The Medium

The Medium is a demanding horror title, and the benchmark data for the Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER reveals a system that is heavily influenced by resolution and graphics presets. This combination ranks 249th out of 1689 tested configurations, placing it in the 85th percentile of all combos for this game. The measured frame rates show a clear pattern: this setup is a capable 1080p and 1440p performer that requires careful settings management to achieve a smooth experience at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a steep performance penalty as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound title like The Medium. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces an average of 164.3 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops this to 138.5 FPS, a reduction of approximately 15.7%. At 4K, the average falls to 108.8 FPS, which is a further 21.4% drop from the 1440p figure. This scaling suggests that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the CPU has ample headroom.

The trend becomes more pronounced with higher graphical presets. At Ultra settings, the frame rate drops from 56.9 FPS at 1080p to 52.8 FPS at 1440p, and then plummets to 40 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K at Ultra is a substantial 29.7% loss, indicating that the GPU is being pushed to its absolute limits. The scaling pattern confirms that The Medium is not heavily CPU-bound at higher resolutions; instead, the pixel throughput demand of the 4K resolution overwhelms the GPU, regardless of the settings preset.

Comparing the High preset across resolutions shows a similar story: 74 FPS at 1080p, 64.6 FPS at 1440p, and 46.6 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K at High is 37%, which is significant but not as severe as the Ultra preset’s drop. This indicates that the game’s higher settings introduce effects that are particularly taxing on the GPU’s shading and memory subsystems.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process and features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus. Its 504.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth is a critical asset for The Medium, which uses high-resolution textures and complex lighting. The GPU’s core clock boosts to 2475 MHz, and it houses 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s.

The GPU’s benchmark scores place it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 42576. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A6000, scores slightly higher at 42653, a delta of -0.2%, meaning the RTX 4070 SUPER is essentially on par with that workstation card. In The Medium, the 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient even at 4K Ultra, as the game does not appear to exceed this allocation in the measured data. However, the GPU’s raw compute power is the bottleneck at 4K Ultra, where it delivers only 40 FPS.

The VRAM clock runs at 1313 MHz, or 21 Gbps effective, which contributes to the high bandwidth figure. This is particularly relevant for the jump from Medium to High settings, where the frame rate drops by over 20% at all resolutions. The data suggests that the High preset introduces additional texture streaming and shadow details that significantly increase the memory and shading load on the GPU.

FAQ

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

A: 2560x1440 provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance. At Medium settings, it achieves 90.1 FPS, and even at High settings it maintains 64.6 FPS, which is smooth for a horror title.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in The Medium?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 4K Low, it hits 108.8 FPS, which is excellent. However, at 4K High, it drops to 46.6 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 40 FPS, which may feel less responsive.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 SUPER compare to its nearest rival in general performance?

A: The average benchmark score of the RTX 4070 SUPER is 42576, which is 0.2% lower than the NVIDIA RTX A6000’s score of 42653. It is effectively tied with that card, and 1.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 580X.

Q: Is the Core i7-12700K a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a clear GPU limitation, as the frame rate drops significantly regardless of the CPU’s headroom.

Q: What is the CPU’s performance percentile?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700K ranks in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35684. It is 0.3% slower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 and 0.7% slower than the Intel Core i5-14500HX.

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

A: At 1080p, Low settings produce 164.3 FPS, while Ultra produces 56.9 FPS. This represents a 65.4% reduction in frame rate when switching from the lowest to the highest preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across twelve distinct configurations. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 164.3 FPS on Low, 106.1 FPS on Medium, 74 FPS on High, and 56.9 FPS on Ultra. This shows a clear hierarchy: each step up in settings costs a significant number of frames, with the largest single drop occurring from Low to Medium, a 35.4% reduction.

At 2560x1440, the results are 138.5 FPS on Low, 90.1 FPS on Medium, 64.6 FPS on High, and 52.8 FPS on Ultra. The transition from Medium to High here is a 28.3% drop, which is more pronounced than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is starting to feel the pressure of higher pixel counts. The 1440p Ultra figure of 52.8 FPS is just above the 4K High figure of 46.6 FPS, showing how settings and resolution interact.

At 3840x2160, the performance is 108.8 FPS on Low, 68.7 FPS on Medium, 46.6 FPS on High, and 40 FPS on Ultra. The 4K Low result is particularly notable, as it exceeds the 1080p High result of 74 FPS, suggesting that the game’s Low preset is far less demanding than its High preset. The jump from 4K Medium to 4K High is a 32.2% drop, which is the steepest penalty for a single settings change in the entire dataset.

Settings Recommendations

For a target of 60 FPS or higher, the data suggests that 1440p Medium is the sweet spot, delivering 90.1 FPS with a substantial visual upgrade over Low. If you prefer High settings, you will need to accept 1440p High at 64.6 FPS, which is still playable, or drop to 1080p High for 74 FPS. The 4K resolution is only viable at Low settings, where it achieves 108.8 FPS, but the visual downgrade is significant.

For the best overall experience, 1440p Medium is recommended. It provides a frame rate that is nearly double the 4K High figure, while still offering a level of detail that is far superior to Low. The Medium preset appears to be the most efficient in terms of performance per visual quality, as it only incurs a 35% penalty over Low at 1080p, but delivers noticeably better shadows and textures. Ultra settings should be avoided unless you are playing at 1080p and prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate, as it drops to 56.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its benchmark performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 29241 and a single-core score of 4128. The CPU’s 3DMark scores show scaling from 1043 in single-thread to 9979 in max-thread tests, indicating that it can handle both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded workloads effectively.

In The Medium, the CPU’s role is less critical than the GPU’s. The frame rate deltas between resolutions are consistent with GPU-bound behavior, and the CPU’s 89th percentile ranking suggests it has plenty of headroom. The processor’s nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, has an average score of 35802, which is 0.3% higher, while the Intel Core i7-13700T is 0.6% lower. The 20 threads are more than sufficient for the game’s multithreaded rendering tasks, and the high boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that single-threaded performance is not a limiting factor.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR4 and DDR5, along with its dual-channel memory bus, provides a solid foundation for the GPU’s data requests. The 25 MB of shared L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for the game’s streaming logic. However, the data shows that even with this powerful CPU, the RTX 4070 SUPER is the defining component for performance in The Medium, especially at 4K where the GPU’s 12 GB of VRAM and 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth are pushed to their limits.