The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title that stresses both CPU and GPU heavily, and this specific combination of an Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 provides a clear picture of where the bottlenecks lie. The measured data shows that this pairing is powerful enough for high-refresh 1080p gaming, but struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K with maximum settings. The following analysis breaks down exactly what to expect from this hardware configuration across all tested resolutions and presets.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance for this configuration is the Medium preset at 2560x1440, which delivers a measured average of 77.3 FPS. This is the sweet spot because it maintains a frame rate well above the 60 FPS threshold while still providing a significant visual upgrade over the Low preset. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves 91.6 FPS, making it the best choice for competitive or high-refresh displays, as it leaves ample headroom above 60 FPS for demanding scenes.

For users prioritizing maximum visual quality, the High preset is the highest setting that remains consistently playable. At 2560x1440, High yields 52.3 FPS, which is playable on adaptive sync displays but may feel slightly sluggish on fixed-refresh monitors. At 1920x1080, High hits 64.5 FPS, which is acceptable but not ideal for fast-paced sections. The Ultra preset is not recommended for this configuration at any resolution, as it drops to 51.1 FPS at 1080p and falls to an unplayable 32.3 FPS at 4K.

The Low preset should be reserved for maximum frame rate scenarios, where the data shows it can deliver 142.2 FPS at 1080p and 119.5 FPS at 1440p. This makes Low viable for players who prioritize smoothness over visuals, but the jump from Low to Medium is substantial—a 35.6% increase in frame rate at 1080p—while the visual difference is often less pronounced in this horror title.

FAQ

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

A: Yes, but only with significant compromises. The measured data shows 96.1 FPS at 4K on Low settings, but this drops to 62 FPS on Medium, 41.6 FPS on High, and just 32.3 FPS on Ultra. For a stable 60 FPS experience at 4K, the Medium preset is the only viable option.

Q: Is the RTX 3080 the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher settings. The frame rate drops dramatically as settings increase—from 96.1 FPS at Low to 32.3 FPS at Ultra in 4K—which indicates the rendering load scales heavily with visual quality. The CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU at lower settings, as evidenced by the 142.2 FPS result at 1080p Low.

Q: How does the i5-12400F perform in this game?

A: The six-core, twelve-thread processor appears sufficient for this title. Its 3DMark scores of 5,895 for 16 threads and 909 for single-thread indicate balanced performance. The CPU sits in the 77th percentile of all processors, meaning it outperforms 77% of the competition, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, is only 0.1% behind in average benchmark score.

Q: What is the best resolution for this hardware?

A: For a 60 FPS target, 2560x1440 with Medium settings is the best choice, delivering 77.3 FPS. For higher refresh rates, 1920x1080 on Medium provides 91.6 FPS. The 1080p Low preset reaches 142.2 FPS, which is suitable for 144Hz displays, but the visual quality trade-off may not be worth it for a story-driven horror game.

Q: Does the game scale well with settings changes?

A: Yes, the scaling is substantial. From Low to Ultra at 1080p, the frame rate drops from 142.2 to 51.1 FPS—a 64% reduction. The jump from Low to Medium costs 50.6 FPS at 1080p, while the jump from High to Ultra costs 13.4 FPS at the same resolution. This indicates that Medium offers the best performance-per-visual-cost ratio.

Q: Is this a CPU-heavy or GPU-heavy game?

A: The benchmark data indicates GPU-bound behavior. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 142.2 FPS, which is close to what a strong GPU can produce. However, when resolution increases to 4K, the frame rate drops by 46.1 FPS at the same Low setting, showing that the GPU is being pushed harder. The CPU's 3DMark multi-threaded score of 5,912 suggests it is not the primary constraint.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the dominant component in this configuration, and its specifications explain the measured frame rates. With 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus, the card provides 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for a game like The Medium that uses heavy texture streaming. The GPU's 8,704 shading units and 68 RT cores handle the game's fixed-camera rendering and lighting effects, but the data shows that Ultra settings overwhelm the card.

The RTX 3080's benchmark scores place it in the 80th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 35,787. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro Duo, is only 0.2% faster, while the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE is 0.9% faster. This means the RTX 3080 is competitive with modern cards but not top-tier, which aligns with the measured FPS results. The card's boost clock of 1710 MHz and base clock of 1440 MHz are standard for the Ampere architecture, and the 320W TDP indicates it requires substantial power delivery.

In The Medium specifically, the GPU's role becomes clear when examining the FPS scaling. At 4K Ultra, the card produces just 32.3 FPS, while at 4K Low it reaches 96.1 FPS. This three-fold difference in performance across settings shows that the game's Ultra preset introduces effects that are extremely demanding on the RTX 3080's compute and memory subsystems. The 10 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient at all tested settings, but the bandwidth and compute throughput are stretched at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 3080 and i5-12400F combination delivers strong results across all presets. The Low preset achieves 142.2 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh gaming. Medium drops to 91.6 FPS, still comfortably above 60. High produces 64.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 51.1 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra represents a 91.1 FPS drop, indicating that each settings tier has a meaningful impact on performance.

At 2560x1440, the performance degrades predictably. Low yields 119.5 FPS, which is still playable on high-refresh monitors. Medium delivers 77.3 FPS, making it the best balanced preset at this resolution. High drops to 52.3 FPS, which is borderline for smooth gameplay. Ultra falls to 42.8 FPS, which is below the playable threshold for most users. The gap between Low and Ultra here is 76.7 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 3080 begins to struggle. Low produces 96.1 FPS, which is surprisingly playable given the resolution. Medium drops to 62 FPS, just above the 60 FPS target. High falls to 41.6 FPS, and Ultra reaches only 32.3 FPS. The data shows that 4K gaming is only viable at Low or Medium settings with this hardware.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate impact of increasing resolution is substantial and reveals the GPU-bound nature of the workload. From 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings, the FPS drops from 91.6 to 77.3—a 14.3 FPS reduction. From 1440p to 4K at Medium, it drops further to 62 FPS, another 15.3 FPS loss. This consistent decline indicates that the RTX 3080's pixel throughput is the limiting factor.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic in absolute terms. The system produces 142.2 FPS at 1080p, 119.5 FPS at 1440p, and 96.1 FPS at 4K. The 46.1 FPS difference between 1080p and 4K at Low settings shows that even with minimal visual features, the GPU is still heavily taxed by the higher pixel count. At Ultra settings, the difference between 1080p and 4K is 18.8 FPS, which is smaller in absolute terms but represents a 37% reduction in relative performance.

This scaling pattern points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rates would be more consistent across resolutions. Instead, the data shows a linear degradation as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. The i5-12400F's 3DMark single-thread score of 909 and multi-thread score of 5,912 suggest it has sufficient processing power to keep up with the GPU at most settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F plays a supporting role in this configuration, and the data shows it is not the limiting factor in The Medium. With 6 cores and 12 threads, the processor provides adequate parallelism for the game's engine. Its base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz are modest by modern standards, but the architecture's efficiency compensates. The CPU's 10 nm process node and Alder Lake architecture deliver strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 909.

The CPU's benchmark results place it in the 77th percentile of all processors, with an average score of 19,221. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, scores 19,210—only 0.1% behind—while the AMD EPYC 7773X is 1.3% ahead. These results indicate that the i5-12400F is a solid mid-range processor that can handle modern games without becoming a bottleneck.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is most apparent at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 142.2 FPS, which is close to the upper limit of what the CPU can feed to the GPU. The fact that the frame rate drops to 91.6 FPS at Medium settings shows that the GPU is becoming the constraint as visual complexity increases. The CPU's 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 cache per core help with the game's asset streaming, but the data suggests that the processor is not the primary factor in determining frame rates at higher settings.