The Medium

The Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combination ranks near the bottom of the database for The Medium, sitting at position 3594 out of 3724 tested combos. This places the pairing in the 4th percentile of all tested systems, a result that underscores a fundamental mismatch between the game’s demands and the hardware’s capabilities. The data indicates that this is a playable-at-low-settings configuration for 1080p, but nothing more; the benchmark results consistently show severe frame rate limitations that scale predictably with resolution and graphical preset.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 3594 out of 3724 combos is a clear verdict: this is one of the weakest configurations in the database for The Medium. With only 130 combinations performing worse, the i5-14400F and GTX 1650 sit in the bottom 3.5% of all tested systems. This ranking is driven almost entirely by the GPU, as the CPU’s own performance metrics are far more respectable — the i5-14400F holds an 83rd percentile ranking among all CPUs tested, with an average benchmark score of 32279. The contrast is stark: a mid-to-high-tier processor paired with a GPU that sits at the 40th percentile among all GPUs (average score 7472).

The measured frame rates confirm this lopsided pairing. At no resolution or settings combination does the system achieve a 60 FPS average. The best result is 44 FPS at 1080p Low, which is still below the standard for smooth gameplay. The GPU’s nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (0.3% faster), the Intel UHD Graphics 750 (0.4% faster), and the AMD Radeon R7 350 (0.6% faster), with only the Intel Arc A310 being meaningfully slower at 1% behind. This places the GTX 1650 in company with integrated and entry-level discrete graphics, none of which are suited for demanding titles like The Medium.

GPU Role

The GTX 1650’s role in this combo is the primary bottleneck, and the numbers make that explicit. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock of 1485 MHz boosts to 1665 MHz, with memory running at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective). These specifications, while modest, are not the entire story — the architecture itself is the limiting factor. The TU117 chip, built on a 12 nm process at TSMC, contains 4,700 million transistors on a 200 mm² die. With 896 shading units, 56 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, the GPU delivers 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and a pixel rate of 53.28 GPixel/s.

In The Medium, these specifications translate to consistently low frame rates. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is likely a significant constraint, as the game’s fixed camera angles and high-resolution textures can easily exceed this amount at higher settings or resolutions. The measured data shows that at 4K Ultra, the system averages just 10 FPS, while 4K High yields 13 FPS. Even at 1080p Ultra, the average is only 16 FPS. These results indicate that the GPU is being pushed far beyond its effective envelope, with the 128-bit memory bus and 128.1 GB/s bandwidth unable to feed the render pipeline adequately at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy of playable settings. At 1080p, which is the only resolution where this combo approaches playability, the Low preset delivers an average of 44 FPS. This is the single best result in the entire dataset and represents the only configuration where the game approaches a smooth experience. The Medium preset at 1080p drops to 27 FPS average (with a minimum of 23 FPS and maximum of 31 FPS), which is playable but noticeably stuttery. High and Ultra at 1080p are marginal at 20 FPS and 16 FPS respectively.

The recommendation is unambiguous: 1080p Low is the only viable preset for consistent gameplay. The 44 FPS average at this setting is roughly 63% higher than the 27 FPS at Medium, making it a substantial improvement rather than a marginal one. For users who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate, 1080p Medium at 27 FPS is technically playable, but the frame time consistency — with minimums at 23 FPS — suggests potential hitches during scene transitions. At higher resolutions, even Low settings produce unplayable results: 37 FPS at 1440p Low and 29 FPS at 4K Low. The gap between Low and Medium at each resolution is consistent, with Medium typically delivering about 60-62% of the Low FPS, indicating that the Medium preset introduces significant additional rendering work.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset reveals a consistent pattern of performance degradation across resolutions and settings. At 1080p, the system achieves 44 FPS on Low, 27 FPS on Medium (min 23, max 31), 20 FPS on High, and 16 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 1440p, the scores drop to 37 FPS on Low, 23 FPS on Medium (min 20, max 26), 16 FPS on High, and 13 FPS on Ultra. At 4K, the results are 29 FPS on Low, 18 FPS on Medium (min 15, max 21), 13 FPS on High, and 10 FPS on Ultra.

These numbers tell a clear story. The step from Low to Medium costs roughly 17 FPS at 1080p (from 44 to 27), but only 14 FPS at 1440p (37 to 23) and 11 FPS at 4K (29 to 18). This diminishing absolute loss at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is becoming increasingly resolution-bound rather than settings-bound. The Ultra preset, meanwhile, is uniformly poor: 16 FPS at 1080p, 13 FPS at 1440p, and 10 FPS at 4K. The minimum FPS data points, available only for the Medium preset, show that at 1080p the system can dip to 23 FPS, at 1440p to 20 FPS, and at 4K to 15 FPS — these minimums are close to the averages, indicating relatively stable frame pacing rather than severe spikes.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior is revealing about the system’s bottleneck. From 1080p Low to 1440p Low, the average FPS drops from 44 to 37, a reduction of 15.9%. From 1440p Low to 4K Low, it drops from 37 to 29, a 21.6% reduction. The cumulative drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 34.1% (44 to 29 FPS). This relatively modest scaling — less than half the pixel count increase — suggests that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound at lower settings. Instead, the frame rate is being limited by other factors, likely including the game’s rendering complexity and the CPU’s ability to feed the GPU.

However, at higher settings, the resolution scaling becomes more pronounced. From 1080p Medium to 1440p Medium, the drop is from 27 to 23 FPS (14.8%), and from 1440p Medium to 4K Medium, it drops from 23 to 18 FPS (21.7%). The pattern is similar at High settings: 20 to 16 FPS (20%) from 1080p to 1440p, then 16 to 13 FPS (18.75%) from 1440p to 4K. The relatively flat scaling across resolutions — even at 4K where pixel count quadruples from 1080p — indicates that the limiting component is not the GPU’s fill rate but rather its shading and memory bandwidth capabilities. The 128.1 GB/s bandwidth and 2.984 TFLOPS compute are simply insufficient for the game’s demands, regardless of resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F plays a supporting role in this combo, and its capabilities are far ahead of what the GPU can utilize in The Medium. The CPU features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Built on Intel’s 10 nm process (Raptor Lake-R architecture), it includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. Its memory support spans both DDR4 and DDR5 in dual-channel configuration, with PCIe Gen 5 available for the 16 CPU lanes.

The CPU’s benchmark scores confirm its capability. In Cinebench R23, it scores 21645 multi-core and 3055 single-core; in Geekbench, 11268 multi-core and 2058 single-core. Its PassMark multithread score is 25470, with a single-thread score of 3701. These numbers place it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U (0.1% faster), Intel Core i9-11900 (0.2% faster), AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS (0.2% slower), and Intel Core i7-12800H (0.5% slower).

In The Medium, the CPU is not the bottleneck. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (44 FPS) is well below what this CPU can deliver in most games, and the frame rate does not improve substantially when resolution decreases — indicating that the GPU is saturated. The game’s fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds (a hallmark of this horror title) place a premium on GPU texture and shading work rather than CPU physics or AI. The i5-14400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads with a 4.70 GHz boost clock are more than sufficient to maintain frame pacing; the limiting factor is unequivocally the GTX 1650’s 2.984 TFLOPS of compute and 128.1 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and 20 MB L3 cache are ample for this workload, and the data shows no evidence of CPU-induced frame drops, as the minimum FPS values (23 FPS at 1080p Medium) are proportionally close to the averages.