The Medium

The Medium presents a demanding workload for the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti combination. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a clear performance hierarchy, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck at higher visual settings. This analysis walks through the data to determine the optimal configuration for this specific hardware pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data indicates that the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the most balanced experience, producing an average of 69.3 FPS. This sits comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay while maintaining a substantial visual upgrade over the Low preset. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves 82.9 FPS, providing excellent headroom for consistent frame pacing. The High preset at 1920x1080 delivers 59.3 FPS, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset is the most punishing, with 47.2 FPS at 1080p and 28.9 FPS at 4K, making it unsuitable for this GPU in The Medium’s fixed-camera horror environments where smoothness is critical. For users prioritizing visual fidelity over raw speed, the High preset at 2560x1440 with 50.1 FPS is the highest quality option that remains within a reasonable performance envelope. The data strongly suggests that Medium is the sweet spot, offering a 74 FPS improvement over Low at 1080p (from 131 to 82.9) while still maintaining a 39% advantage over High in the same resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti houses 8 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 608.3 GB/s. This memory configuration proves adequate for 1080p and 1440p Medium settings, where the GPU’s 6144 shading units and 48 RT cores are kept busy. The card’s boost clock of 1770 MHz and base clock of 1575 MHz, combined with a pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s, directly influence the measured results. The benchmark data shows the RTX 3070 Ti scores 23,356 in Passmark G3D and 21.75 TFLOPS FP32, placing it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6700 (average score 31,112, delta -0.8%) and the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (average score 31,142, delta -0.9%), indicating this card sits in a tight competitive cluster. In The Medium, the GPU’s capability is most evident in the scaling from Low to Medium settings, where the 8 GB VRAM and high bandwidth prevent stutter. The 4K Ultra result of 28.9 FPS suggests the GPU is overwhelmed by the combination of resolution and effects, while the 1080p Low result of 131 FPS shows the card’s raw ceiling when the CPU is less constrained.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS demonstrates a consistent drop as resolution increases, confirming the RTX 3070 Ti is the limiting component at higher settings. At Medium preset, performance falls from 82.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 69.3 FPS at 2560x1440, a 16.4% reduction, then to 53.5 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 22.8% reduction. This pattern intensifies at High preset: 59.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 50.1 FPS at 1440p (15.5% loss) and then to 36.8 FPS at 4K (26.5% loss). The Low preset shows the most dramatic scaling, with 131 FPS at 1080p falling to 109.8 FPS at 1440p and 88.7 FPS at 4K. This suggests that at Low settings, the CPU begins to play a more significant role, as the GPU has spare capacity. The Ultra preset is the most resolution-sensitive, collapsing from 47.2 FPS at 1080p to 36.4 FPS at 1440p and 28.9 FPS at 4K. The data indicates that 1920x1080 is the optimal resolution for this GPU in The Medium, as even the heaviest preset remains above 45 FPS, while 4K is only viable with Low settings at 88.7 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range is available. Low produces 131 FPS, Medium 82.9 FPS, High 59.3 FPS, and Ultra 47.2 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium is 48.1 FPS (36.7% reduction), while the leap from Medium to High costs 23.6 FPS (28.5%). The Ultra preset adds only a 12.1 FPS penalty over High, indicating diminishing returns at the top end. At 2560x1440, Low delivers 109.8 FPS, Medium 69.3 FPS, High 50.1 FPS, and Ultra 36.4 FPS. The Medium to High transition here costs 19.2 FPS (27.7% reduction), slightly less than at 1080p. At 3840x2160, Low achieves 88.7 FPS, Medium 53.5 FPS, High 36.8 FPS, and Ultra 28.9 FPS. This resolution shows the steepest penalties, with High falling below 40 FPS and Ultra below 30 FPS. Across all resolutions, the Medium preset provides the most consistent experience relative to the maximum available FPS: at 1080p it retains 63.3% of Low’s performance, at 1440p it retains 63.1%, and at 4K it retains 60.3%. This consistency makes Medium the only preset that scales predictably across all tested resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for the RTX 3070 Ti in The Medium?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 provides the highest playable frame rates across all presets, with even Ultra averaging 47.2 FPS. At 2560x1440, only Low and Medium remain above 60 FPS, while 4K requires Low settings to exceed 60 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of performance cost?

A: At 1920x1080, Ultra averages 47.2 FPS versus High’s 59.3 FPS, a 12.1 FPS penalty. At 2560x1440, the gap narrows to 13.7 FPS (36.4 vs 50.1), and at 4K it shrinks to 7.9 FPS (28.9 vs 36.8). The relative cost of Ultra increases as resolution rises.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck in this configuration?

A: The resolution scaling data indicates the GPU is the main limiter. From 1080p to 4K at Medium settings, FPS drops from 82.9 to 53.5, a 35.5% reduction. The CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, provide sufficient headroom at lower settings where 131 FPS is achieved.

Q: What score does the RTX 3070 Ti achieve in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GPU scores 23,356 in Passmark G3D and 13,7518 in Geekbench OpenCL. Its average benchmark score is 30,849, placing it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs and within 0.8% of the AMD Radeon RX 6700.

Q: How does the Core i5-14400F compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The CPU’s average benchmark score is 32,508, which is within 0.2% of the Intel Core i7-12800H (32,513) and 0.2% of the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32,446). It sits in the 88th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: Which settings preset provides the highest frame rate at 4K?

A: The Low preset at 3840x2160 averages 88.7 FPS, which is the only 4K configuration above 60 FPS. Medium drops to 53.5 FPS, High to 36.8 FPS, and Ultra to 28.9 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 per core provide adequate data throughput for The Medium’s fixed-camera scenes. The CPU’s benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance: 21,914 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 11,209 in Geekbench multi-core, with a Passmark multi-thread score of 25,783. Its single-thread score of 3,723 in Passmark and 3,093 in Cinebench R23 indicates solid per-core capability. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 32,508 places it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i7-12800H (delta 0%) and AMD Ryzen 7 250 (delta -0.2%). In The Medium, the CPU’s role is most apparent at 1080p Low, where the GPU is underutilized and the system achieves 131 FPS. As settings increase, the frame rate drops in a pattern consistent with GPU-bound rendering, suggesting the CPU has sufficient headroom. The 65 W TDP and Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process node contribute to efficient operation, allowing sustained boost clocks during extended play sessions. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though the dual-channel bus width is the same for both, and its PCIe Gen 5 interface with 16 lanes provides ample bandwidth for the RTX 3070 Ti’s PCIe 4.0 x16 connection. The benchmark data shows the CPU is not the limiting factor at any tested resolution or preset, as the measured FPS scaling aligns with GPU-bound behavior.