 7600 performs very similarly to these other cards in synthetic benchmarks, yet in The Medium, the combination's rank suggests that the game's specific workload may not favor this architecture as strongly.

The combo's rank at 1151 out of 1689 means that roughly 68 percent of tested combinations deliver higher frame rates in this game. This is a significant finding, as it implies that many lower-cost or mid-range combos may outperform this pairing in The Medium, despite the RX 7600's decent synthetic scores. The game's fixed-camera angles and heavy use of volumetric effects may create a rendering path that is particularly sensitive to the GPU's memory bandwidth or shader throughput, which could explain why the combo does not rank higher.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a Navi 33 chip, fabricated on a 6 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The GPU's boost clock is rated at 2655 MHz, with a game clock of 2250 MHz, and it achieves a pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s. These specifications indicate a mid-range graphics card that should handle 1080p and 1440p gaming effectively, but its 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus may limit performance at higher resolutions and settings.

In The Medium, the GPU's role is clearly dominant, as evidenced by the frame rate drops when moving from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo hits 92 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is not fully saturated. However, at 4K with Ultra settings, the frame rate falls to 25 FPS, a 72.8 percent reduction from the 1080p Low result. This dramatic decline indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute resources are insufficient for the 4K Ultra workload, which likely requires more than 8 GB of VRAM and greater fill rate.

The GPU's benchmark scores show a PassMark G3D score of 16634 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 90825, which are respectable for its class. However, the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2310 suggests that the card's performance in modern DirectX 12 titles may be less impressive. In The Medium, the GPU's limitations manifest most clearly at 4K, where even the Medium preset only achieves 38.7 FPS. The 1440p results are more favorable, with the High preset reaching 37.4 FPS and the Medium preset at 48.3 FPS, indicating that the GPU is better suited to this resolution. The 1080p results are the strongest, with the Low preset achieving 92 FPS and the Medium preset at 55.4 FPS, confirming that the RX 7600 is primarily a 1080p and entry-level 1440p card for this title.