The Medium

The Medium’s measured performance on the Intel Core i7-12700KF with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER reveals a system that is heavily constrained by its graphics card at higher settings, while remaining surprisingly playable at lower presets depending on resolution. The data indicates a clear hierarchy where resolution and settings interact to produce a narrow window of acceptable frame rates. Across all tested resolutions, the jump from Low to Medium settings incurs a substantial performance penalty, while the climb from Medium to High and then Ultra shows diminishing returns relative to the visual cost. The average frame rates at 1920x1080 provide the most viable path to smooth gameplay, with the Low preset reaching 70.9 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset to exceed the 60 FPS threshold. The 2560x1440 Low setting follows at 58 FPS, demonstrating that this combination can handle the game’s demands only when graphical fidelity is heavily reduced. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset dips to 47.3 FPS, indicating that 4K gaming is largely out of reach for this hardware pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to a single optimal configuration for this combo: 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is the only setting combination that delivers an average frame rate above 70 FPS, specifically 70.9 FPS, which provides the headroom necessary for consistent playability in a horror title where frame pacing can affect the experience. The 2560x1440 Low preset is a viable alternative at 58 FPS, but the 1080p Low setting offers a more comfortable margin. For those who prioritize visual quality over raw frame rate, the 1920x1080 Medium preset at 44.8 FPS is the highest fidelity option that remains within a range generally considered playable, though it represents a 36.8% performance drop from the Low preset. All High and Ultra presets across every resolution fall below 33 FPS, with the 1920x1080 High setting at 32.5 FPS being the best of that group. These results suggest that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB VRAM and 192-bit memory interface are insufficient for the game’s higher-quality textures and effects at playable speeds, making the Low preset the only sensible recommendation for this specific hardware combination.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary bottleneck in this pairing, as evidenced by the steep frame rate decline as settings increase. The GPU’s base clock of 1530 MHz and boost clock of 1785 MHz, combined with its Turing architecture and 12 nm process node, provide the computational foundation, but the memory subsystem tells a more critical story. The 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivers 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for low-detail assets but becomes saturated as texture quality rises. The measured results show that at 3840x2160, the Ultra preset produces a mere 17.6 FPS average, while the Low preset at the same resolution achieves 47.3 FPS — a 168.8% improvement that underscores how much of the GPU’s workload is tied to memory-intensive effects. The GPU’s passmark g3d score of 12699 places it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics, both of which are integrated or low-power solutions, indicating that this discrete card, while dated, still holds a position above entry-level integrated graphics. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed and 5.027 TFLOPS FP32 performance are simply not enough to sustain high-detail rendering in The Medium, which is a game that appears to disproportionately tax memory bandwidth given the resolution scaling observed.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average frame rate achievable with this CPU and GPU combination in The Medium?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 70.9 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset. This is the only configuration in the dataset that exceeds 60 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1660 SUPER compare to its closest rivals in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 14286, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14314) and 0.5% lower than the AMD Radeon Vega 11 (14352). It also trails the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT by 0.7%.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this hardware?

A: No. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset only reaches 47.3 FPS, and the Medium preset drops to 29 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K produces just 17.6 FPS, making it unplayable.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Medium settings at 2560x1440?

A: The Low preset at 2560x1440 averages 58 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 36.2 FPS. This represents a 37.6% performance reduction when moving from Low to Medium.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations for The Medium?

A: This specific configuration ranks 1500 out of 1689 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 11.2% of all systems tested for this game.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more at 1920x1080 Ultra?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor. The Ultra preset at 1920x1080 yields 23.6 FPS, which is only slightly above the 22.8 FPS at 2560x1440 Ultra, suggesting the GPU is saturated regardless of resolution at this quality level.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark data places this combination at rank 1500 out of 1689 tested combos for The Medium, which corresponds to the 88.8th percentile of all configurations — meaning 88.8% of tested systems outperform it. This low ranking is primarily attributable to the GTX 1660 SUPER, which sits in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, while the Core i7-12700KF is a much stronger component, ranking in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. The imbalance is stark: the CPU is capable of far more than the GPU can deliver in this title. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 35355 puts it 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i5-14400 and 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i9-12900HX, yet the GPU’s average score of 14286 places it 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT. This pairing creates a scenario where the system’s overall performance is dragged down by the graphics card, and the measured frame rates reflect this bottleneck. In practical terms, this rank means that users with this combo are near the bottom of the performance distribution for The Medium, and any upgrade path would logically start with the GPU rather than the CPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a high-end desktop processor from the Alder Lake generation, featuring 12 cores and 20 threads with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its synthetic benchmarks are robust: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28979, a single-core score of 4091, and a Geekbench multicore score of 13596. The CPU’s 3DMark 16-thread score of 9282 and max-thread score of 9983 indicate strong multi-threaded capability, which is relevant for The Medium’s background scene streaming and physics calculations. However, the measured game data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this title. At 1920x1080 Low, the system hits 70.9 FPS, but at 1920x1080 Ultra, it drops to 23.6 FPS — a 66.7% decrease that cannot be attributed to CPU load, as the resolution change from 1080p to 4K at the same settings produces a smaller relative drop (19.1 FPS at 4K High versus 32.5 FPS at 1080p High). The CPU’s 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache, along with its support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory, provide ample bandwidth for game logic, but the GPU’s 6 GB VRAM and 336.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are the hard ceiling. The data confirms that the Core i7-12700KF is operating well below its potential in this configuration, as evidenced by its 89th percentile CPU ranking versus the 55th percentile GPU ranking. The CPU’s passmark multithread score of 34092 and data compression score of 441960 suggest it could easily feed a more powerful GPU, but with the GTX 1660 SUPER, the system’s frame rates are dictated almost entirely by graphics settings, not processor capability.