The Medium

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 lands at rank 83 out of 1,689 tested combos in The Medium. That places this configuration in the top 5% of all system pairings tested for this title, which is a strong result given that the CPU is a mid-range 6-core part while the GPU is a flagship-tier Blackwell card. The data indicates that the RTX 5080 is doing the heavy lifting here, pulling the combo into the upper echelon despite the i5-12400F's more modest standing.

Looking at the components individually, the RTX 5080 sits at the 89th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 59,188. Its nearest rivals in the database are the Intel Arc A570M (deltaPct 1.6), Intel Arc Pro A60 (deltaPct -1.9), Intel Arc A580 (deltaPct 2.5), and AMD Radeon Pro W5500X (deltaPct 2.6). These are tight margins, meaning the RTX 5080 is clustered with a group of cards that perform within a few percentage points of each other in synthetic tests. The CPU, meanwhile, holds the 77th percentile against all processors with an average score of 19,221, putting it within 0.1% of the Intel Core i7-8700K and 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-1335U, while trailing the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.7% and leading the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%.

The rank of 83 out of 1,689 combos suggests that the RTX 5080's raw throughput more than compensates for the i5-12400F's moderate CPU standing. In a horror title like The Medium, where atmospheric rendering and fixed-camera perspectives create heavy GPU workloads, this asymmetry works in the combo's favor. The benchmark results confirm that pairing a high-percentile GPU with a mid-pack CPU still yields elite overall performance in this specific game.

FAQ

Q: How does this combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers an average of 48 FPS. This is playable but not smooth for a horror game where pacing matters. Dropping to High at the same resolution raises the average to 61.4 FPS, which crosses the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Is the RTX 5080 bottlenecked by the i5-12400F in this game?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary driver. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 148.6 FPS average, and at 4K Low it still manages 128.3 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings shows only a 13.7% drop, indicating the GPU remains saturated even at lower resolutions where CPU load would typically be higher.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings deliver 106.7 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS target and only 30 FPS behind the Low preset's 136.7 FPS. High settings at 1440p drop to 77.6 FPS, still smooth, but Medium offers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate headroom.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K High, the average is 61.4 FPS, which is right at the standard 60 FPS target. At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 48 FPS, which is below that target. For 4K, High settings are the ceiling for consistent smoothness, while Medium at 85.3 FPS provides comfortable margin.

Q: How does the CPU's 6-core configuration affect results?

A: The i5-12400F has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 16,518, and single-core is 2,332. These figures indicate sufficient single-thread performance for gaming, and the measured FPS across all resolutions shows no obvious CPU-induced ceiling, as even 1080p Low exceeds 148 FPS.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings produce an average of 148.6 FPS, while Ultra produces 72.9 FPS. That is a 75.7 FPS difference, or roughly a 51% reduction in frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest preset. Medium sits at 123.2 FPS and High at 90.9 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For the best measured experience, the data points to Medium settings as the sweet spot across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 123.2 FPS average, which is 25.4 FPS below Low but 50.3 FPS above Ultra. The jump from Medium to High costs 32.3 FPS at 1080p, which is a significant drop for a single preset tier. At 2560x1440, Medium yields 106.7 FPS, comfortably above the 60 FPS standard, while High drops to 77.6 FPS and Ultra falls to 59.4 FPS. The pattern holds at 3840x2160, where Medium achieves 85.3 FPS, High manages 61.4 FPS, and Ultra dips to 48 FPS.

If the priority is maintaining a 60 FPS floor, High settings are viable at both 1440p and 4K, with averages of 77.6 and 61.4 FPS respectively. However, the margin at 4K High is thin — only 1.4 FPS above the 60 FPS target — so any demanding scene could push it below. Medium provides a 25.3 FPS buffer at 4K, making it the safer choice for 4K displays. For 1080p users, High at 90.9 FPS is a strong option that retains visual fidelity while staying well above 60 FPS, but Medium at 123.2 FPS offers more headroom for frame time consistency.

Ultra settings are only recommended for 1080p, where the 72.9 FPS average remains playable. At higher resolutions, Ultra falls below 60 FPS (59.4 at 1440p, 48 at 4K), which is not ideal for a game that relies on tension and timing. The measured data suggests that the cost of Ultra over High is steep: 17.6 FPS at 1440p and 13.4 FPS at 4K. These reductions are not justified by the marginal visual improvement in a fixed-camera horror title where motion smoothness matters more than subtle shadow quality.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of presets was measured. Low settings produce 148.6 FPS average, Medium reaches 123.2 FPS, High drops to 90.9 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 72.9 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 75.7 FPS, representing a 51% performance reduction. Each step down from Low incurs a penalty: 25.4 FPS going to Medium, another 32.3 FPS going to High, and a further 18 FPS going to Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the results are 136.7 FPS on Low, 106.7 FPS on Medium, 77.6 FPS on High, and 59.4 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 30 FPS, from Medium to High is 29.1 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 18.2 FPS. The step from Medium to High is nearly as large as the step from Low to Medium, indicating that High preset introduces significant rendering cost at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 128.3 FPS on Low, 85.3 FPS on Medium, 61.4 FPS on High, and 48 FPS on Ultra. The reduction from Low to Medium is 43 FPS, which is the largest single-preset drop across all resolutions. From Medium to High, the loss is 23.9 FPS, and from High to Ultra, it is 13.4 FPS. Notably, the gap between Low and Medium at 4K (43 FPS) is larger than the gap between High and Ultra (13.4 FPS), suggesting that Medium settings are where the most demanding visual features activate.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows that this combo scales efficiently from 1080p to 4K, but the scaling behavior changes with settings. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 148.6 at 1080p to 136.7 at 1440p to 128.3 at 4K. That is a reduction of 11.9 FPS from 1080p to 1440p, and another 8.4 FPS from 1440p to 4K. Overall, 4K Low retains 86.3% of the 1080p Low performance, which is a mild drop indicating that the GPU is not pixel-bound at these lighter settings.

At Medium settings, the progression is 123.2 FPS at 1080p, 106.7 FPS at 1440p, and 85.3 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 16.5 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K is 21.4 FPS. The 4K result retains 69.2% of the 1080p performance, showing that Medium settings introduce enough pixel workload to make resolution scaling more pronounced. At High settings, the averages are 90.9 FPS at 1080p, 77.6 FPS at 1440p, and 61.4 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 13.3 FPS, and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 16.2 FPS, with 4K retaining 67.5% of 1080p performance.

Ultra settings show the steepest scaling curve. The averages are 72.9 FPS at 1080p, 59.4 FPS at 1440p, and 48 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 13.5 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K is 11.4 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the combo retains 65.8% of the 1080p Ultra performance. The fact that 4K Low (128.3 FPS) exceeds 1080p Ultra (72.9 FPS) by 55.4 FPS illustrates that the RTX 5080 is heavily pixel-throughput limited at high presets, while the i5-12400F's CPU headroom is not the constraining factor — even at 1080p Low, the system does not exceed 148.6 FPS, which is well within the CPU's capacity given its 3DMark single-thread score of 909 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,332.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process with a die size of 163 mm². It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration, and its TDP is rated at 65 W. In this game, the measured FPS results indicate that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck. The highest average FPS recorded across all tests is 148.6 at 1080p Low, which is a moderate figure that a 6-core part with 12 threads can handle without breaking a sweat, given its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 16,518.

The CPU's single-thread performance, evidenced by a Geekbench single-core score of 2,221 and a 3DMark single-thread score of 909, is adequate for the game's logic and fixed-camera rendering. The fact that 4K Low (128.3 FPS) is only 20.3 FPS below 1080p Low (148.6 FPS) suggests that the GPU is still the limiting factor even at low settings — if the CPU were capping performance, the 4K result would be much closer to the 1080p result. The i5-12400F's nearest CPU rivals in the database include the Intel Core i7-8700K (0.1% delta), which is a 2017-era part, and the Intel Core i5-1335U (0.3% delta), which is a mobile chip — this indicates the 12400F is positioned in a crowded mid-range segment, but its performance is sufficient for this GPU pairing.

The 65 W TDP and 12 threads provide enough parallelism for background tasks and game threads without introducing frame pacing issues. The measured data shows no anomalous dips at lower resolutions that would indicate CPU overhead, and the smooth scaling from 1080p to 4K at all presets reinforces that the RTX 5080's 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are the dominant factors in this combo's rank of 83 out of 1,689.