The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding workload, and the combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT demonstrates a clear performance curve across its four quality presets. The measured data shows that the transition from Low to Ultra settings creates a substantial performance spread, indicating that the game is highly sensitive to graphical configuration. For users seeking a balanced experience that maintains playable frame rates without sacrificing visual fidelity, the Medium preset emerges as the most effective choice. At 1080p, this setting delivers an average of 76.9 FPS, which provides a smooth foundation. Stepping down to Low increases the average to 124.2 FPS, but this comes at the cost of visual quality. Conversely, High drops to 57.4 FPS, and Ultra falls further to 45.2 FPS, making the latter two presets less desirable for high-refresh-rate displays. The data suggests that Medium offers the best compromise between the game's visual demands and the hardware's capabilities.

Settings Recommendations

Analyzing the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset provides the most consistent experience across all tested resolutions. At 1080p, the Medium preset achieves an average of 76.9 FPS, which is a substantial 21.3% improvement over the High preset's 57.4 FPS. This allows for smoother gameplay while retaining more visual detail than the Low preset. The gap between Medium and Low is also notable, with Low reaching 124.2 FPS, but this setting significantly reduces the game's atmospheric effects, which are central to the horror genre experience. The Ultra preset, while offering maximum visual quality, drops to 45.2 FPS at 1080p, a figure that may introduce noticeable stutter during fast-paced scenes.

At 1440p, the Medium preset maintains an average of 66.1 FPS, which remains fluid for most displays. The High preset at this resolution yields 47.5 FPS, which is playable but approaches the threshold where frame pacing becomes more noticeable. The Ultra preset at 1440p falls to 37.6 FPS, which is below the ideal threshold for a smooth experience. At 4K resolution, the Medium preset drops to 52.8 FPS, while High manages only 35.3 FPS. The data indicates that for a consistent experience across all resolutions, the Medium preset is the recommended starting point. Users with 1080p monitors can comfortably use High at 57.4 FPS, but those targeting higher resolutions should stay with Medium to avoid sub-40 FPS averages.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. In the context of The Medium, the CPU's role is primarily to manage the game's logic, AI, and streaming of the dual-reality mechanics that define the horror experience. The benchmark data for this processor shows strong multicore performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 21914 and a Geekbench multicore score of 11209. These scores suggest that the CPU has ample headroom for the game's background tasks, ensuring that it does not become a bottleneck in most scenarios.

The processor's single-thread performance is equally important for this title. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093 and the Passmark single-thread score of 3723 indicate that the i5-14400F can handle the primary game thread efficiently. In the measured FPS data, the impact of the CPU is most visible when comparing Low and Medium presets at 1080p. The jump from 124.2 FPS on Low to 76.9 FPS on Medium suggests that the CPU can push high frame rates when the GPU is not heavily loaded, but the game's rendering demands quickly shift the bottleneck to the graphics card. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide sufficient data throughput for the game's asset streaming, which is critical for maintaining consistent frame times during scene transitions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is the primary driver of The Medium's visual output. This GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 432.0 GB/s. With a boost clock of 2544 MHz and a game clock of 2171 MHz, the GPU's compute capabilities are substantial, as evidenced by its FP32 performance of 35.17 TFLOPS. The 3456 shading units and 216 texture mapping units allow for detailed rendering of the game's environments, while the 96 ROPs handle the final pixel output. The GPU's 54 ray tracing cores are present, though the measured data does not specify whether ray tracing was enabled in the tested rows.

The VRAM capacity of 12 GB is a significant asset for The Medium, which is known for its high-resolution textures and split-screen rendering of two simultaneous worlds. At 4K resolution with the Ultra preset, the GPU manages an average of 29.3 FPS, indicating that the memory bandwidth and compute resources are heavily taxed. The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K is steep: at Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 76.9 FPS at 1080p to 52.8 FPS at 4K, a reduction of approximately 31%. This suggests that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions, as the CPU's performance headroom is less relevant when the GPU is saturated. The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 22547 and its percentile ranking of 73 among all GPUs demonstrate that it is a capable mid-range performer, but the demands of 4K Ultra in this title push it to its limits.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT ranks at position 720 out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium. This places the system in the upper-middle range of all configurations tested. The percentile ranking for the CPU is 88, while the GPU sits at 73, suggesting that the processor is relatively stronger compared to other CPUs in the database, while the graphics card is more average relative to its peers. The combo rank of 720 indicates that there are 719 other configurations that achieve higher average frame rates in this game, which is expected given that many test setups likely include higher-tier GPUs.

The data shows that the GPU's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060, which has a nearly identical average benchmark score with a deltaPct of 0, and the AMD Radeon RX 570, which is slightly higher at 0.2% above. This means that in synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7700 XT is essentially on par with the RTX 5060, though the real-world gaming performance in The Medium may vary. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-12800H, which has a deltaPct of 0, and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645, which is 0.2% higher. These close margins indicate that the i5-14400F is well-positioned among its peers, but the combo's rank is ultimately determined by the GPU's performance in this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data reveals a clear pattern of frame rate scaling as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 124.2 at 1080p to 107.4 at 1440p, a reduction of 13.5%, and then further to 84.3 at 4K, a 32.1% drop from the 1080p baseline. This indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is increasingly stressed as pixel count rises. The Medium preset shows a similar trend: 76.9 FPS at 1080p, 66.1 FPS at 1440p (a 14% decrease), and 52.8 FPS at 4K (a 31.3% decrease from 1080p). The High preset follows this pattern with 57.4 FPS at 1080p, 47.5 FPS at 1440p, and 35.3 FPS at 4K.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep across all settings, with an average additional drop of roughly 25-30% compared to the 1080p to 1440p transition. This non-linear scaling is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the increase in pixel count from 3.7 million (1440p) to 8.3 million (4K) places a disproportionate load on the rasterization and memory subsystems. The fact that the CPU's performance remains constant across these resolutions, while the GPU's frame output declines, confirms that the RX 7700 XT is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. For users seeking higher frame rates at 4K, the data suggests that the Low preset at 84.3 FPS is the only viable option, while 1440p Medium offers a more balanced experience at 66.1 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1080p gaming with this combo?

A: The Medium preset provides an average of 76.9 FPS at 1080p, which offers a smooth experience while retaining more visual quality than the Low preset. The High preset drops to 57.4 FPS, and Ultra falls to 45.2 FPS, making Medium the optimal balance.

Q: How much of a performance difference is there between the Low and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, the Low preset achieves an average of 107.4 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 37.6 FPS. This represents a performance reduction of approximately 65% when moving from the lowest to the highest quality settings.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K resolution?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting component at 4K. The frame rate drops from 76.9 FPS at 1080p Medium to 52.8 FPS at 4K Medium, a 31.3% decrease, while the CPU's performance headroom remains constant across resolutions.

Q: How does the RX 7700 XT compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT has an average benchmark score of 30097, which is nearly identical to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060's score of 30109, resulting in a deltaPct of 0. This indicates they are statistically equivalent in synthetic tests.

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K with the Ultra preset?

A: At 4K with the Ultra preset, the combo achieves an average of 29.3 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay and suggests that this setting is not recommended for this resolution.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance compare to its multicore performance in this context?

A: The i5-14400F's single-thread performance is strong, with a Passmark single-thread score of 3723, while its multicore score is 25783. This balance ensures the CPU can handle the game's primary thread while also managing background tasks without bottlenecking the GPU.