The Medium

The Medium presents a significant challenge for the Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 580. The measured frame rates are consistently low across all tested resolutions and settings, placing this combination in a precarious position for playability. This analysis examines the benchmark data to understand the performance dynamics, component roles, and what users can expect from this pairing.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The data reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 51.2 FPS, which drops to 38.8 FPS at 1440p and further to 33.7 FPS at 4K. This represents a 24% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 34% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The pattern is consistent across all settings presets, indicating that resolution scaling is the dominant factor.

Moving to Medium settings, the frame rate falls from 33.4 FPS at 1080p to 26.8 FPS at 1440p, then to 20.6 FPS at 4K. The High preset shows 20.4 FPS at 1080p, 17.5 FPS at 1440p, and 14.2 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings are the most demanding, with 16.4 FPS at 1080p, 17.9 FPS at 1440p, and 11.5 FPS at 4K. Interestingly, the 1440p Ultra result is actually higher than the 1080p Ultra result, suggesting some variance in measurement or that the GPU is not the sole bottleneck at these extreme settings.

The scaling behavior indicates that the AMD Radeon RX 580 is the primary limiting factor. The GPU's GCN 4.0 architecture and 256-bit memory bus, paired with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, struggle to maintain playable frame rates even at 1080p with medium-to-high presets. The Intel Core i7-12700KF, with its 12 cores and 20 threads, is unlikely to be the constraint at these low frame rates. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would have the most headroom, the system only reaches 51.2 FPS — a figure that suggests the GPU is already saturated.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Radeon RX 580 operates with a base clock of 1257 MHz and a boost clock of 1340 MHz. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 2000 MHz with an 8 Gbps effective rate, delivering 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth across a 256-bit bus. The card's compute capabilities include 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 32 raster output units, producing 6.175 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

In The Medium, these specifications translate to underwhelming results. The GPU's 53rd percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the lower half of the performance spectrum. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks — the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 950 — show similar average scores, with deltas of 0% and 0.1% respectively. This context explains why the RX 580 cannot push The Medium beyond 51.2 FPS even at the lowest settings.

The VRAM capacity is sufficient at 8 GB, but the memory bandwidth appears to be the bottleneck. The 256.0 GB/s bandwidth is strained by the game's high-resolution textures and complex lighting effects. The pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s are simply inadequate for maintaining smooth frame rates in this horror title, which relies heavily on atmospheric rendering and detailed environments.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF and AMD Radeon RX 580 ranks 1556th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the bottom 8% of all tested systems, confirming that it is a poor match for this game's requirements. The rank reflects the cumulative impact of the GPU's limitations, as the CPU's performance is not the constraining factor.

The CPU itself is a high-end processor, ranking in the 89th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 35355. Its nearest rivals — the Intel Core i5-14400, Core i7-13800H, Core i9-12900HX, and Core i5-13600T — all show negligible deltas of 0.1% to 0.3%, indicating that the processor is performing as expected. However, this CPU strength cannot compensate for the GPU's weaknesses in this game.

The combo's poor rank is entirely attributable to the RX 580. Even the most demanding Ultra settings at 4K produce only 11.5 FPS, while the more reasonable 1080p Medium setting yields 33.4 FPS. These numbers are far below the 60 FPS target that most gamers consider playable, and even the 30 FPS minimum for console-like experiences is only achievable at 1080p Low.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo can achieve in The Medium?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 51.2 at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only configuration that exceeds 50 FPS, and it requires the lowest quality preset.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 33.7 at Low settings to 11.5 at Ultra settings. Medium and High presets produce 20.6 and 14.2 FPS respectively. None of these results are playable for sustained gaming.

Q: Is the Intel Core i7-12700KF the bottleneck in this configuration?

A: No. The CPU ranks in the 89th percentile among all CPUs and has an average benchmark score of 35355, with a multi-core Cinebench R23 score of 28979. The GPU's 53rd percentile ranking and significantly lower relative performance indicate it is the limiting component.

Q: What is the difference between 1080p and 1440p performance at Medium settings?

A: The average FPS drops from 33.4 at 1920x1080 to 26.8 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 6.6 FPS or approximately 20%. This demonstrates the GPU's sensitivity to resolution increases.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 580 has an average benchmark score of 13559. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 scores 13564 (0% delta), the GTX 950 scores 13549 (0.1% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro 455 scores 13416 (1.1% delta). These are all effectively equivalent in performance.

Q: Does the combo perform better at 1440p Ultra than 1080p Ultra?

A: Yes, the data shows 17.9 FPS at 2560x1440 Ultra compared to 16.4 FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra. This anomalous result suggests measurement variance or that the game's rendering path is not strictly resolution-bound at these extreme settings.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support extends to both DDR4 and DDR5 in a dual-channel configuration, with PCIe Gen 4 connectivity providing 20 lanes.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show strong performance across the board. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 28979, while the single-core score is 4091. Geekbench reports 13596 multicore and 2526 single-core. PassMark multithread shows 34092, with floating point math at 87449 and integer math at 113521. These figures place the CPU in the 89th percentile, with an average benchmark score of 35355.

In The Medium, however, this CPU power is largely untapped. The game's frame rates are so low that the CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU. At 1080p Low, where the CPU would be most likely to become a bottleneck, the 51.2 FPS result still falls short of what the CPU could theoretically support. The 3dmark scores — 9983 at max threads and 1043 at single thread — indicate that the processor is capable of handling far more demanding workloads than this game presents at these settings. The bottleneck is unequivocally the GPU.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Given the measured data, there is no configuration that provides a consistently smooth 60 FPS experience. The only setting that approaches playability is 1080p Low, which delivers 51.2 FPS. This is the recommended preset for users who prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity and can tolerate the reduced quality.

For users who prefer Medium settings, the 1080p result of 33.4 FPS is the best option, though it falls below the 30 FPS threshold for some. The 1440p Medium result of 26.8 FPS and 4K Medium of 20.6 FPS are not recommended for any playable experience. High settings at any resolution are problematic: 20.4 FPS at 1080p, 17.5 FPS at 1440p, and 14.2 FPS at 4K all indicate a severely compromised experience.

Ultra settings should be avoided entirely. The best Ultra result is 17.9 FPS at 1440p, with 1080p at 16.4 FPS and 4K at 11.5 FPS. These frame rates are below what most consider the minimum for a playable title. The data suggests that users should either accept the visual compromise of Low settings at 1080p or consider this combination unsuitable for The Medium. The benchmark results indicate that this game requires a more powerful GPU to achieve acceptable performance at any resolution.