The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title that scales heavily with both resolution and graphical preset, and the combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti produces a wide spread of results across the measured configs. The data shows a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions, but which still offers excellent headroom at lower settings. This pairing lands at rank 188 out of 1689 tested combos in this game, placing it firmly in the top tier of configurations for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, revealing the RTX 4070 Ti as the primary bottleneck as pixel count rises. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 153.9 FPS at 1920x1080 to 114.3 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of roughly 26%. This is a relatively modest decline, indicating that at Low settings the GPU still has enough raw throughput to handle the increased load without collapsing. At Medium settings, the drop is more pronounced: 112.7 FPS at 1080p falls to 73.8 FPS at 4K, a 34% reduction. The trend continues at High settings, where 80.8 FPS at 1080p declines to 52.1 FPS at 4K, a 36% loss. The most severe scaling occurs at Ultra, where the 1080p average of 63.1 FPS drops to just 40 FPS at 4K, a 37% reduction that pushes the experience below the 60 FPS threshold.

These scaling patterns indicate that the game becomes increasingly GPU-bound as resolution increases. The gap between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K, which is typical for a game that stresses fill rate and memory bandwidth. At 1080p, the CPU still plays a meaningful role, but by 4K the RTX 4070 Ti is clearly the limiting component. The data suggests that players targeting 4K should expect to use Medium or Low settings to maintain playable frame rates, while 1440p offers a more balanced experience across all presets.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 Ti brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for The Medium’s horror environments, which tend to feature detailed textures and volumetric effects. The GPU’s boost clock of 2610 MHz and base clock of 2310 MHz are relatively high, and the 7680 shading units provide substantial compute capacity. The data shows that this hardware is capable of pushing very high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K Ultra results (40 FPS) suggest that the 12 GB frame buffer and 192-bit bus are not enough to handle the most demanding settings at that resolution without compromises.

The measured FPS at 4K Low (114.3 FPS) versus 4K Ultra (40 FPS) shows a 65% performance swing, which is massive and indicates that the GPU is heavily taxed by the Ultra preset’s effects. The card’s pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s and texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s are strong on paper, but The Medium’s fixed-camera angles and pre-rendered-style lighting put a premium on raw shader work. The 40.09 TFLOPS FP32 throughput helps at lower resolutions, where the GPU can stretch its legs, but at 4K the memory bandwidth becomes the limiting factor. This is a classic case of a high-end GPU that excels at 1440p but requires settings tuning to remain viable at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 188 out of 1689 tested configurations places this system in the 89th percentile of all combinations tested for The Medium. This is a strong result, indicating that the i5-14400F and RTX 4070 Ti pairing is well matched for this title. The CPU itself sits in the 88th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508, which is nearly identical to its nearest rivals: the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513) and the AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32584). The GPU holds an 85th percentile ranking against all GPUs, with an average score of 44900, placing it just behind the RTX 5090 Mobile (45152) and ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (44195).

The fact that the combo ranks higher than the individual percentiles of its components suggests that The Medium benefits from this specific pairing. The i5-14400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads provide enough CPU headroom to keep the RTX 4070 Ti fed at 1080p, where the GPU is not fully saturated in some scenes. The ranking also reflects that the system is not held back by a weak link; both components are above the 85th percentile in their respective categories, and the overall combo outperforms many systems with more expensive CPUs or GPUs. For a horror game that often relies on stable frame pacing, this rank indicates a reliable experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium settings as the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 1080p, Medium delivers 112.7 FPS, which is smooth and leaves headroom for frame drops during intense scenes. At 1440p, Medium produces 92.8 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS target and offers a noticeable visual upgrade over Low. Even at 4K, Medium manages 73.8 FPS, which is playable and significantly better than the 40 FPS seen at Ultra. Low settings are only necessary if the user prioritizes maximum frame rates above everything else, as they yield 153.9 FPS at 1080p and 149.8 FPS at 1440p, but the visual downgrade is substantial.

High settings are a middle ground that many users might consider, but the data shows a steep penalty. At 1080p, High drops to 80.8 FPS, and at 1440p it falls to 68.1 FPS, which is still playable but noticeably lower than Medium. At 4K, High produces 52.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and likely to feel inconsistent. Ultra settings should be avoided entirely unless the user is playing at 1080p and is willing to accept 63.1 FPS, which is borderline. The jump from Medium to High costs roughly 28% performance at 1080p, while the jump from High to Ultra costs another 22%, making Medium the clear sweet spot.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low averages 153.9 FPS, Medium averages 112.7 FPS, High averages 80.8 FPS, and Ultra averages 63.1 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra is a 59% drop, which is substantial but expected for a game with heavy post-processing effects. At 2560x1440, Low averages 149.8 FPS, Medium averages 92.8 FPS, High averages 68.1 FPS, and Ultra averages 53.6 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is roughly 3% at Low, 18% at Medium, 16% at High, and 15% at Ultra. This shows that the GPU handles the resolution increase better at lower settings, where it is less constrained by memory bandwidth.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 114.3 FPS, Medium averages 73.8 FPS, High averages 52.1 FPS, and Ultra averages 40 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is significant: 24% at Low, 20% at Medium, 23% at High, and 25% at Ultra. These numbers illustrate that 4K is a different ballgame for this GPU. The 4K Low result is still excellent, but the 4K Ultra result is nearly unplayable. The data shows a consistent pattern where each preset increase costs roughly 20-25% performance, regardless of resolution, which suggests the game’s settings have a multiplicative effect on GPU load.

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. This is a 10 nm Raptor Lake part with 20 MB of shared L3 cache, and its benchmark scores are strong for a mid-range desktop CPU. In Cinebench R23, it scores 21914 multi-core and 3093 single-core, which are respectable numbers. The CPU’s percentile rank of 88 places it ahead of most desktop processors, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores nearly identically in average benchmarks.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p with Low settings, where the GPU is not the bottleneck and the system achieves 153.9 FPS. This high frame rate indicates that the i5-14400F is capable of feeding the RTX 4070 Ti effectively at lower resolutions. The CPU’s 16 threads are likely beneficial for the game’s AI and scripting, which can be single-threaded but benefit from extra cores for background tasks. The boost clock of 4.70 GHz provides strong single-thread performance, which is important for a horror game that may have CPU-bound sections with many NPCs or scripted events.

The data does not show a scenario where the CPU becomes a limiting factor, as the FPS scales predictably with GPU load. Even at 1080p Ultra, where the GPU is heavily taxed, the system still produces 63.1 FPS, which suggests the CPU is not holding things back. The CPU’s 65 W TDP is modest, and its performance in PassMark multithread (25783) and single-thread (3723) tests indicates it has ample headroom for this game. Overall, the i5-14400F is a capable partner for the RTX 4070 Ti in The Medium, providing sufficient throughput to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at any measured resolution or setting.