The Medium

The Medium is a horror title built around fixed camera angles, dual-world rendering, and heavy use of volumetric effects, which makes it an unusually demanding game at higher resolutions. Based on the measured data for the Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the Intel Arc B570, this combination delivers playable frame rates only when settings are carefully matched to the display resolution. The benchmark results show a clear pattern: at 1080p the system can push past 60 FPS on low settings, but at 4K it falls below 30 FPS on most presets, indicating that the Arc B570’s memory bandwidth and shading power become the limiting factors as pixel count rises.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS values reveal a steep performance drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At Low settings, the average frame rate goes from 78 FPS at 1080p to 66 FPS at 1440p, then down to 52 FPS at 4K. That is a 33% reduction from 1080p to 4K on Low, which is relatively mild compared to higher presets. On Medium settings, the averages are 49 FPS at 1080p, 41 FPS at 1440p, and 32 FPS at 4K — a 35% drop from 1080p to 4K. High settings show 35 FPS at 1080p, 29 FPS at 1440p, and 23 FPS at 4K, a 34% decline. Ultra is the most punishing: 28 FPS at 1080p, 23 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K, which is a 36% reduction.

The consistency of these percentage drops across presets suggests that the Arc B570 is the dominant bottleneck when moving to higher resolutions. The GPU has 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, yielding 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That bandwidth figure is modest by modern standards, and The Medium’s dual-world rendering technique often requires rendering two scenes simultaneously, which places heavy pressure on both memory capacity and bandwidth. The 4K results — 32 FPS on Medium and 23 FPS on High — are below the threshold for smooth gameplay, and the Ultra preset at 4K drops to 18 FPS, which is effectively a slideshow. Even at 1440p, only the Low preset (66 FPS) delivers a consistently smooth experience; Medium at 41 FPS is borderline, and High at 29 FPS is not ideal for a horror game where timing matters.

Interestingly, the scaling from 1440p to 4K is less severe than from 1080p to 1440p for some presets. For example, on Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 12 FPS (78 to 66), while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 14 FPS (66 to 52). On Medium, the 1080p-to-1440p drop is 8 FPS (49 to 41), and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 9 FPS (41 to 32). This relatively linear scaling indicates that the GPU is not hitting a hard memory capacity wall at 4K — the 10 GB frame buffer appears sufficient for this game — but rather that raw shading throughput and bandwidth are the limiting factors. The Arc B570’s 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 360.0 GTexel/s texture rate are simply not enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K with The Medium’s heavy visual effects.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of presets at each resolution, and the choice of settings depends entirely on the target display. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 78 FPS average, which is well above 60 FPS and provides a smooth experience for a horror game. Medium at 1080p gives 49 FPS, which is playable but not consistently smooth, especially during scenes with multiple light sources. High at 1080p yields 35 FPS, and Ultra drops to 28 FPS. For 1080p users, Low is the only preset that guarantees a comfortable frame rate, while Medium is acceptable if you prioritize visual fidelity over smoothness and can tolerate occasional dips.

At 2560x1440, the situation is more constrained. Low delivers 66 FPS, which is still above 60 FPS and is the recommended choice for competitive or fast-paced play. Medium at 1440p produces 41 FPS, which is playable for a slower-paced horror title but may feel sluggish during quick camera transitions. High at 1440p drops to 29 FPS, and Ultra falls to 23 FPS. Given that The Medium is a narrative-driven horror game with fixed camera angles, 41 FPS on Medium at 1440p might be acceptable for many players, but the data shows that Low is the only preset that maintains headroom above 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, none of the presets achieve 60 FPS. Low is the best at 52 FPS, followed by Medium at 32 FPS, High at 23 FPS, and Ultra at 18 FPS. For 4K owners, the Low preset is the only viable option for actual gameplay, and even then, 52 FPS is below the smooth threshold. Medium at 4K is technically playable at 32 FPS, but the average frame time would be around 31 milliseconds, which may introduce noticeable stutter in a game that already uses dramatic scene transitions. The Ultra preset at 4K is essentially unplayable, and even High at 23 FPS is a poor experience.

The measured rows include min and max FPS values only for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the range is 41 to 56 FPS, meaning the average of 49 FPS is subject to significant variance. At 1440p Medium, the range is 35 to 47 FPS, and at 4K Medium, the range is 27 to 37 FPS. This variance is important because horror games often have sudden spikes in rendering load — for example, when the dual-world mechanic splits the screen — and the lower end of these ranges indicates that even the Medium preset can feel inconsistent. If you want stable performance, Low is the safer choice at any resolution.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture, codenamed Battlemage, using a 5 nm process from TSMC. It has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units, along with 18 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a fixed clock of 2500 MHz for both base and boost, which is unusual and suggests that thermal or power constraints keep it at a constant frequency. The memory subsystem consists of 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus, providing 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 360.0 GTexel/s texture rate are the key specifications for understanding its gaming performance.

In The Medium, the GPU’s role is dominant across all measured settings. The benchmark results show that even at 1080p on Low, the system achieves 78 FPS, which is not CPU-bound given the Core i5-14400F’s strong multi-threaded performance (21,645 in Cinebench R23 multi-core). Instead, the frame rates are limited by the GPU’s ability to process the game’s complex shaders and volumetric effects. The Arc B570’s 18 ray tracing cores are present, but The Medium does not appear to use ray tracing heavily based on the measured FPS — the Ultra preset at 4K only reaches 18 FPS, which suggests that the game’s lighting is handled through traditional rasterization that still taxes the GPU heavily.

The GPU’s 10 GB of VRAM is sufficient for The Medium at 4K, as evidenced by the fact that the frame rate drops are proportional to resolution rather than crashing or stuttering due to memory overflow. However, the 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are below what high-end GPUs offer, and this becomes apparent in the 4K results where the average FPS on Medium is 32, compared to 49 at 1080p. The GPU’s 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20,556, places it slightly above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20,534, a 0.1% difference) and just below the Intel Arc A750 (20,582, a -0.1% difference). This indicates that the Arc B570 is a mid-range performer, and The Medium’s demanding rendering pushes it to its limits at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run The Medium at 60 FPS on any settings?

A: Yes, but only at 1080p on the Low preset, which achieves an average of 78 FPS. At 1440p, the Low preset reaches 66 FPS, also above 60 FPS. No preset at 4K reaches 60 FPS; the best is Low at 52 FPS.

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming with this setup?

A: Based on the measured data, Low at 1440p delivers 66 FPS average, which is smooth. Medium at 1440p gives 41 FPS, which is playable but with notable variance (35 to 47 FPS). If you prioritize consistency, Low is the recommended choice.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B570’s average benchmark score is 20,556. It is 0.1% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20,534) and 0.1% slower than the Intel Arc A750 (20,582). It also outperforms the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M by 0.4% (20,480) and trails the AMD Radeon R9 M390X by 0.5% (20,662).

Q: Is the 10 GB VRAM enough for The Medium at 4K?

A: The data suggests yes. The 4K Medium preset averages 32 FPS with a minimum of 27 FPS and maximum of 37 FPS, indicating that the GPU is not running out of memory. If VRAM were a bottleneck, the frame rates would be more erratic or would drop to near zero in certain scenes.

Q: What is the frame rate variance on the Medium preset?

A: At 1080p Medium, the range is 41 to 56 FPS. At 1440p Medium, it is 35 to 47 FPS. At 4K Medium, it is 27 to 37 FPS. This variance means the average FPS does not fully represent the experience, as dips to the minimum can be noticeable in a horror game.

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

A: The GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The Core i5-14400F has 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,645 places it in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs. The frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and preset, which is characteristic of GPU-bound rendering.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and Intel Arc B570 ranks 2321 out of 2911 tested combos for The Medium. This places it in the bottom 20% of all configurations in the database, which is a sobering result for a pairing that includes a relatively recent CPU and GPU. The rank reflects the game’s heavy GPU requirements — the Arc B570, despite being a capable mid-range card, struggles at higher resolutions. For context, the GPU’s 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs suggests it is above average overall, but The Medium is more demanding than typical titles, pulling this combo down.

The rank also indicates that many other CPU and GPU pairings outperform this one in The Medium. The Core i5-14400F is not the issue; its 83rd percentile CPU ranking and strong multi-threaded scores (21,645 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, 11,268 in Geekbench multi-core) mean it can feed most GPUs effectively. The bottleneck is the Arc B570’s raw throughput. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (78) is decent, but the drop to 4K Low (52) shows that the GPU cannot sustain high frame rates as pixel count grows. If you are building specifically for The Medium, this combo is serviceable only for 1080p or 1440p with reduced settings, and the low rank reflects that limitation.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, specifically the Raptor Lake Refresh generation. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, with 20 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU’s memory support includes both DDR4 and DDR5, operating on a dual-channel bus. Its 65 W TDP makes it an efficient choice for a desktop build, and it uses the Intel Socket 1700 platform. The CPU’s benchmark results are strong for its class: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21,645 and a single-core score of 3,055, along with a Geekbench multi-core score of 11,268 and single-core score of 2,058.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is secondary. The game’s fixed camera angles and scripted events mean that most of the rendering load falls on the GPU, and the measured frame rates at various resolutions show no signs of CPU limitation. For example, at 1080p Low, the system reaches 78 FPS, which is a frame rate that a weaker CPU might struggle to maintain, but the i5-14400F’s 16 threads handle the game’s background tasks easily. The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U (0.1% slower), Intel Core i9-11900 (0.2% slower), AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (0.2% faster), and Intel Core i7-12800H (0.5% slower), all of which are within a fraction of a percent in average score. This indicates that the i5-14400F is a well-balanced mid-range CPU that will not hold back a GPU like the Arc B570 in most games, including The Medium.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy — 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 — is ample for gaming workloads. The 10-core configuration with 16 threads (likely 6 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, though not stated in the data) provides enough parallelism for the game’s background processes. The ECC memory support is a feature not typically used in gaming builds, but it does not affect performance. The CPU’s 83rd percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that it is above average, and in The Medium, it is not the component that determines the playable settings — the GPU is. If you were to upgrade the GPU in this system, the CPU would likely still keep up, as its multi-threaded scores are competitive with much more expensive processors. However, with the current Arc B570, the CPU’s headroom is largely unused, and the game’s performance is dictated by the GPU’s limitations.