The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title, and the data for the Intel Core i5-14400F with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT shows a pairing that is heavily influenced by graphics settings and resolution. The measured results indicate the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher presets, while the CPU provides a solid foundation for high frame rates at lower settings. The following analysis breaks down the performance data, focusing on where this combo excels and where it struggles.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, but the degree of the drop reveals the limiting component. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (107.4 FPS) to 3840x2160 (72.9 FPS) represents a 32% reduction. This is a significant, but not catastrophic, decrease. It suggests that at Low settings, the system is still capable of pushing high frame rates, though the GPU is beginning to feel the load of the higher pixel count.

At Medium settings, the scaling is more punishing. The drop from 67.4 FPS at 1080p to 47.4 FPS at 4K is a 30% loss, and the 1440p result of 57.6 FPS sits right in the middle. This pattern points to the GPU becoming the primary constraint. Moving to High settings, the trend continues: 51.3 FPS at 1080p falls to 40 FPS at 1440p and then to 31.4 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is narrower here (22%), but the 4K figure is only 61% of the 1080p performance.

The Ultra preset demonstrates the most severe scaling. The 1080p result of 40.4 FPS is already a marginal playable experience, but it plummets to 34.8 FPS at 1440p and then to a nearly unplayable 25.8 FPS at 4K. The data clearly shows that the RX 6700 XT is the limiting factor at Ultra and High settings, especially at 4K. The CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but the GPU’s rendering workload dominates as resolution and fidelity increase.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for The Medium, this pairing ranks 938 out of 1689 combos. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the field. This rank is a direct consequence of the RX 6700 XT's position in the GPU hierarchy. The GPU's average benchmark score of 33721 puts it in the 77th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800 (0.7% faster) and the NVIDIA RTX A5000 (1.3% faster). This suggests the graphics card is competent, but not top-tier, which translates directly to a mid-pack ranking in a graphically intensive title like The Medium.

The CPU, however, is a stronger component. The Intel Core i5-14400F has an average benchmark score of 32508, placing it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i7-12800H and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645, are effectively tied with it (0% and 0.2% delta respectively). This high CPU percentile indicates that the processor is not the bottleneck in this pairing, but the overall combo rank is dragged down by the GPU's more modest standing. The result is a system that is well-balanced for many titles but falls behind in this specific game compared to combos using higher-tier GPUs.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate. For a consistent 60 FPS experience, the Low preset is the only reliable choice. At 1080p, Low yields 107.4 FPS, and at 1440p it delivers 89.8 FPS. Even at 4K, Low maintains a respectable 72.9 FPS. This makes Low the only preset that provides a fluid experience across all resolutions.

For a more visually appealing experience without sacrificing too much performance, Medium is the best compromise at 1080p, delivering 67.4 FPS. However, at 1440p, Medium drops to 57.6 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. High settings are only viable at 1080p, where the 51.3 FPS average is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The Ultra preset is not recommended for this combo. The 40.4 FPS at 1080p and 34.8 FPS at 1440p are below what most players would consider smooth, and the 4K result of 25.8 FPS is a slideshow.

The data suggests that players should prioritize either a smooth frame rate with Low settings or a balanced experience with Medium at 1080p. There is no setting that offers high visual quality and high frame rates simultaneously with this hardware.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The exact measured averages are as follows. At 1920x1080, the card produces 107.4 FPS on Low, 67.4 FPS on Medium, 51.3 FPS on High, and 40.4 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 2560x1440, performance drops to 89.8 FPS on Low, 57.6 FPS on Medium, 40 FPS on High, and 34.8 FPS on Ultra. At 3840x2160, the results are 72.9 FPS on Low, 47.4 FPS on Medium, 31.4 FPS on High, and 25.8 FPS on Ultra.

The pattern is consistent: each step up in settings costs a significant number of frames. The jump from Low to Medium at 1080p is a 40 FPS loss, while the jump from High to Ultra is only an 11 FPS loss. This indicates that the cost of enabling Ultra over High is lower than the cost of enabling Medium over Low, but the starting point for Ultra is already too low to be useful. The data shows a linear scaling with resolution for each preset, confirming that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints as the pixel count increases.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the dominant factor in these results. Its 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K results suggest the memory subsystem and the GPU's compute power are stretched thin. The GPU's boost clock of 2581 MHz and game clock of 2424 MHz are high, but the 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is not enough to maintain high frame rates at Ultra settings in this title.

The GPU's performance percentile of 77 and its benchmark scores, such as the 19786 in Passmark G3D, confirm its mid-range status. The fact that it is 0.7% slower than the RX 6800 in average benchmark score reinforces this. In The Medium, the GPU's limitations are exposed at High and Ultra presets, where the average FPS at 1440p (40 FPS) is barely playable. The 4K Ultra result of 25.8 FPS is a clear indication that this card is not intended for 4K gaming with high fidelity settings. The GPU is the reason why the Low preset is the only path to 60+ FPS at all resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F plays a supporting role, providing enough processing power to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at lower settings. With 10 cores and 16 threads, and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, the CPU has ample single-thread and multi-thread performance for game logic and physics. Its benchmark scores, including a 21914 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and a 3093 in single-core, are strong, and its 88th percentile ranking among all CPUs shows it is a high-performing processor.

The evidence that the CPU is not the limiting factor is clear when looking at the Low preset results. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 107.4 FPS. If the CPU were weak, this number would be much lower, as the GPU would be waiting for data. The fact that performance scales down as settings increase, rather than staying flat, confirms the GPU is the bottleneck. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache help maintain smooth frame pacing, but in this game, the processor has sufficient headroom. The i5-14400F is a capable partner, but it is the GPU that dictates the overall experience in The Medium.