The Medium

The Medium, a fixed-camera horror title from 2021, presents an unusual stress profile for modern hardware. The pairing of the Intel Core i5-14400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 produces a dataset that clearly distinguishes between GPU-bound scenarios at high settings and CPU-bound scenarios at low settings. The measured FPS across resolutions reveals that this combination is exceptionally fast, yet the frame pacing at 4K Ultra suggests a ceiling imposed by the game engine rather than the silicon. This analysis breaks down the measured performance data for this specific configuration.

FAQ

Q: What is the overall benchmark rank of this CPU and GPU combo in The Medium?

A: The combination ranks 49th out of 1,689 tested combos. This places it in the top 3% of all configurations tested, indicating that while it is not the absolute fastest pairing for this title, it is significantly ahead of the vast majority of systems.

Q: How does the CPU performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-14400F has an average benchmark score of 32,508. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-12800H, scores 32,513, a negligible 0% difference. It is effectively tied with the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32,446, +0.2% delta) and slightly ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32,584, -0.2% delta).

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average FPS drops from 153.2 on Low settings to 75.2 on Ultra settings. This represents a 51% reduction in frame rate when moving from the lowest to the highest preset.

Q: What is the best average FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 153.2, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only measured result that exceeds the 150 FPS mark.

Q: Does the RTX 4090 in this combo support modern API features?

A: Yes, the GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6. The DirectX 12 Ultimate support includes hardware ray tracing capabilities.

Q: What is the VRAM capacity and bus width of the GPU?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is equipped with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus. This configuration provides a memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 49 out of 1,689 is a strong indicator of the system's overall capability in The Medium. This placement suggests that the i5-14400F and RTX 4090 together are a high-tier pairing, but not the absolute pinnacle. The 88th percentile CPU performance versus all CPUs (average score 32,508) and the 91st percentile GPU performance versus all GPUs (average score 66,473) show balanced high-end components. However, the rank of 49 indicates that several other combinations—likely with higher-end CPUs or more specialized configurations—produce higher average frame rates in this specific title.

The data suggests the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions and settings. The i5-14400F's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are all within a 0.2% performance delta, which is a statistical tie. This means that in CPU-limited scenarios, swapping between these processors would yield no measurable difference in FPS. The bottleneck in this combo is more likely to be the GPU at higher settings or the game's engine itself at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 49. The delta between the CPU's synthetic scores and the in-game rank implies that the RTX 4090 is the primary driver of the combo's high placement.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, with 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, provides ample headroom for The Medium's high-resolution textures. The GPU's architecture, Ada Lovelace, is built on a 5 nm process and features 16,384 shading units. The memory clock is rated at 1313 MHz, with an effective data rate of 21 Gbps.

The GPU's role becomes clear when analyzing the FPS scaling. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 153.2 FPS, which is the highest recorded. As settings increase to Ultra at the same resolution, the FPS drops to 75.2. This is a significant 78 FPS swing, which is attributable to the GPU's workload increasing with texture quality and effects. The RTX 4090's raw compute power, measured at 82.58 TFLOPS FP32, is more than sufficient for this title, but the data shows that the game's engine limits performance at the highest presets. The GPU's passmark G3D score of 38,194, which is in the 91st percentile, confirms its position as a top-tier card, yet the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (49 FPS) indicates that even this powerful GPU cannot overcome the engine's demands at that specific configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across resolutions and settings.

At 1920x1080, the combo ranges from 153.2 FPS on Low to 75.2 FPS on Ultra. The Medium setting hits 127.9 FPS, while High delivers 97.5 FPS. This shows a clear linear scaling with settings, where each step up in quality costs a roughly 20-30 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the results are lower but still high. Low settings produce 146.7 FPS, Medium yields 109.1 FPS, and High drops to 80.4 FPS. Ultra is the most demanding, with an average of 61.7 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is less pronounced at Low settings (153.2 to 146.7, a 4% decrease) but more substantial at High settings (97.5 to 80.4, an 18% decrease).

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low settings maintain a playable 137.8 FPS, and Medium drops to 89.5 FPS. High settings yield 63 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only one below 60 FPS in the entire dataset. This indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, where the pixel count demands more from the memory bandwidth and shading units.

The data shows that High settings at 1080p (97.5 FPS) perform almost identically to Medium settings at 1440p (109.1 FPS), suggesting that the resolution and settings trade-off is balanced. For users targeting 60 FPS, the combo can manage Ultra at 1440p but not at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling analysis reveals the bottleneck characteristics of this combo. Moving from 1080p to 4K at Low settings shows a modest FPS drop from 153.2 to 137.8, a 10% reduction. This small decrease indicates that at Low settings, the CPU (or game logic) is the primary limiter, as the GPU is not fully utilized and can handle the increased pixel count with relative ease.

However, at High settings, the scaling is much steeper. The FPS drops from 97.5 at 1080p to 63 at 4K, a 35% reduction. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 75.2 to 49, a 35% reduction as well. This pattern shows that as graphical fidelity increases, the GPU becomes the limiting component. The RTX 4090's compute resources are being saturated by the higher resolution and settings, causing the frame rate to scale inversely with pixel count.

The data points to a clear conclusion: the i5-14400F is sufficient to keep up with the RTX 4090 at low settings across all resolutions, but the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher settings. The 4K Ultra result of 49 FPS is a clear example of GPU-bound performance. The fact that the FPS does not drop below 137 at 4K Low suggests that the CPU can sustain a high frame rate, but the GPU cannot maintain that pace when the visual load increases. This is a classic high-end GPU behavior in a demanding title, where the engine’s rendering pipeline limits the maximum achievable frame rate at the highest quality presets.