The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, places unique demands on a system by rendering two simultaneous perspectives in certain sequences. The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti produces a data set that reveals a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions and presets. This analysis examines the measured frames per second to determine where this configuration stands, how to optimize settings, and which component governs performance at different points.

How This Combo Ranks

The Core i5-12400F and RTX 5070 Ti combination ranks 178th out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the top 10.5% of all configurations measured for this game, a strong showing that suggests the pairing is well above average for handling the title's demands. The rank is derived from the complete measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings, not just a single peak frame rate.

The GPU is the primary driver of this ranking. The RTX 5070 Ti sits at the 87th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 52,086. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, which has a nearly identical average score of 52,085, representing a delta of 0.0%. This indicates the two cards are effectively interchangeable in raw compute potential. The RTX 5070 Ti also edges out the AMD Radeon RX 7700S by 0.8% and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 2.5%, while trailing the NVIDIA RTX A1000 by 2.5%.

On the processor side, the i5-12400F holds the 77th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19,221. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core i7-8700K, which scores 19,210, a delta of just 0.1%. The AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS is 0.3% ahead, while the AMD EPYC 7773X is 1.3% behind. The fact that the CPU and GPU both sit near their respective peers in the benchmark hierarchy suggests a balanced pairing, but the game's rendering style will ultimately determine which side matters more.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data shows a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate across the four presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 146.5 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this configuration. The Medium preset drops to 116.4 FPS, High to 84.5 FPS, and Ultra to 64.0 FPS. This progression indicates that the game is heavily sensitive to the quality preset, with each step up costing a significant portion of performance.

For a smooth experience at 1080p, the High preset at 84.5 FPS is a strong choice that balances visual quality with a frame rate comfortably above 60. The Ultra preset at 64.0 FPS still provides a playable experience, but the margin above 60 FPS is thin, and any demanding scene could push it lower. The Medium preset at 116.4 FPS is optimal for players using a high refresh rate monitor, as it provides a wide buffer above 60 FPS while retaining more visual detail than Low.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts. The High preset delivers 68.1 FPS, which is still above 60 but with less headroom. The Medium preset at 96.1 FPS offers a more comfortable margin and is the best balance for most users at this resolution. Ultra at 52.5 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it less desirable for fluid gameplay. The Low preset at 137.5 FPS is only for competitive or high-refresh-rate scenarios where visual quality is secondary.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. The High preset produces 53.5 FPS, which is below 60. The Medium preset at 74.5 FPS is the only tier above the 60 FPS mark that maintains a reasonable level of visual detail. The Low preset at 121.5 FPS is the sole option for a fully fluid 4K experience, but it sacrifices significant graphical fidelity. Ultra at 43.6 FPS is not recommended for general play, as it falls well short of smooth motion.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies. At the Low preset, the average FPS falls from 146.5 at 1080p to 121.5 at 1440p, then to 121.5 at 4K. Wait, the data shows 137.5 at 1440p and 121.5 at 4K. The drop from 146.5 to 137.5 is a 6.1% reduction, while the drop from 137.5 to 121.5 is an 11.6% reduction. This scaling pattern suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is still able to feed the GPU adequately, and the GPU is the limiting factor as resolution increases.

The scaling becomes more pronounced at higher settings. At the High preset, the FPS drops from 84.5 at 1080p to 68.1 at 1440p, a 19.4% reduction, and then to 53.5 at 4K, a 21.4% reduction from 1440p. The Ultra preset shows a similar trend: 64.0 at 1080p, 52.5 at 1440p, and 43.6 at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is 31.9%, which is substantial.

The data indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component across all settings. The RTX 5070 Ti's 16 GB of GDDR7 memory and 896.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's textures, and the frame rate scaling is consistent with a GPU-bound workload. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, does not appear to introduce a bottleneck at 1080p, as the Low preset still reaches 146.5 FPS. The i5-12400F's boost clock of 4.40 GHz and 18 MB of shared L3 cache are adequate for the game's logic, leaving the GPU to determine the final output.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the configuration produces a wide range of results. The Low preset has the highest average at 146.5 FPS, followed by Medium at 116.4 FPS, High at 84.5 FPS, and Ultra at 64.0 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 82.5 FPS, which is a 56.3% reduction in performance when moving to the highest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 137.5 FPS, Medium 96.1 FPS, High 68.1 FPS, and Ultra 52.5 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 85.0 FPS, a 61.8% reduction. The Medium preset is the only one that stays comfortably above 60 FPS, while High is close but not ideal.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 121.5 FPS, Medium 74.5 FPS, High 53.5 FPS, and Ultra 43.6 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 77.9 FPS, a 64.1% reduction. At this resolution, only Low and Medium exceed the 60 FPS threshold, with High and Ultra falling below.

The data shows a consistent pattern across all resolutions: the gap between Low and Medium is significant, but the gap between High and Ultra is smaller. For example, at 1080p, the difference between Low and Medium is 30.1 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is 20.5 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset adds visual effects that are disproportionately expensive relative to their performance cost.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070 Ti is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC. It features 8,960 shading units, 280 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation units. The GPU has 70 ray tracing cores and 280 tensor cores, which are relevant for the game's lighting effects. The base clock is 2,295 MHz with a boost clock of 2,452 MHz, and the memory runs at 28 Gbps effective.

The 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. In The Medium, the GPU's role is dominant, as evidenced by the resolution scaling data. The game's dual-rendering sequences, which show two locations at once, require substantial pixel throughput. The RTX 5070 Ti's pixel rate of 235.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 686.6 GTexel/s are utilized heavily in these moments.

The GPU's benchmark scores support its performance in this game. It scores 32,974 in the PassMark G3D test and 23,122 in the Geekbench OpenCL test. The DirectX 12 score of 127 in PassMark is lower relative to other tests, but the game's overall performance indicates that the GPU is not struggling. The 43.94 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is more than sufficient for the game's shader workloads.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Alder Lake-S architecture. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. The L3 cache is 18 MB shared, with 1.25 MB of L2 per core and 80 KB of L1 per core. The processor supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though the memory bus is dual-channel.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU but not negligible. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 146.5 FPS, which indicates that the CPU can keep up with the GPU's output at lower graphical loads. The single-thread performance is solid, with a PassMark single-thread score of 3,481 and a 3DMark single-thread score of 909. The multi-thread performance is also strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16,518.

The processor's 65 W TDP suggests it runs efficiently, and its percentile rank of 77 places it above most CPUs in the database. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, has a nearly identical average score, indicating that the i5-12400F offers comparable performance to a previous-generation high-end chip. In The Medium, the CPU does not bottleneck the RTX 5070 Ti at any tested resolution, as the frame rate scaling is consistent with GPU-bound behavior.