The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title, and the pairing of the Intel Core i5-12400F with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 produces a configuration that is heavily reliant on graphics settings to maintain playable frame rates. The data shows a system that can handle 1080p and 1440p with ease at moderate settings, but which struggles to maintain smooth performance at 4K on higher presets. This analysis breaks down the measured performance, focusing on how resolution scaling, settings, and the GPU’s characteristics define the experience.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound title like The Medium. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 141 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 119 FPS, a reduction of roughly 15.6%. Stepping up to 4K Low yields 93 FPS, which is a further 21.8% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling indicates that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The trend becomes even more pronounced at higher settings. With Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 88 at 1080p to 74 at 1440p (a 15.9% decrease), and then to 58 at 4K (a 21.6% decrease from 1440p). For High settings, the numbers are 63, 53, and 42 for 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively. The percentage drops between resolutions are consistent, suggesting that the RX 9070’s rendering pipeline is being saturated uniformly as resolution scales.

The most telling data point for identifying the bottleneck is the 4K Ultra result, which averages just 33 FPS. This is a 47.6% drop from the 4K High result of 42 FPS. The massive penalty for moving from High to Ultra at 4K, combined with the relatively smaller penalties for resolution changes at lower settings, strongly suggests that the GPU’s compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors. The Intel Core i5-12400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, appears sufficient to feed the GPU at 1080p, as evidenced by the 141 FPS Low result, but the RX 9070 cannot maintain high frame rates when pixel throughput demands increase dramatically at 4K Ultra. In short, this is a GPU-limited configuration for The Medium at higher resolutions and presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo can achieve in The Medium?

A: The highest measured average is 141 FPS, which occurs at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Can this system run The Medium at 4K with acceptable performance?

A: Yes, but only on lower settings. At 4K Low, the average is 93 FPS, while 4K Medium drops to 58 FPS. For a smoother experience, 4K High is playable at 42 FPS, but 4K Ultra is not recommended as it falls to 33 FPS.

Q: How much of a performance hit is taken when moving from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: The average FPS drops from 74 at 2560x1440 to 58 at 3840x2160, which is a 21.6% decrease in performance.

Q: Which settings preset provides the largest jump in performance from the lowest to the next tier?

A: The data shows that moving from Low to Medium at 1080p reduces the average FPS from 141 to 88, a 37.6% drop. This is a significant cost, indicating that Low settings are substantially less demanding than Medium.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The high frame rates at 1080p Low (141 FPS) suggest the CPU can keep up. However, the steep decline in performance when increasing settings to Ultra (50 FPS at 1080p) points to the GPU being the primary constraint even at this resolution.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The minimum FPS is not recorded for all configurations. The only min FPS values provided are for Medium settings: 75 at 1080p, 63 at 1440p, and 50 at 4K.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the dominant component in this pairing for The Medium. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s, which is crucial for handling the game’s high-resolution textures and complex scenes. The benchmark results show that the GPU’s performance is directly tied to the settings preset, with a 141 FPS result at 1080p Low being the ceiling and a 33 FPS result at 4K Ultra being the floor.

The GPU’s clock speeds are notable, with a base clock of 1330 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. The game clock of 2070 MHz represents the expected sustained frequency during gaming loads. The data suggests that the RX 9070’s raw compute power, rated at 36.13 TFLOPS FP32, is more than sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but it becomes overwhelmed at 4K on higher presets. The significant performance drop from 42 FPS at 4K High to 33 FPS at 4K Ultra indicates that the Ultra preset likely introduces effects that heavily tax the GPU’s shading units and memory subsystem.

The GPU’s percentile ranking of 69 places it above average compared to all GPUs, but its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER and the AMD Radeon RX 6800S, with delta percentages of -1.2% and -0.8% respectively. This context suggests that while the RX 9070 is a capable card, its performance in The Medium is not exceptional for its class, and the 4K Ultra settings are beyond its comfortable reach. The 16 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor in these tests, as even the most demanding preset did not show signs of texture thrashing, but the overall GPU throughput is the main constraint on higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations for The Medium, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-12400F and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 holds a combo rank of 1075 out of 3724 total tested combos. This places it in the top 28.9% of all configurations, which is a solid result. The rank indicates that while there are many faster systems, this combination outperforms the majority of tested setups.

The CPU itself, the i5-12400F, has a percentile rank of 73 against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19039. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS, scores nearly identically with a delta of 0%, suggesting the CPU is well within the norm for its class. The GPU, RX 9070, has a percentile rank of 69 and an average score of 23877. The combo’s overall rank of 1075 reflects a balanced pairing where neither component is drastically holding the other back in most scenarios.

However, the rank must be interpreted with the game’s specific demands in mind. The Medium is a horror title that appears to favor GPU performance heavily. Given that the combo ranks in the top third of all systems, it is a viable platform for the game, but the measured FPS data shows that it is not a top-tier performer for 4K Ultra settings. The rank of 1075 suggests that users with this setup should expect a good experience at 1080p and 1440p, but should temper expectations for 4K, where the GPU’s limitations become apparent relative to higher-ranked combos with more powerful graphics cards.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal experience for this combo depends heavily on the target resolution. For 1440p and 1080p, the Medium preset offers a strong balance between visual fidelity and performance. At 1440p Medium, the system averages 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS, which is well within the range for smooth, responsive gameplay. At 1080p Medium, the average rises to 88 FPS with a minimum of 75 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors.

For 4K, the choice is more constrained. The Ultra preset is not playable, as it averages just 33 FPS. The High preset at 4K averages 42 FPS, which is borderline playable but may feel stuttery in fast-paced scenes. The Low preset at 4K averages 93 FPS, which is very smooth but sacrifices significant visual quality. The Medium preset at 4K averages 58 FPS, which is the best compromise for a playable frame rate while retaining some graphical detail. Given that the Medium preset includes min FPS data, it is likely a more stable experience than the High preset, which lacks that data.

Therefore, the recommendation is to use Medium settings for all resolutions. At 1080p and 1440p, it provides a high frame rate with good visual quality. At 4K, it is the only preset that offers both an average above 60 FPS (at 93 for Low, but 58 for Medium) and a reasonable visual presentation; however, the 58 FPS average at 4K Medium is the best playable option for those who want more than Low. For the absolute best visual experience on a 1080p monitor, the High preset at 63 FPS is acceptable, but Medium is the sweet spot for this hardware.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following is a complete breakdown of the measured average frame rates for the Intel Core i5-12400F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination in The Medium, organized by resolution and settings preset.

1920x1080:

• Low: 141 FPS average.
• Medium: 88 FPS average, with a minimum of 75 FPS and a maximum of 101 FPS.
• High: 63 FPS average.
• Ultra: 50 FPS average.

2560x1440:

• Low: 119 FPS average.
• Medium: 74 FPS average, with a minimum of 63 FPS and a maximum of 85 FPS.
• High: 53 FPS average.
• Ultra: 42 FPS average.

3840x2160:

• Low: 93 FPS average.
• Medium: 58 FPS average, with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 67 FPS.
• High: 42 FPS average.
• Ultra: 33 FPS average.

These figures illustrate a clear scaling pattern. The difference between Low and Ultra settings is substantial at every resolution, with a 64.5% performance drop at 1080p (from 141 to 50 FPS), a 64.7% drop at 1440p (from 119 to 42 FPS), and a 64.5% drop at 4K (from 93 to 33 FPS). The consistency of this drop-off suggests that the Ultra preset imposes a fixed additional load relative to Low, regardless of resolution. The Medium preset data, which includes min/max values, shows a tighter frame time variance at lower resolutions, with a 26 FPS spread at 1080p, a 22 FPS spread at 1440p, and a 17 FPS spread at 4K, indicating that the game becomes more stable as resolution increases but at the cost of overall frame rate.