The Medium

The Medium presents an exceptionally demanding workload for this particular hardware pairing, placing it at rank 1595 out of 1689 tested combinations. The data reveals a system that struggles to maintain playable frame rates across most settings, with the Intel Core i7-12700K providing ample processing headroom while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 becomes the primary bottleneck. This analysis examines the measured performance across three resolutions and four quality presets to determine the optimal configuration for the few scenarios where this system can deliver a functional experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates across all presets indicate that this combination is severely constrained by the graphics card. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an average of 46.9 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that approaches a smooth experience. The Medium preset drops to 25.7 FPS, while High falls to 20 FPS and Ultra bottoms out at 17.1 FPS. The pattern is consistent at higher resolutions: Low is always the highest-performing option, with 34.8 FPS at 1440p and 31.1 FPS at 4K.

Given these numbers, the Low preset at 1080p is the only viable choice for actual gameplay. The 46.9 FPS average is still below the 60 FPS threshold that most games target, but it represents a 20.2 FPS improvement over the Medium preset at the same resolution. The gap between Low and Medium widens as resolution increases, with a 15.1 FPS difference at 1080p, 11.8 FPS at 1440p, and 11.3 FPS at 4K. This suggests that the Low preset is not merely reducing visual quality but also alleviating the GPU's workload in a way that other presets cannot match.

The High and Ultra presets offer no practical benefit at any resolution. At 1080p, High produces 20 FPS and Ultra produces 17.1 FPS, both well below the threshold for responsive play. The situation worsens at 1440p, where High averages 19 FPS and Ultra drops to 14.5 FPS. At 4K, the scores become borderline unplayable: High at 12.2 FPS, Medium at 19.8 FPS, and Ultra at 12.4 FPS. The data clearly shows that spending GPU resources on higher-quality settings yields diminishing returns, with the performance cost far outweighing any visual benefit on this hardware.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is the decisive factor in this system's performance, and its specifications explain why every preset struggles. The card features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus with 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth, which is modest for a 2021 horror title like The Medium. The GPU's 896 shading units operate at a base clock of 1485 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, producing a peak FP32 throughput of 2.984 TFLOPS. These figures place the card at the 43rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 8713.

The nearestRivals data shows just how close the GTX 1650 sits to other entry-level options. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile scores 8746 on average, only 0.4% higher, while the AMD Radeon 550X scores 8749, also 0.4% above. The NVIDIA Quadro P2200 trails by 0.5% with a score of 8671, and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 is 0.5% higher at 8761. This clustering indicates that the GTX 1650 is not an outlier but rather a typical representative of its performance class, which is insufficient for The Medium's demands.

The GPU's memory configuration deserves particular attention. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is likely a limiting factor at higher settings, as The Medium's fixed-camera angles and detailed environments can consume significant memory. The 128.1 GB/s bandwidth further constrains texture streaming and asset loading. The card's 75 W TDP and lack of power connectors suggest it was designed for low-power systems, but this efficiency comes at the cost of raw performance that the game clearly requires.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K demonstrates a severe GPU bottleneck that intensifies with pixel count. At the Low preset, performance drops from 46.9 FPS at 1080p to 34.8 FPS at 1440p, a 25.8% reduction, and then to 31.1 FPS at 4K, another 10.6% decline from 1440p. The 1080p-to-4K gap of 15.8 FPS shows that the GTX 1650 cannot maintain even its already-low performance as resolution increases.

The scaling becomes more erratic at higher settings. With Medium, the averages are 25.7 FPS at 1080p, 23 FPS at 1440p, and 19.8 FPS at 4K. High shows 20 FPS, 19 FPS, and 12.2 FPS respectively, while Ultra drops from 17.1 FPS to 14.5 FPS to 12.4 FPS. The High preset's 4K result of 12.2 FPS is particularly telling, as it represents a 39% drop from the 1440p figure, suggesting that the game's high-detail assets at 4K overwhelm the GPU's memory bandwidth and fill rate.

The pattern indicates that the CPU is not a limiting factor in any scenario. The Intel Core i7-12700K's substantial processing power — evidenced by its 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs and an average benchmark score of 35684 — means that frame rate variations across resolutions are almost entirely attributable to GPU workload. The fact that even the Low preset at 4K cannot break 32 FPS confirms that the graphics card is the sole bottleneck, with the CPU having ample headroom to feed frames.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for this hardware in The Medium?

A: The Low preset at 1080p provides the highest measured average frame rate at 46.9 FPS. All other presets at any resolution fall below 35 FPS, with Medium at 1080p reaching only 25.7 FPS and High at 1080p at 20 FPS.

Q: Is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 capable of running The Medium at 4K?

A: The data shows no playable 4K experience. The best 4K result is 31.1 FPS on Low, while Medium achieves 19.8 FPS, High reaches 12.2 FPS, and Ultra produces 12.4 FPS. All of these are below the threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does this GPU compare to its closest rivals?

A: The GTX 1650's average benchmark score of 8713 is within 0.5% of all four nearest rivals. The AMD Radeon 550X at 8749 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile at 8746 are 0.4% higher, while the Intel Core i7-13700T and Intel Core i5-14500HX scores are irrelevant here since they are CPU comparisons.

Q: Does the Intel Core i7-12700K bottleneck the GTX 1650?

A: No. The CPU is not the limiting component in this system. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a pattern consistent with a GPU bottleneck, and the CPU's high benchmark scores — including a Cinebench R23 multicore result of 29241 — indicate it has ample performance for this game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: The Low preset averages 46.9 FPS while Ultra averages 17.1 FPS, a difference of 29.8 FPS. This represents a 63.5% reduction in average frame rate when switching from the lowest to the highest quality setting.

Q: Should users expect better performance with future driver updates?

A: The measured data represents the current state of performance. The GPU's 43rd percentile ranking and its position at rank 1595 out of 1689 combinations suggest that hardware limitations, not software optimization, are the primary constraint.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K plays a supporting role in this configuration, and its specifications reveal why it is not the source of performance issues. The processor features 12 cores and 20 threads based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. This translates to exceptional compute performance, as shown by its benchmark results: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29241 and a single-core score of 4128, along with a Geekbench multicore score of 13892 and single-core score of 2561.

The CPU's 89th percentile ranking among all processors places it well above the GPU's 43rd percentile. The average benchmark score of 35684 for the i7-12700K dwarfs the GTX 1650's 8713, and the nearestRivals data confirms the CPU's competitive position. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores 35802 on average, just 0.3% higher, while the Intel Core i5-14500HX is 0.7% higher at 35940. The Intel Core i7-13700T and Intel Core i7-13800H trail by 0.6% and 0.8% respectively, with scores of 35468 and 35416.

The game's demands on the CPU appear minimal given that frame rates drop dramatically with resolution increases, a classic sign of GPU limitation. The i7-12700K's 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 80 KB L1 cache per core provide ample data storage for game logic and physics calculations. The processor's support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory, along with its PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes, ensures that data can flow to the GPU without introducing additional bottlenecks. In this pairing, the CPU is effectively waiting on the GPU at every measured setting, making it a non-factor in determining The Medium's playability.