The Medium

The Medium presents a punishing workload for this particular pairing. The data shows a system that is fundamentally constrained by its graphics processor, with the Intel Core i5-12600KF offering ample headroom that the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 cannot utilize. The benchmark results across the three tested resolutions paint a clear picture of a GPU struggling to maintain playable frame rates, while the CPU sits largely underutilized, waiting for a more capable graphics card to feed.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and revealing. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces an average of 20.9 FPS. Moving to 1440p, that figure falls to 15.4 FPS, a reduction of 5.5 FPS. The jump to 4K is even more punishing, with the average sinking to 12.4 FPS. This scaling pattern is a classic symptom of a GPU-bound scenario; the GTX 1650’s rendering pipeline is being saturated, and each additional pixel demands proportionally more work from its 896 shading units.

The relative drop between 1080p and 1440p is approximately 26%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is about 19%. This is not a linear relationship, suggesting that other bottlenecks within the GPU, such as memory bandwidth, are coming into play at higher resolutions. The 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth and 128-bit memory bus are simply not sufficient to feed the render output units at 4K, leading to the severe 12.4 FPS result. The data implies that the game is not CPU-limited at any resolution; instead, the GTX 1650 is the definitive limiting component. Even at the lowest settings, the 4K result of 29.2 FPS is far from smooth, indicating that the GPU’s raw compute power is the primary barrier to performance.

GPU Role

The GTX 1650’s specifications directly explain its performance in The Medium. With 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, the card is operating at the very edge of what modern horror titles demand. The Medium’s fixed camera angles and detailed environments likely require significant texture memory, and the 4 GB frame buffer is a clear constraint. This is evident in the 4K Ultra result of 9 FPS, where the GPU is likely struggling not only with compute but also with memory swapping.

The GPU’s clock speeds are also a factor. The base clock of 1485 MHz and boost clock of 1665 MHz are modest by modern standards. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the average FPS is only 43.7. This suggests the card’s compute throughput, rated at 2.984 TFLOPS, is insufficient for the game’s rendering engine. The GPU’s benchmark percentile of 43 places it below most contemporary parts, and its nearest rivals show a negligible deltaPct (e.g., -0.4% vs. the RTX 3050 A Mobile), confirming that it is at the lower end of the performance spectrum. The game’s results are entirely consistent with a GPU that is at the bottom of its class, unable to deliver a fluid experience even at the most forgiving settings.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 43.7, which occurs at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: How does the frame rate scale between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At 1080p High, the average is 20.9 FPS. This drops to 15.4 FPS at 1440p and then to 12.4 FPS at 4K, showing a significant performance penalty as resolution increases.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data points to the GPU. The frame rate drops drastically with resolution, a hallmark of GPU limitation, while the CPU's performance is far above what is needed for these frame rates.

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

A: The average frame rate falls from 43.7 FPS at Low to 15.9 FPS at Ultra, a decrease of 27.8 FPS, indicating that the highest settings place an enormous strain on the graphics card.

Q: Can this system maintain a stable 30 FPS at 1440p?

A: No. The only setting at 1440p that exceeds 30 FPS is Low, with an average of 38.4 FPS. All other settings at this resolution fall below the 30 FPS threshold.

Q: Does the GTX 1650 have Ray Tracing or Tensor cores?

A: The data shows that the GPU has null values for both rtCores and tensorCores, indicating it does not have dedicated hardware for these features, which may affect visual fidelity options in the game.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS, the only viable path to a playable experience is to prioritize low resolution and low settings. At 4K, even Low settings yield only 29.2 FPS, which is not smooth. The data suggests abandoning 4K entirely for this GPU. At 1440p, the Low preset provides an average of 38.4 FPS, which is the only setting at this resolution that approaches a playable frame rate. For users who prefer 1080p, the Low preset at 43.7 FPS is the clear choice for a responsive experience.

The Medium preset at 1080p yields 24.5 FPS, which is a marginal improvement over High (20.9 FPS) but still below the 30 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it produces the worst results, including a 9 FPS average at 4K. The data indicates that the game’s visual quality must be sacrificed significantly to achieve reasonable performance. The best experience, according to the numbers, is at 1920x1080 with Low settings, offering the highest average FPS and thus the most fluid gameplay possible with this hardware.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured results shows a consistent pattern of performance degradation as both resolution and settings increase.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates are as follows:

• Low: 43.7 FPS
• Medium: 24.5 FPS
• High: 20.9 FPS
• Ultra: 15.9 FPS

At 2560x1440, the performance drops further:

• Low: 38.4 FPS
• Medium: 20.9 FPS
• High: 15.4 FPS
• Ultra: 14.4 FPS

At 3840x2160, the results are mostly unplayable:

• Low: 29.2 FPS
• Medium: 18 FPS
• High: 12.4 FPS
• Ultra: 9 FPS

These numbers reveal that the GTX 1650 can only manage a fluid frame rate at the lowest settings and resolution. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 19.2 FPS, which is a massive penalty for a single settings tier. This suggests that the Medium preset introduces significant computational load that the GPU cannot handle. The data also shows that the gap between High and Ultra is smaller at 1080p (5 FPS) than between Low and Medium (19.2 FPS), indicating that the most significant performance hit occurs when moving from the lowest to the second-lowest preset.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor with a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. Its benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23444 and a single-core score of 3309. In this game, however, the CPU’s role is minimal. The frame rates are so low that the CPU is never the bottleneck. For example, at 1080p Low, the GPU produces 43.7 FPS, a workload that the i5-12600KF can handle with ease.

The CPU’s 3DMark single-thread score of 1016 and 2-thread score of 1995 show strong single-core performance, which is often crucial for game logic. Yet, the data implies that The Medium is not heavily CPU-bound. The consistent frame rate drops with resolution are the definitive evidence that the GPU is the limiting factor. The i5-12600KF’s performance percentile of 84 places it well above the GTX 1650’s 43rd percentile, creating a significant imbalance. The CPU is effectively waiting for the GPU to catch up, and its high core count and clock speeds are irrelevant to the final frame rate in this scenario. The processor’s 20 MB of L3 cache and Alder Lake architecture provide ample headroom for future GPU upgrades, but for this specific game and GPU, the CPU is a silent partner.

How This Combo Ranks

This particular combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks 1649 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the bottom 2.4% of all tested systems, underscoring how poorly suited the GPU is for this title. The rank is a direct consequence of the GTX 1650’s low performance, as the CPU’s strong benchmarks do not translate into higher frame rates when the GPU is the limiting factor.

The GPU’s nearest rivals show a deltaPct of less than 1% (e.g., 0.5% vs. the Quadro P2200), meaning that swapping to a similar-tier card would not meaningfully improve the game’s performance. The bottleneck is not the specific model but the entire performance class. The CPU’s nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i9-10900K, show a deltaPct of 0%, confirming that the i5-12600KF is competitive with top-tier processors from the previous generation. However, this strength is completely masked by the weak GPU. The data from this combo suggests a severely unbalanced system for gaming, where the CPU’s potential is wasted. To improve performance in The Medium, the data implies a GPU upgrade is mandatory; the current setup is firmly at the bottom of the rankings due to its graphics card.