The Medium

The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination delivers a playable experience in The Medium only at lower settings, with the GPU acting as the primary bottleneck as resolution increases. The data set shows a steep performance cliff between 1080p and 4K, particularly on higher presets, indicating that this legacy Pascal card struggles with the game's fixed-function rendering demands. For the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, the measured rows point to the Low preset at 1440p or the Medium preset at 1080p as the practical sweet spots, while the Ultra preset is not viable at any resolution tested.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals where the system's ceiling lies. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 74.9 at 1920x1080 to 62.4 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 16.7%, and then to 52.0 at 3840x2160, a further 16.7% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling is relatively gentle, suggesting that at Low settings the workload is balanced enough that the GPU can still keep pace with the CPU's output. However, the picture changes entirely at higher presets. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 32.7 at 1080p to 28.4 at 1440p (a 13.1% decline) and then to 23.2 at 4K (an 18.3% decline from 1440p). The Ultra preset shows an even steeper collapse, going from 28.3 at 1080p to 21.7 at 1440p and finally 20.5 at 4K.

These numbers indicate that the GTX 1070 is the limiting component at resolutions above 1080p. The 1080p to 1440p transition at Low settings costs 12.5 FPS, but the same transition at Ultra costs only 6.6 FPS — the GPU is already so saturated at 1080p Ultra that adding more pixels has diminishing absolute impact. Conversely, the 1440p to 4K jump at Low settings costs 10.4 FPS, which is a larger absolute loss than the 1080p-to-1440p step, showing that the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading throughput are being overwhelmed. The data suggests that this combo is only truly fluid at 1080p, and even then only on Low or Medium presets. At 4K, every preset except Low falls below 32 FPS, making the game feel sluggish regardless of visual quality.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing sits near the bottom of the pile. The combo ranks 1406 out of 1689 tested configurations, placing it in the 16.7th percentile of all combos for this game. This is a poor showing, driven primarily by the GTX 1070's age relative to the game's release date of 2021-01-27. The CPU, while not a top performer, is not the primary drag — its average benchmark score of 2305 puts it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs, which is median territory. The GPU's average benchmark score of 12331 places it at the 51st percentile of all GPUs, also roughly median. Yet the combination's in-game rank is far worse than either component's individual percentile, which points to a specific compatibility or optimization issue with The Medium rather than a general hardware weakness.

The nearest rivals for the CPU show it is closely matched with other mid-range parts. The Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2300, a delta of 0.2% from the i5-9400's 2305, and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 scores 2299, also a 0.2% delta. The Intel Xeon E-2134 is 0.4% behind at 2295, while the Intel Core i7-8809G is 0.6% ahead at 2319. These tiny margins confirm that the CPU is a solid, average performer. On the GPU side, the GTX 1070's rivals are similarly close: the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 is 0.7% behind at 12241, while the GeForce GTX 880M is 1.3% ahead at 12490, and the GTX 1650 SUPER is 1.4% ahead at 12504. The fact that the combo ranks so poorly despite average component scores suggests that The Medium's rendering engine is particularly demanding on the GTX 1070's specific feature set, likely its lack of hardware ray tracing or mesh shaders.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is built on the Pascal architecture with a GP104 chip, featuring 1920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. Its base clock is 1506 MHz with a boost clock of 1683 MHz, and it carries 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 256.3 GB/s. These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the measured FPS data confirms that the card's raw compute power is insufficient for The Medium's higher presets. The GPU's FP32 performance is 6.463 TFLOPS, and its pixel rate is 107.7 GPixel/s with a texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s. The memory clock runs at 2002 MHz with 8 Gbps effective speed.

The VRAM capacity of 8 GB is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows that it is not the limiting factor — the compute units are. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 20.5, which is barely above a slideshow, and the GPU is clearly maxed out. The card's percentile vs all GPUs is 51, meaning it sits right at the median of all tested GPUs, yet in The Medium it performs as if it were far weaker. The GTX 1070's nearest rival, the GTX 1650 SUPER, scores 12504 in average benchmarks, only 1.4% higher, but the 1070's in-game performance at 4K Ultra is below 21 FPS, indicating that the game's shader complexity is hitting a hard wall. The card's 16 nm process node and 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die are simply too dated to handle the game's volumetric lighting and particle effects at high resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution to play The Medium with this combo?*

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the combo achieves playable frame rates on multiple presets. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 74.9, and at 1080p Medium it is 49.3, both of which are above 30 FPS. At 1440p, only the Low preset (62.4 FPS) remains fluid, while 4K Low (52.0 FPS) is the only 4K option above 30 FPS.

Q: How much FPS is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 74.9 at 1080p to 52.0 at 4K, a loss of 22.9 FPS (30.6%). At High settings, the drop is from 32.7 to 23.2, a loss of 9.5 FPS (29.1%). At Ultra settings, the drop is from 28.3 to 20.5, a loss of 7.8 FPS (27.6%).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The benchmark data indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The CPU's average benchmark score of 2305 puts it at the 50th percentile, while the GPU's score of 12331 puts it at the 51st percentile. However, the combo ranks 1406 out of 1689 in this game, far worse than either component's individual standing, suggesting the GTX 1070's architecture struggles with the game's specific rendering demands.

Q: Can this combo run the Ultra preset at any resolution?

A: No. The highest average FPS recorded on Ultra is 28.3 at 1080p, which is below the 30 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1440p Ultra, the average drops to 21.7, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 20.5. None of these are playable.

Q: What is the difference between Medium and High settings at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Medium averages 49.3 FPS while High averages 32.7 FPS, a difference of 16.6 FPS (33.7% faster on Medium). This suggests that the High preset introduces significant GPU workload that the GTX 1070 cannot sustain, whereas Medium provides a much more balanced load.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 1406 out of 1689 tested, placing it in the bottom 17% of all combinations. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305, is only 0.2% faster in average benchmarks, and the GPU's nearest rival, the Quadro K4200, is 0.7% slower, yet the in-game performance is poor, indicating the game is not well optimized for this hardware pairing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake part with 6 cores and 6 threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It has a 9 MB shared L3 cache, with 64 KB L1 and 256 KB L2 per core, and supports DDR4 memory on a dual-channel bus with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth. Its TDP is 65 W, and it uses the Intel Socket 1151 interface. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 803 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 3346 in R20 multi-core, and 7969 in R23 multi-core. Single-core scores are 113 in R15, 472 in R20, and 1125 in R23. These figures place it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs, which is average.

In The Medium, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, but the data shows it is not entirely irrelevant. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 74.9 FPS, which is high enough that the CPU is likely feeding the GPU adequately. However, at 1080p Ultra, the FPS drops to 28.3, and the GPU is clearly the constraint. The CPU's 6 threads are sufficient for the game's logic, but the lack of hyper-threading means it cannot offload background tasks, which may contribute to frame time inconsistencies. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8809G, is 0.6% faster in average benchmarks, but that quad-core part with hyper-threading does not meaningfully change the in-game outcome. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is modest, and at 4K resolutions the GPU's 256.3 GB/s bandwidth becomes the more critical factor.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data points to a clear recommendation: use the Low preset for the best combination of frame rate and resolution. At 1920x1080 Low, the average FPS is 74.9, which is the highest score in the entire data set and provides a smooth, responsive experience. If a higher resolution is desired, 2560x1440 Low yields 62.4 FPS, still well above 60 FPS, and 3840x2160 Low delivers 52.0 FPS, which is playable albeit not perfectly smooth. The Medium preset is only viable at 1080p, where it hits 49.3 FPS, but the jump to 1440p Medium drops to 40.7 FPS, and 4K Medium crashes to 31.2 FPS, which is borderline.

The High preset is not recommended at any resolution. At 1080p High, the average is 32.7 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target, and at 1440p High it falls to 28.4 FPS, while 4K High is 23.2 FPS. The Ultra preset is effectively unplayable everywhere: 28.3 FPS at 1080p, 21.7 FPS at 1440p, and 20.5 FPS at 4K. The data shows that the performance gap between Low and Medium is substantial — at 1080p, the difference is 25.6 FPS (74.9 vs 49.3) — which means that the Low preset's reduced visual effects are worth the frame rate gain. For users with a 60 Hz display, the Low preset at 1440p is the optimal choice, as it provides a high resolution with a frame rate that matches the refresh rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the combo's performance across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 74.9 on Low to 49.3 on Medium, 32.7 on High, and 28.3 on Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium is 25.6 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 16.6 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 4.4 FPS. This shows diminishing returns as settings increase, with Ultra providing only a marginal visual upgrade over High but a significant performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 62.4 on Low, 40.7 on Medium, 28.4 on High, and 21.7 on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 12.5 FPS on Low, 8.6 FPS on Medium, 4.3 FPS on High, and 6.6 FPS on Ultra. At 3840x2160, the averages are 52.0 on Low, 31.2 on Medium, 23.2 on High, and 20.5 on Ultra. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 10.4 FPS on Low, 9.5 FPS on Medium, 5.2 FPS on High, and 1.2 FPS on Ultra. The Ultra preset's 4K performance is nearly identical to its 1440p performance (20.5 vs 21.7), indicating that the GPU is so saturated that additional pixels have almost no impact. The Low preset maintains the most consistent scaling, with a total drop of 22.9 FPS from 1080p to 4K, while Ultra drops only 7.8 FPS over the same range, confirming that the card's compute ceiling is reached early on higher settings.