The Medium

The Medium is a horror title that leans heavily on fixed camera angles and pre-rendered transitions, which creates a unique performance profile. With the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, the data reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited at higher presets, but shows surprising CPU headroom at lower settings. This combination ranks in the 91st percentile of all tested combos for this game, placing it firmly in the top tier of configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, confirming that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 69.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 56.4 FPS at 2560x1440, and then plummets to 45.9 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 34% reduction in frame rate when moving from 1080p to 4K, a pattern that clearly shows the GPU struggling with the increased pixel count.

The scaling behavior changes dramatically when examining Low settings. At 1920x1080, the system produces 163.6 FPS, and at 2560x1440 it maintains 154.4 FPS, a mere 5.6% drop. Even at 3840x2160, Low settings yield 127.5 FPS, which is still a very playable frame rate. This relatively flat scaling curve at Low settings suggests the CPU and memory subsystem are capable of feeding the GPU efficiently, and the game's visual load at Low is not enough to saturate the RTX 4080 SUPER’s capabilities.

The most telling data point is the Medium preset. At 1080p, it delivers 119.5 FPS, but at 4K it drops to 81 FPS. This 32% reduction mirrors the Ultra scaling, indicating that once the game’s visual effects are enabled beyond the bare minimum, the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The gap between 1440p and 4K at Medium (97.8 FPS to 81 FPS) is a 17% reduction, showing that the RTX 4080 SUPER has enough bandwidth to handle 1440p comfortably but starts to hit its limits at 4K with mid-tier effects enabled.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for The Medium, which is not known for being VRAM-hungry at 1080p or 1440p. The 16 GB capacity ensures that even at 4K Ultra, the game is unlikely to exceed the available frame buffer, allowing the GPU to focus on compute rather than memory swapping.

Clock speeds show a base of 2295 MHz and a boost of 2550 MHz, which are relatively high for the Ada Lovelace architecture. These clocks, combined with the 10240 shading units and 80 RT cores, explain why the GPU can push 127.5 FPS at 4K Low. The RTX 4080 SUPER’s performance is further evidenced by its benchmark scores, including a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6600 and a Passmark G3D score of 34245. The GPU sits in the 88th percentile of all tested GPUs, with its nearest rival being the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, which scores 53489 (0.2% higher).

In practical terms, the GPU’s role in this combo is to provide a high ceiling for frame rates at lower resolutions while maintaining playable performance at 4K. The measured data shows that at 1080p High, the system achieves 85.8 FPS, which is excellent for a game with horror elements where smoothness matters for atmosphere. The RTX 4080 SUPER’s ability to maintain 81 FPS at 4K Medium is particularly notable, as it demonstrates that users do not need to sacrifice visual quality entirely for acceptable 4K performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER achieves a combo rank of 91 out of 1689 tested configurations for The Medium. This places it in the top 5.4% of all combos, a strong showing that reflects the balance between the CPU’s multi-threaded capability and the GPU’s raw rasterization power.

Looking at the CPU’s individual standing, the i5-12600KF scores an average benchmark of 27827, which puts it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core i9-10900K, which scores 27829 (a 0% delta), indicating that the 10-core, 16-thread Alder Lake chip performs on par with the older 10-core Comet Lake flagship. The i5-12600KF also edges out the Intel Core i7-13700H by 0.4% (27716 vs 27827), showing that desktop Alder Lake still holds its own against newer mobile parts.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 SUPER’s average score of 53610 places it in the 88th percentile. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, scores 53489 (0.2% higher), making them effectively tied in synthetic benchmarks. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti trails by 2.9% with a score of 52086, showing that the 4080 SUPER remains a relevant high-end option.

The rank of 91 suggests that this combo is not just about raw component strength but also about how well they work together in this specific title. The Medium’s fixed camera angles can sometimes cause frame pacing issues, but the data indicates that this pairing avoids major pitfalls, delivering consistent performance across the board.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce 163.6 FPS, Medium drops to 119.5 FPS, High yields 85.8 FPS, and Ultra brings the average down to 69.7 FPS. The gap between Medium and High is 33.7 FPS, which is a significant jump that suggests High enables effects that heavily tax the GPU. Ultra is only 16.1 FPS slower than High, indicating diminishing returns at the top end.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain respectable. Low settings hit 154.4 FPS, which is only 9.2 FPS lower than at 1080p, showing excellent scaling. Medium produces 97.8 FPS, a 21.7 FPS drop from 1080p Medium. High yields 72.8 FPS, and Ultra falls to 56.4 FPS. The 1440p Ultra result is particularly interesting because it is nearly identical to the 4K High result of 56.3 FPS, suggesting that the pixel count is the dominant factor, not the specific settings preset.

At 3840x2160, the data shows the GPU’s limits. Low settings still manage 127.5 FPS, which is impressive for 4K. Medium drops to 81 FPS, a 36% reduction from Low. High yields 56.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 45.9 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is below the 60 FPS threshold, meaning users targeting 4K will need to accept Medium or High settings. The difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra is 10.4 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive at high resolution.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of running The Medium at 4K 60 FPS?

A: The data shows that at 4K Medium, the system achieves 81 FPS, and at 4K High it drops to 56.3 FPS. So yes, 4K 60 FPS is achievable with Medium settings, but High settings will hover just below the 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i5-12600KF scores 27827 on average, matching the Intel Core i9-10900K’s 27829 (0% delta) and slightly edging out the Intel Core i7-13700H’s 27716 (0.4% higher). It trails the Intel Core i5-12600K by 0.1% (27851).

Q: What is the biggest performance gap between settings at a single resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, the difference between Low (163.6 FPS) and Ultra (69.7 FPS) is 93.9 FPS, which is the largest spread in the dataset. This indicates that the Ultra preset is extremely demanding relative to Low.

Q: Does the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM become a limiting factor in this game?

A: The measured data does not suggest VRAM limitations. The GPU maintains high frame rates at 4K Medium (81 FPS) and 4K Low (127.5 FPS), indicating that 16 GB is sufficient for The Medium’s requirements.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested configurations?

A: It ranks 91st out of 1689 combos, placing it in the top 5.4% of all tested systems for this specific game.

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile standing among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER is in the 88th percentile of all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53610. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, scores 53489 (0.2% higher).

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. It features 20 MB of shared L3 cache and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though the benchmark data does not specify which was used. The CPU’s 3DMark scores show a strong scaling from 2 threads (1995) to 8 threads (6128), with the max thread score of 7952 being nearly identical to the 16-thread score of 7956, indicating that the processor is fully utilized at 16 threads.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is less prominent than the GPU’s, but it still matters. At Low settings, where the GPU is less stressed, the CPU must keep up with the game’s logic and physics. The 1080p Low result of 163.6 FPS suggests the CPU is more than capable of handling the game’s single-thread and multi-thread demands. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 23444 and single-core score of 3309 reinforce this, showing that the CPU has both strong multi-threaded throughput and excellent single-thread performance.

The data indicates that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU at any tested resolution or setting. The fact that 1080p Low (163.6 FPS) is only 6.7% higher than 1440p Low (154.4 FPS) suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor even at lower resolutions. The CPU’s nearest rivals in benchmark scores confirm its positioning: it ties the i9-10900K and sits just 0.1% behind the i5-12600K, meaning that users upgrading from older Intel platforms will see comparable CPU-side performance in this title.

The 125 W TDP and 10 nm process node indicate that this is a power-hungry but manageable desktop chip. For The Medium, the CPU’s 16 threads are likely more than sufficient, as the game does not appear to be heavily multi-threaded based on the FPS scaling at different settings. The key takeaway is that the i5-12600KF provides a solid foundation for the RTX 4080 SUPER, ensuring that the GPU is the primary driver of performance across all resolutions.