The Medium

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX in The Medium demonstrates a clear GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions, while lower resolutions expose a significant performance ceiling tied to the game's engine. The data shows a dramatic scaling curve: from 1080p to 4K, average frame rates at High settings drop from 77.1 FPS to 53.7 FPS, a reduction of approximately 30%. This indicates that while the RX 7900 XTX is powerful, the game’s rendering load at 4K Ultra (41 FPS) pushes the combo to its limits, suggesting that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at that extreme preset.

At 1080p, the scaling pattern reverses. The Low preset delivers 171.5 FPS, but High yields only 77.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 60.1 FPS. This wide gap between presets at the same resolution points to a CPU or engine bottleneck at lower settings, where the i5-14600KF's 14 cores and 20 threads are not the constraint—rather, the game’s fixed cost per frame becomes dominant. The 4K Low result of 112.4 FPS versus 1080p Low at 171.5 FPS further confirms that the GPU scales well until the pixel count overwhelms it, but the jump from Medium to High at any resolution is disproportionately large (e.g., 4K: 70.5 to 53.7 FPS), hinting at a specific rendering feature that taxes the hardware heavily.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in The Medium?*

A: Based on measured data, 1440p High (65.9 FPS) offers a balanced experience, but 1080p High (77.1 FPS) is smoother. For maximum visual fidelity, 4K Medium (70.5 FPS) is viable, though 4K High (53.7 FPS) dips below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 7900 XTX's 24 GB VRAM influence results?

A: The 24 GB GDDR6 memory with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures that VRAM capacity is never a limiting factor. The FPS drops from 4K Medium to 4K High (70.5 to 53.7 FPS) are due to compute load, not memory exhaustion, as the GPU's memory bandwidth is more than sufficient for this title.

Q: Is the i5-14600KF a bottleneck at any settings?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo hits 171.5 FPS, but the gap to 1080p High (77.1 FPS) is 94.4 FPS. This suggests that the CPU is not the primary limiter; instead, the game’s engine and GPU shader work dominate. At higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck.

Q: What does the 203rd rank out of 1689 combos mean?

A: This combo ranks in the top 12% of tested configurations for The Medium, placing it well above average. The data indicates that this pairing outperforms the majority of systems, though it is not in the top tier reserved for the most extreme hardware.

Q: Should I use Ultra settings?

A: No. Ultra produces 41 FPS at 4K and 49.6 FPS at 1440p, both below the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset (70.5 FPS at 4K) provides a much better playable experience while retaining visual quality.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, with its 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, delivers 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. In The Medium, the GPU’s compute throughput is the dominant factor in the frame rate differences between presets. The boost clock of 2498 MHz and game clock of 2365 MHz allow the card to push significant pixel rates (479.6 GPixel/s), yet the data shows that even this high-end part struggles with the Ultra preset. For instance, at 1440p, Ultra yields 49.6 FPS versus 93.8 FPS at Medium, a 47% reduction. This indicates that Ultra enables effects that are disproportionately expensive on the GPU, likely volumetric lighting or ray-traced elements, which tax the 61.39 TFLOPS FP32 performance.

The GPU’s 96 ray accelerators (listed as RT cores) suggest hardware support for ray tracing, but the benchmark results imply that the implementation in The Medium is not optimized for AMD’s architecture. The 4K Low result of 112.4 FPS versus 4K High at 53.7 FPS shows a 58.7 FPS penalty for High settings, which is more than double the penalty seen from Medium to High at 1080p (107 to 77.1 FPS). This scaling suggests that the GPU’s memory bandwidth is not the issue—the 960.0 GB/s is ample—but the shader complexity scales superlinearly with resolution. The card’s end-of-life production status and 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs (avg benchmark score 44019) position it as a strong but not top-tier performer for this specific workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete matrix of 12 configurations. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are: Low 171.5 FPS, Medium 107 FPS, High 77.1 FPS, and Ultra 60.1 FPS. These numbers show a clear diminishing return: dropping from Low to Medium costs 64.5 FPS, while Medium to High costs 29.9 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 17 FPS. The pattern suggests that the first tier of settings (Low to Medium) has the most significant impact on visual fidelity relative to performance.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 145.1 FPS, Medium 93.8 FPS, High 65.9 FPS, and Ultra 49.6 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium is 51.3 FPS, and between Medium and High is 27.9 FPS. Compared to 1080p, the High preset at 1440p (65.9 FPS) is 11.2 FPS slower than 1080p High (77.1 FPS), a 14.5% reduction. This is a modest penalty for a 78% increase in pixel count (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million), indicating that the GPU has headroom at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 112.4 FPS, Medium 70.5 FPS, High 53.7 FPS, and Ultra 41 FPS. The 4K Low to Medium drop is 41.9 FPS, while Medium to High is 16.8 FPS. Critically, the 4K High result (53.7 FPS) is below the 60 FPS target, making it marginal for smooth gameplay. The 4K Ultra result (41 FPS) is only playable on adaptive sync displays. The scaling from 1440p High (65.9 FPS) to 4K High (53.7 FPS) shows a 12.2 FPS penalty, which is a 18.5% decrease for a 125% increase in pixel count—this suggests the GPU is becoming more efficient at higher resolutions, but the absolute frame rate is still too low for High settings at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-14600KF + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX combination ranks 203rd out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the 88th percentile of all configurations. This is a strong result, but the ranking reveals that many other systems achieve higher frame rates. The CPU alone has a 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs (avg benchmark score 49367), while the GPU is in the 85th percentile (avg benchmark score 44019). The discrepancy between the CPU’s higher percentile and the combo’s lower rank suggests that the GPU is the performance limiter in this game, as the i5-14600KF’s processing power is underutilized.

When comparing the CPU to its nearest rivals, the i5-14600KF scores 0.4% higher than the i5-14600K (49166 avg score) and 0.6% higher than the Ryzen 9 5950X (49062). However, it trails the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.5% (49595). For the GPU, the RX 7900 XTX is 0.8% ahead of the RTX 4090 Mobile (43667) but 2% behind the RTX 4070 Ti (44900). This data indicates that the combo is well-balanced in general benchmarks, but in The Medium, the game’s specific rendering demands favor other GPU architectures, as evidenced by the 4K High result of 53.7 FPS, which is below what a top-200 rank might suggest.

Settings Recommendations

For a 60 FPS target, the optimal settings vary by resolution. At 1080p, High settings (77.1 FPS) are the best choice, as they provide a 17 FPS margin over the 60 FPS threshold while avoiding the substantial performance hit of Ultra (60.1 FPS). At 1440p, Medium settings (93.8 FPS) are recommended over High (65.9 FPS) to maintain a comfortable frame rate, though High is playable. For 4K, Medium (70.5 FPS) is the only preset that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS, as High (53.7 FPS) and Ultra (41 FPS) fall short.

The data strongly advises against Ultra at any resolution. Even at 1080p, Ultra (60.1 FPS) barely hits the 60 FPS mark, and at 1440p it drops to 49.6 FPS. The performance gap between High and Ultra is consistently around 15-20% (e.g., 1440p: 65.9 to 49.6 FPS), which is not justified by the visual improvements in this horror title. For players with high refresh rate monitors, 1080p Low (171.5 FPS) or 1440p Low (145.1 FPS) provide excellent responsiveness, but these presets sacrifice significant visual detail. The sweet spot is 1440p Medium, which balances the 93.8 FPS with acceptable visuals, or 4K Medium for those prioritizing resolution over frame rate.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF features 14 cores (6 performance and 8 efficient) with 20 threads, a base clock of 3.50 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) are more than adequate for The Medium, which is not a CPU-intensive title. The benchmark results confirm this: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 171.5 FPS, but the CPU’s single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4643) is not the limiting factor, as the frame rate drops to 107 FPS at Medium settings.

The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking (avg benchmark score 49367) and its proximity to rivals (e.g., 0.4% ahead of the i5-14600K) indicate strong general performance, but the game’s engine appears to be GPU-limited even at 1080p. The Passmark multithread score of 38697 and Geekbench multicore score of 15636 show that the CPU can handle heavy workloads, yet The Medium does not utilize these resources effectively. The data reveals that the largest FPS gains come from reducing GPU load (e.g., 1080p High to Low: 77.1 to 171.5 FPS), not from CPU changes. Therefore, the i5-14600KF is not a bottleneck in this configuration; rather, the RX 7900 XTX’s performance across presets dictates the overall experience. The CPU’s 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier allow for overclocking, but the measured results show that such headroom would not improve frame rates in this game, as the GPU is the limiting component at all settings above Low.