The Medium

Resolution Scaling

The Medium presents a demanding workload for this Intel Core i7-12700KF + AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination, and the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 138.8 FPS, which drops to 118.7 FPS at 1440p and 93 FPS at 4K. That is a 33% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that even at the lowest visual fidelity, the resolution scaling still exacts a significant toll.

The pattern becomes more pronounced when examining higher quality presets. At High settings, the frame rate goes from 61.2 FPS at 1080p to 51.4 FPS at 1440p, then falls to 42 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 18.3%, while the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 16%. This relatively consistent scaling suggests the GPU is the primary limiting factor across all tested resolutions, with the CPU providing sufficient headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic resolution sensitivity. At 1080p Ultra, the system manages 52.1 FPS, which is already below the ideal 60 FPS threshold. Moving to 1440p Ultra drops to 44.4 FPS, and at 4K Ultra the system falls to 31.5 FPS — a 39.5% reduction from 1080p. This steep decline at the highest settings confirms that the RX 9070's rendering capabilities are being saturated, and the game's visual complexity at Ultra is overwhelming the GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory bandwidth in ways that lower presets do not.

Medium settings tell a similar story: 86.8 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p, and 55.8 FPS at 4K. The 4K result represents a 35.7% drop from the 1080p figure, which is consistent with the Low settings scaling and reinforces that resolution, rather than preset complexity, is the dominant factor in performance degradation. The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming, with 4K playable only at Low or Medium settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution and the user's tolerance for visual compromise. At 1080p, the High preset delivers 61.2 FPS, which is just above the playable threshold for most users. However, the Medium preset at 86.8 FPS provides a substantial 42% performance uplift over High while still offering a meaningful visual upgrade from Low. Given that High only marginally exceeds 60 FPS, Medium is the recommended preset for 1080p to maintain a comfortable frame rate buffer.

At 1440p, the situation is clearer. The High preset produces 51.4 FPS, which falls short of a smooth 60 FPS experience. The Medium preset at 72 FPS, however, offers a much more fluid experience and is the recommended choice for this resolution. The 40% improvement from High to Medium at 1440p comes at a visual cost, but the measured data shows that Medium is the only preset that achieves a solidly playable frame rate without dipping into the 40s.

For 4K gaming, the recommendations become more restrictive. The Low preset at 93 FPS is the only setting that provides a high-refresh experience, while Medium at 55.8 FPS is borderline playable. The High preset at 42 FPS and Ultra at 31.5 FPS are both below acceptable thresholds for smooth gameplay. Users prioritizing frame rate at 4K should select Low, while those who prefer better visuals can choose Medium, accepting that the experience will be less fluid. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as even at 1080p it only reaches 52.1 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this Intel Core i7-12700KF + AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination ranks 554th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium. This places it in the 67th percentile, meaning the combo outperforms roughly two-thirds of all tested configurations in this specific game. The ranking position suggests that while this is not a top-tier setup for The Medium, it is a solidly mid-to-upper tier performer that can handle the game at moderate settings and resolutions.

The CPU component of this combo ranks in the 89th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35355. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-14400 (0.1% higher score), Intel Core i7-13800H (0.2% lower), Intel Core i9-12900HX (0.2% higher), and Intel Core i5-13600T (0.3% higher). These extremely tight margins — all within 0.3% — indicate that the i7-12700KF is positioned in a highly competitive cluster of processors, and the choice between them would have negligible impact on The Medium's performance.

The GPU ranks in the 79th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34780. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA A2 (0.2% lower), NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (0.3% higher), AMD Radeon HD 7970 (0.7% higher), and AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (0.8% higher). These deltas are larger than the CPU's rival margins, suggesting the RX 9070 has a slightly more distinct performance position relative to its peers. The combo's overall rank of 554 out of 1689 indicates that the pairing of these two components produces balanced results in The Medium, with neither component dramatically dragging down the other.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates reveal a consistent pattern across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 138.8 FPS, Medium reaches 86.8 FPS, High drops to 61.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 52.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 52 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 25.6 FPS, and the gap between High and Ultra is 9.1 FPS. This diminishing returns curve shows that each step up in quality costs progressively less performance at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the results follow a similar shape but with lower absolute values. Low hits 118.7 FPS, Medium reaches 72 FPS, High produces 51.4 FPS, and Ultra manages 44.4 FPS. The performance deltas between presets at 1440p are 46.7 FPS (Low to Medium), 20.6 FPS (Medium to High), and 7 FPS (High to Ultra). The smaller deltas at higher presets suggest that the GPU is becoming more constrained as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates compress further. Low delivers 93 FPS, Medium achieves 55.8 FPS, High drops to 42 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 31.5 FPS. The differences are 37.2 FPS (Low to Medium), 13.8 FPS (Medium to High), and 10.5 FPS (High to Ultra). The Ultra setting at 4K represents the worst-case scenario for this combo, with a frame rate that is 77% lower than the best case of Low at 1080p.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the dominant component in determining frame rates in The Medium, as evidenced by the significant performance drops when moving to higher resolutions. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is likely sufficient for the game's texture requirements, as the measured frame rates at 4K remain playable at Low and Medium settings, suggesting that memory capacity is not a bottleneck.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base clock of 1330 MHz, a game clock of 2070 MHz, and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. The boost clock being 18% higher than the game clock indicates that the card has thermal headroom to accelerate under load, which is beneficial for maintaining performance during extended gaming sessions. The RDNA 4.0 architecture on a 4 nm process from TSMC delivers 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, which is a substantial amount of raw processing power.

In The Medium, the GPU's 56 ray tracing cores and 128 ROPs are likely engaged heavily, particularly at higher presets. The Pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s provide the fill rates needed to handle the game's horror visuals, but the data shows that at 4K Ultra, these resources are overwhelmed. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support ensures full feature compatibility with the game's rendering pipeline.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF provides a strong foundation for this GPU, but the benchmark data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in The Medium. With 12 cores and 20 threads, the processor offers ample parallel processing capability, which is reflected in its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28979 and Geekbench multicore score of 13596. The base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 5.00 GHz provide strong single-thread performance, as shown by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4091.

The processor's Alder Lake architecture with a 10 nm process from Intel includes 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. This cache hierarchy is well-suited for gaming workloads, where data locality is common. The CPU's 3DMark scores further illustrate its capability: 9282 in the 16-thread test, 2065 in the 2-thread test, 4011 in the 4-thread test, 7211 in the 8-thread test, and 9983 in the max-thread test. These results show strong scaling from 2 to 16 threads, indicating efficient multi-threading.

The fact that frame rates at 1080p Low reach 138.8 FPS without dropping significantly at 1440p (118.7 FPS) suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately even at high frame rates. The 33% drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low (138.8 to 93 FPS) is attributable primarily to GPU load, as the CPU's workload does not increase substantially with resolution. The i7-12700KF's 89th percentile ranking against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35355, confirms that it is a high-performance processor that will not bottleneck this GPU in most scenarios.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured data, 1440p with Medium settings provides the best balance, delivering 72 FPS. At 1080p, Medium hits 86.8 FPS, while 4K is only playable at Low (93 FPS) or Medium (55.8 FPS).

Q: How does the combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: This Intel Core i7-12700KF + AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination ranks 554th out of 1689 tested combos in The Medium, placing it in the upper third of all configurations tested.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more in this game?

A: The GPU is the primary limiting factor. Evidence shows that frame rates drop consistently from 1080p to 4K across all settings, while the CPU's strong benchmark scores (89th percentile) suggest it has headroom to spare.

Q: What is the highest frame rate achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured frame rate is 138.8 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 118.7 FPS at 1440p Low, followed by 93 FPS at 4K Low.

Q: Is the Ultra preset usable at any resolution?

A: No. The Ultra preset only achieves 52.1 FPS at 1080p, 44.4 FPS at 1440p, and 31.5 FPS at 4K. All of these fall below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from High to Medium settings?

A: The gain varies by resolution: at 1080p, Medium is 41.8% faster than High (86.8 vs 61.2 FPS); at 1440p, the gain is 40.1% (72 vs 51.4 FPS); at 4K, the gain is 32.9% (55.8 vs 42 FPS).