The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title built around atmospheric tension and dual-reality rendering, presents a demanding workload that scales heavily with graphics settings. The pairing of the Intel Core i5-12400F with the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT demonstrates a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions, where the GPU’s capabilities dominate the experience. This analysis examines the measured data for this combination, focusing on frame rates, scaling behavior, and component roles without extrapolating beyond the provided facts.

FAQ

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves in The Medium?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 141.7 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 119 FPS at 2560x1440 Low and 90.6 FPS at 3840x2160 Low.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival in average benchmark scores?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, scores 19210, placing the i5-12400F a marginal 0.1% ahead. It also leads the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.3% but trails the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%.

Q: What is the GPU’s standing relative to its direct competitors?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT has an average benchmark score of 49982, placing it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. It is 0.5% ahead of the Intel Arc A550M but 1.7% behind the NVIDIA RTX A1000 and 2.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER.

Q: What memory configuration does the GPU use, and what is its bandwidth?

A: The GPU is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 512.0 GB/s. The memory clock is listed as 2000 MHz with 16 Gbps effective speed.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT ranks 572nd out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the lowest and highest settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the average frame rate ranges from 90.6 FPS on Low settings to 30.3 FPS on Ultra settings. This represents a significant drop of 60.3 FPS when moving from the least to the most demanding preset.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested hardware combinations for The Medium, this specific pairing holds the 572nd position out of 1689 total configurations. This placement, just inside the top third of all tested combos, indicates a solid but not elite performance tier for this title. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s processing power and the GPU’s rendering capabilities, which are sufficient to produce playable frame rates across most settings.

The CPU’s individual performance metrics provide context for this rank. With an average benchmark score of 19221, the Core i5-12400F sits in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, is effectively tied with a score of 19210 and a delta of just 0.1%. This near-parity suggests that the CPU is not a distinguishing factor in the combo’s ranking, as it performs on par with a previous-generation high-end processor. The CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities, evidenced by a 3DMark max-threads score of 5912 and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16518, are adequate for the game’s logic and streaming demands.

On the GPU side, the Radeon RX 6800 XT achieves an average benchmark score of 49982, placing it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. Its position relative to rivals shows a tight race: it is 0.5% ahead of the Intel Arc A550M and 2.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, but 1.7% behind the NVIDIA RTX A1000. This suggests the GPU is a strong performer, but the 572nd overall rank indicates that The Medium is a demanding title that can push even high-end hardware, especially at higher resolutions and settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a predictable yet pronounced scaling pattern as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 141.7 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 reduces this to 119 FPS, a drop of 22.7 FPS, and at 3840x2160, the frame rate falls further to 90.6 FPS. This represents a 36% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting factor, as the workload scales with pixel count.

The scaling behavior becomes even more evident at higher settings. At High settings, the frame rate drops from 64 FPS at 1080p to 51.1 FPS at 1440p and then to 42.7 FPS at 4K. This progressive decline shows that the GPU’s rendering pipeline is increasingly stressed, with the 4K resolution requiring nearly double the pixel throughput of 1080p. The data suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck at these resolutions, as the frame rate differences align with the GPU’s expected performance curve for this title.

However, the scaling is not linear across all settings. At Ultra settings, the frame rate at 1080p is 49.1 FPS, dropping to 39.9 FPS at 1440p and 30.3 FPS at 4K. The smaller absolute drops at Ultra settings compared to Low settings suggest that the game’s Ultra preset introduces effects that are less resolution-dependent, such as complex shaders or ray-traced elements, which tax the GPU’s compute units more than its memory bandwidth. This indicates that while resolution is a major factor, the interaction between settings and resolution is complex.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide range of performance depending on the preset. Low settings yield an average of 141.7 FPS, providing a high-refresh-rate experience. Medium settings reduce this to 85.7 FPS, a drop of 56 FPS, while High settings further lower it to 64 FPS. Ultra settings are the most demanding, producing an average of 49.1 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is the largest single drop, indicating that the Medium preset activates significant visual features that impact performance.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease across all settings. Low settings still achieve a smooth 119 FPS, but Medium drops to 74.1 FPS and High to 51.1 FPS. Ultra settings at 1440p produce 39.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, suggesting that this preset is best reserved for lower resolutions or for users who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate. The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is 11.2 FPS, a notable gap that highlights the cost of the Ultra preset’s additional effects.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes more constrained. Low settings maintain a playable 90.6 FPS, but Medium drops to 54.7 FPS and High to 42.7 FPS. Ultra settings at 4K yield only 30.3 FPS, which is a demanding scenario that may not be ideal for a smooth experience. The data shows that the combo is capable of 4K gaming at Low settings, but for higher presets, users would need to consider lowering resolution or accepting reduced frame rates. The 4K Ultra score of 30.3 FPS represents the lowest measured performance point for this configuration.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling across resolutions and settings. With a boost clock of 2250 MHz and a game clock of 2015 MHz, the GPU has substantial processing headroom. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory with 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth provides ample capacity for the game’s textures and assets, even at 4K resolution, where memory requirements are highest. The 4608 shading units and 128 ROPs contribute to the GPU’s ability to handle the pixel throughput demanded by higher resolutions.

The GPU’s performance percentile of 87% and its benchmark scores, such as 24980 in Passmark G3D, position it as a high-tier component. Its nearest rival, the Intel Arc A550M, is only 0.5% behind in average score, but the RX 6800 XT’s advantage becomes clear in this game’s measured results. The data shows that the GPU’s role is to provide the raw rendering power, and its influence is most apparent when comparing the frame rates at the same settings across different resolutions.

The relationship between VRAM and settings is also evident. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 30.3 FPS, a 60 FPS reduction from 4K Low. This suggests that the Ultra preset likely increases memory usage and shader complexity, pushing the GPU to its limits. The 16 GB memory buffer is sufficient to avoid capacity issues, but the compute load from the game’s fixed-camera angles and dual-world rendering effects is what ultimately constrains performance. The GPU’s 20.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the primary resource being consumed, and the measured FPS data reflects its saturation at higher settings.