The Medium

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT delivers a playable, if not flawless, experience in The Medium, a horror title that clearly stresses the graphics subsystem. The benchmark data reveals a system where frame rates scale predictably with resolution, but the relationship between settings and performance is less straightforward, highlighting the game's unique rendering demands.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K demonstrates a classic GPU-bound scenario, though with notable quirks. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 42.2 FPS. Moving to 1440p drops this to 33.3 FPS, a 21% reduction, and then to 30.6 FPS at 4K, which is only an 8% further drop. This flattening curve at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is already saturated at 1440p, with the 4K gap being smaller than the jump from 1080p.

However, the Low settings preset tells a different story. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 96.1 FPS, which falls to 78.3 FPS at 1440p and 64.4 FPS at 4K. The scaling here is more linear, indicating that at lower graphical loads, the CPU and GPU are better balanced, allowing the resolution to become the dominant variable. The difference between 1080p and 4K at Low is 33%, while at High it is 27.5%, showing that the game's higher presets introduce a performance ceiling that is less sensitive to resolution changes.

The most telling data point is the Ultra preset. At 1080p Ultra, the combo manages only 36.7 FPS, which drops to 29.8 FPS at 1440p and a stutter-prone 19.6 FPS at 4K. This steep decline indicates that Ultra settings impose a massive computational load that the RX 6650 XT cannot sustain at higher resolutions. The gap between 1440p and 4K on Ultra is 34%, the largest of any preset, suggesting that Ultra may be triggering memory or bandwidth limitations that severely hamper 4K performance.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the i7-12700KF and RX 6650 XT ranks at position 1076 out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the lower-mid tier of all possible pairings, indicating that while it is not a weak performer, it is far from the top of the charts. The percentile positioning suggests that a significant portion of tested systems outperform this setup in this specific title.

This rank is somewhat surprising given the CPU's strong synthetic scores, which place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. The GPU, however, sits in the 72nd percentile, and the game's apparent sensitivity to GPU load means the lower-ranked component drags the overall combo down. The data indicates that the i7-12700KF is not the bottleneck; rather, the RX 6650 XT's capabilities define the ceiling for this pairing. In a game like The Medium, which appears to favor raw graphics throughput over multi-threaded processing, this rank is a direct reflection of the GPU's mid-range standing.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 23 chip, featuring 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs. Its boost clock reaches 2635 MHz, with a game clock of 2410 MHz, and it is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 280.3 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications are adequate for 1080p and entry-level 1440p gaming, but the data shows they are insufficient for the demands of The Medium at higher settings.

The GPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks places it in the 72nd percentile, with a Passmark G3D score of 17166. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6800M, which scores 29011 with a 0% delta, and the Intel Arc A370M, which scores 29175 with a -0.5% delta, indicating near-identical overall performance. However, in The Medium, the 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes a limiting factor, particularly at 4K Ultra where the average FPS collapses to 19.6. This suggests that the game's high-resolution textures and effects exceed the available memory, causing severe frame rate penalties.

The measured FPS data shows that the GPU's role is dominant across all settings. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 96.1 FPS, but dropping to Medium reduces this to 61.7 FPS, a 36% hit. This substantial drop is not typical of a CPU-bound scenario, confirming that the GPU's shading and memory capabilities are the primary drivers of performance. The RX 6650 XT can handle the game at Low settings with solid frame rates, but it struggles to maintain playability at Ultra, where even 1440p yields only 29.8 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the i7-12700KF and RX 6650 XT pair delivers a wide range of results depending on settings. Low settings produce an average of 96.1 FPS, which is smooth and responsive. Medium settings drop this to 61.7 FPS, still above the 60 FPS threshold for most players. High settings further reduce the average to 42.2 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. Ultra settings bring the average down to 36.7 FPS, a figure that is borderline for a horror game where atmosphere matters more than reaction speed.

Moving to 1440p, the performance curve steepens. Low settings yield 78.3 FPS, a 19% drop from 1080p, which remains excellent. Medium settings produce 49.3 FPS, a 20% drop from 1080p, still playable but requiring compromises. High settings average 33.3 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target and may cause noticeable judder. Ultra settings fall to 29.8 FPS, which is barely playable and likely to cause frustration in tense sequences.

At 4K, the combo struggles to maintain playability. Low settings produce 64.4 FPS, which is surprisingly strong and suggests the game is well-optimized at lower presets. Medium settings drop to 40.4 FPS, which is playable but not smooth. High settings average 30.6 FPS, which is at the edge of playability. Ultra settings collapse to 19.6 FPS, a figure that is effectively unplayable for most users. The data clearly shows that 4K gaming with this combo requires Low or Medium settings, and even then, the experience is suboptimal.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF 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. It features 25 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. In synthetic benchmarks, it performs exceptionally well, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28979 and a single-core score of 4091. Its average benchmark score of 35355 places it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Core i5-14400 (35336, 0.1% delta) and the Intel Core i9-12900HX (35289, 0.2% delta).

Despite this strong CPU performance, the data indicates that the processor is not the limiting factor in The Medium. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 96.1 FPS, but this drops to 78.3 FPS at 1440p and 64.4 FPS at 4K, showing that the GPU is the primary constraint. The CPU's high single-thread performance, evidenced by a Passmark single-thread score of 3984, ensures that it can feed the GPU adequately at all tested resolutions. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 and 2-thread score of 2065 further confirm that the processor is not causing a bottleneck.

The game's fixed-camera perspective and pre-rendered backgrounds likely rely more on GPU memory bandwidth than on CPU core count. The i7-12700KF's 12 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient for this title, and the data shows that increasing settings from Low to Ultra at any resolution has a larger impact on FPS than changing resolutions. This suggests that the CPU sits idle for much of the workload, waiting on the GPU to complete its rendering tasks. In this pairing, the i7-12700KF is an overqualified partner, providing a stable foundation that allows the RX 6650 XT to be the sole determinant of frame rates.