The Medium

# The Medium with Intel Core i7-12700K + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX delivers a varied performance profile in The Medium, a horror title from January 2021. Across twelve measured configurations spanning three resolutions and four quality presets, the combo lands at rank 177 out of 1689 tested combinations, placing it in the top 10.5% of all tested setups. The data reveals a system that excels at lower presets but struggles to maintain high frame rates at maximum quality, particularly at 4K.

FAQ

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

A: At 1080p, the combo delivers 168 FPS on Low, 107.9 FPS on Medium, 78.7 FPS on High, and 61.2 FPS on Ultra. The 1440p and 4K results show progressively lower numbers, but 1080p is the only resolution where the Ultra preset exceeds 60 FPS.

Q: Does the RX 7900 XTX have enough VRAM for this game?

A: Yes, with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus providing 960.0 GB/s bandwidth, the GPU has far more memory than required for this title. The measured results show the bottleneck is not memory capacity but rather the rendering load at higher settings.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Core i7-12700K has an average benchmark score of 35684, sitting 0.3% below the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (35802) and 0.7% below the Intel Core i5-14500HX (35940). It edges out the Intel Core i7-13700T by 0.6% and the Intel Core i7-13800H by 0.8%.

Q: What is the biggest FPS drop between settings?

A: Moving from Low to Ultra at 4K drops average FPS from 115.8 to 40.4, a reduction of 75.4 FPS. At 1080p, the same preset change drops from 168 to 61.2 FPS, a reduction of 106.8 FPS.

Q: Is this GPU better than the RTX 4070 Ti?

A: The RX 7900 XTX has an average benchmark score of 44019, which is 2% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (44900). Its nearest rival by score is the AMD Radeon Pro 580 at 44195, which is 0.4% higher.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: At 1440p, the combo achieves 148.7 FPS on Low, 93.3 FPS on Medium, 65.1 FPS on High, and 53.9 FPS on Ultra. Only the Ultra preset falls below 60 FPS at this resolution.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain much of the measured behavior. Built on the Navi 31 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture at a 5 nm process, the GPU packs 6144 shading units, 384 texture mapping units, and 192 render output units. The 24 GB of GDDR6 memory operates at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective speed, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth across a 384-bit bus.

Clock speeds are substantial: the base clock runs at 1929 MHz, the game clock at 2365 MHz, and the boost clock reaches 2498 MHz. This translates to a pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 959.2 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 61.39 TFLOPS. These raw compute figures suggest the GPU should handle The Medium's fixed-camera horror scenes with ease. However, the measured data tells a more nuanced story.

At 4K Ultra, the combo manages only 40.4 FPS, which is surprising given the GPU's compute capabilities. The performance gap between Low and Ultra at 4K—from 115.8 to 40.4 FPS—indicates that the game's higher presets impose a rendering cost that even this high-end GPU cannot overcome at full resolution. The GPU benchmarks show a PassMark G3D score of 31238 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6841, placing it in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, yet The Medium's Ultra settings remain demanding.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 177 out of 1689 tested combinations places it in the top 10.5% of all systems evaluated in The Medium. This is a strong showing, but not an elite one—the data suggests that other combinations with similar or slightly better GPUs achieve higher frame rates. The GPU's percentile ranking of 85th among all GPUs aligns with this position, though the CPU's 89th percentile ranking is slightly higher.

The nearest rival GPUs by average benchmark score provide context. The RX 7900 XTX scores 44019 on average, with the AMD Radeon Pro 580 slightly ahead at 44195 (0.4% higher). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile is 0.8% behind at 43667, while the Quadro M6000 trails by 1.6% at 43313. The RTX 4070 Ti leads by 2% at 44900. These margins are small, yet the measured FPS in The Medium shows that preset selection has a far larger impact on performance than these benchmark differences suggest.

The CPU side shows a similar pattern. With an average benchmark score of 35684, the Core i7-12700K sits within 1% of all four nearest rivals. The Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 is 0.3% higher, the i5-14500HX is 0.7% higher, while the i7-13700T is 0.6% lower and the i7-13800H is 0.8% lower. This tight clustering indicates that CPU choice among these options would not meaningfully alter The Medium's performance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Low as the only preset that guarantees consistently high frame rates across all resolutions. At 4K Low, the combo achieves 115.8 FPS; at 1440p Low, it reaches 148.7 FPS; and at 1080p Low, it hits 168 FPS. These numbers suggest that players prioritizing smoothness should select Low, which provides more than double the frame rate of Ultra at every resolution.

Medium offers a balanced middle ground: 107.9 FPS at 1080p, 93.3 FPS at 1440p, and 74.5 FPS at 4K. All three exceed 60 FPS, making Medium the highest preset that maintains playable frame rates at every resolution. High is viable at 1440p (65.1 FPS) and 1080p (78.7 FPS), but drops to 51.8 FPS at 4K, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold many players consider minimum.

Ultra is only recommended for 1080p, where it manages 61.2 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 53.9 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it plummets to 40.4 FPS. For a horror game where smooth motion matters for atmosphere, Medium at 4K (74.5 FPS) provides a better experience than Ultra at 1440p (53.9 FPS), despite the resolution trade-off.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low averages 168 FPS, Medium averages 107.9 FPS, High averages 78.7 FPS, and Ultra averages 61.2 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 60.1 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs 29.2 FPS, and the step from High to Ultra costs 17.5 FPS. The diminishing returns suggest that the game's quality differences between High and Ultra are expensive relative to their visual impact.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low averages 148.7 FPS, Medium averages 93.3 FPS, High averages 65.1 FPS, and Ultra averages 53.9 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p costs 19.3 FPS on Low, 14.6 FPS on Medium, 13.6 FPS on High, and 7.3 FPS on Ultra. Interestingly, the absolute FPS loss from resolution scaling shrinks as settings increase, indicating that the GPU is already heavily loaded at higher presets.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further. Low averages 115.8 FPS, Medium averages 74.5 FPS, High averages 51.8 FPS, and Ultra averages 40.4 FPS. The jump from 1440p to 4K costs 32.9 FPS on Low, 18.8 FPS on Medium, 13.3 FPS on High, and 13.5 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 40.4 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset, confirming that this preset pushes the combo beyond its comfortable operating range.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K provides 12 cores and 20 threads from its Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3. This configuration delivers strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 29241, while the single-core test scores 4128. Geekbench multicore reaches 13892 with a single-core score of 2561.

In The Medium, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU. The measured FPS patterns across resolutions show that the GPU is the limiting factor—at lower resolutions where the GPU has less work, the CPU still delivers high frame rates, but the scaling from 1080p to 4K tracks with GPU load rather than CPU capability. The CPU's PassMark multithread score of 34404 and 3DMark max threads score of 9979 indicate ample headroom for this game's demands.

The CPU's 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs, combined with its tight grouping around rival processors (all within 1% of the 35684 average), suggests that the i7-12700K is not a bottleneck in this configuration. The game's fixed-camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds typical of the horror genre likely reduce CPU load compared to open-world titles, allowing the GPU to define performance.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals how the load shifts between components. At Low settings, FPS drops from 168 to 115.8, a reduction of 31.1% moving to 4K. At Medium, the drop is from 107.9 to 74.5, a 30.9% reduction. At High, the drop is from 78.7 to 51.8, a 34.2% reduction. At Ultra, the drop is from 61.2 to 40.4, a 34.0% reduction.

These percentage reductions are remarkably consistent across presets, hovering around 31-34%. The consistency suggests that resolution scaling in The Medium affects the GPU uniformly regardless of quality settings. However, the absolute frame rates tell a different story about the limiting component. At 4K Low, the combo still achieves 115.8 FPS, indicating that the GPU has significant headroom when rendering less complex scenes. At 4K Ultra, the 40.4 FPS result shows the GPU is fully saturated.

The 1440p results occupy the middle ground, with frame rates that are 88.5% of 1080p on Low (148.7 vs 168), 86.5% on Medium (93.3 vs 107.9), 82.7% on High (65.1 vs 78.7), and 88.1% on Ultra (53.9 vs 61.2). The tighter scaling at Ultra—where 1440p retains 88.1% of 1080p performance—hints that the game becomes increasingly GPU-bound at higher presets, with resolution having less proportional impact when the renderer is already near its limits. This pattern supports the conclusion that the RX 7900 XTX is the primary determinant of performance in The Medium, with the Core i7-12700K providing sufficient support across all tested configurations.